Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

T R E 4 5 O N

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

In after Baud. Damn.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

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Reader Interactions

85Comments

  1. 1.

    Barbara

    Every time another mass shooting happens, my reaction, may heaven forgive me, is something like, “it’s too bad it didn’t happen to John Roberts’ or Samuel Alito’s kids or grandkids.” I hold them to be just as responsible for this devastation as if they had actually pulled the trigger.

  3. 3.

    VFX Lurker

    From The Los Angeles Times

    When Erin Clark, 42, received a text from her son Ethan that there was an active shooter, she rushed from her job at the Amazon warehouse to the school. The two texted “I love you,” and Clark said she prayed for her son as she drove.

    With the main road blocked to the school, Clark parked and ran with other parents. Parents were then directed to the football field. Amid the chaos, Clark found Ethan, who just started his senior year, sitting on the bleachers.

    Clark said her son was writing an essay in class when he first heard the gunshots and he worked with his classmates to barricade the door and hide.

    “I’m so proud of him for doing that,” she said. “He was so brave.”

    Students had started the school year only a little over a month ago.

    “It makes me scared to send him back,” she said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

    Traffic going to the school was backed up for more than a mile as parents tried to get to their children.

    Feeling for the teachers, the kids, the parents, and everyone else caught up in this horror.

  4. 4.

    tECHIDNA

    But that’s OK folks, school shootings are “deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and traditions.” SCrOTUS justice Alito said so.

    <The tECHIDNA retches>

  5. 5.

    Anotherlurker

    @Barbara: I am guilty of these very same thoughts, regarding those responsible for legislation and court decisions that result in slaughters like… I  don’t know… every mass shooting horror.

  6. 6.

    gene108

    @Barbara:

    I’m with you.

    Until Republicans lose something that’s irreplaceable to them in a mass shooting, they will never care.

    Getting directly shot and surviving changes nothing. It is just necessitates a lifestyle change.

    Though I am not sure if enough Republican politicians and federal judges have anyone they love more than wielding power that comes from office, wherein losing a loved one would get them to reconsider anything.

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    The shooter was a 14 year old boy, according to several reports and believed to be a student at the school (not yet verified).

    It’s beyond tragic for the families, the school, the students and our nation.

    The trend to hold parents legally responsible for the teens who become mass murderers is a tiny step forward. But the gun nuts, the gun lobby and the judges who are all in on “all guns matter” should suffer some consequences.  I won’t hold my breath.

  8. 8.

    Ksmiami

    Pull the security detail from the Supreme Court 6. May they live in the actual world they’ve created…

  9. 9.

    mali muso

    Every day when I hug my 7 year old before putting her on the bus, I wonder if it will be the last time I see her.  I hate this.

  10. 10.

    Trollhattan

    They’re hope-n-prayering this to death among Georgia Republicans. Gunz controlz? Pray harder, damnit!

    Those poor kids. The survivors will be scarred the rest of their lives. And for what?

  12. 12.

    Trollhattan

    Least surprising thing you’ll read today.

    September 4, 2024 at 2:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July effectively spiked a draft hostage and ceasefire deal by introducing a raft of new, 11th-hour demands, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth citing a document it obtained,” CNN reports.

    “The report lends credence to charges often leveled at the prime minister – most notably by hostage families – of purposefully prolonging the war and torpedoing deals for his political benefit. Far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition have pledged to bring down the government should he end the war.”

  13. 13.

    Trollhattan

    Least-surprising thing you’ll read today.

    September 4, 2024 at 2:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

    “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in July effectively spiked a draft hostage and ceasefire deal by introducing a raft of new, 11th-hour demands, according to a report by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth citing a document it obtained,” CNN reports.

    “The report lends credence to charges often leveled at the prime minister – most notably by hostage families – of purposefully prolonging the war and torpedoing deals for his political benefit. Far-right members of Netanyahu’s coalition have pledged to bring down the government should he end the war.”

  14. 14.

    OId Man Shadow

    @Trollhattan: Reply with Isaiah 1:15-17.

     When you spread out your hands in prayer,
        I hide my eyes from you;
    even when you offer many prayers,
        I am not listening.

    Your hands are full of blood!

    16 Wash and make yourselves clean.
        Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
        stop doing wrong.
    17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
        Defend the oppressed.[a]
    Take up the cause of the fatherless;
        plead the case of the widow.

  15. 15.

    scav

    @Baud: Buy 7,500 of Dumpy’s Pokey Man cards and in addition to the piece of suiting, you get a bit of his skull at age fifteen and a raffle ticket for a cabinet position!

  16. 16.

    laura

    If the Supreme Court’s majority has deigned that Americans have a Right under the Second Amendment to be shot anywhere, at any and all times, for no reason whatsoever, those fuckers ought to be subject to that exact same freedom.

  17. 17.

    Joe Falco

    Another day, another school shooting. Four dead, nine injured, hundreds traumatized in a school 35 miles northwest of Atlanta.

    Northeast of Atlanta.

    I should know. I graduated from Apalachee High. First graduating class of 2002.

    I just don’t have any words to express my sorrow right now.

  20. 20.

    Dangerman

    Tax the shit out of guns and bullets, hire more security.

    ETA: 14 years old and guns? Mommy and or Daddy in deep …

  21. 21.

    Chief Oshkosh

    It would be great if the press would remind us of who wrote what state and federal laws, but then that would be taking sides…

  24. 24.

    AWOL

    @gene108: They don’t care who they lose for their ideology any more than the Germans cared that their adolescent kids were fighting at the front in 1944 because of their ideology. The modern GOP is a full-on psychotic nazi death cult; they’d be proud if their spawn died as martyrs to the 2nd Amendment.

  25. 25.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Our media mad about 2020 Covid, from this morning’s post:

    Yeah, the progressive view on this was catastrophically wrongheaded as a substantive matter and has done incredible damage to millions of children’s lives and I personally continue to be furious about it but there mostly hasn’t been a political price paid.

    So, is Matt Y personally furious about kids having to be trained to respond to active shooter incidents, furious about parents afraid to send their kids to school, furious about how mass shootings happen on the regular in this one country in the world, furious that there mostly hasn’t ever been a political price paid?

    Talk about damage to millions of children’s lives….

  26. 26.

    RevRick

    @Joe Falco: What are the odds that Mike Collins, the GOP Representative in the 10th CD, has a 100% rating from the NRA as well as being pro forced birth?

  27. 27.

    KatKapCC

    @gene108:

    Until Republicans lose something that’s irreplaceable to them in a mass shooting, they will never care.

    They still wouldn’t. Someone could get into the House while in session and blow half of them away, and they still would not support any gun control laws at all.

    Every Republican in Congress could lose an immediate family member in a shooting, and they still would not budge from their position on their knees in front of the NRA.

    Republicans not only don’t care about other people’s kids dying in shootings, they wouldn’t care about their own kids dying in shootings, either.

  30. 30.

    MomSense

    It’s the guns.  The trauma all of these students, teachers, staff and First Responders have to endure is heartbreaking.

  32. 32.

    rikyrah

    Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) posted at 0:45 PM on Wed, Sep 04, 2024:
    New: The Justice Department just confirmed a Russian election interference campaign “operating under the direction and control of the Russian Presidential Administration.”

    DOJ announced the ongoing seizure of 32 internet domains used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns — in violation of U.S. money laundering and criminal trademark laws.

    As alleged in an unsealed affidavit, the Russian companies Social Design Agency (SDA), Structura National Technology (Structura), and ANO Dialog, operating under the direction and control of the Russian Presidential Administration, used these domains, among others, to covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections.

    (https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/1831388132157092188?t=0mwlQ3HGU9wDwOm9dJqIaw&s=03)

  34. 34.

    scav

    I’m getting confused.  Does the Team R Too Early to Politicize card get played before or after the Thought and Prayers card?  Presumably, only the lead can play the Trump We Need to Get Over It card, but must other cards be played before it?  If, in fact, rules at all constrain that latter player, bien sûr.

  35. 35.

    SatanicPanic

    This is one of several reasons I feel like so many Gen Z kids are just over it. How could you have hope when you can’t even go to school without fear of being shot?

  37. 37.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:

    Until Republicans lose something that’s irreplaceable to them in a mass shooting, they will never care.

    They still might not actually give a shit then. Or at least do anything about it. They NEED guns – to protect themselves from liberals trying to make a safer, better place to live….

    I wish I was kidding about that but to me it seems like their only purpose in life any more, is hating liberals. When I was younger (a lot younger… like 55-60 yrs ago) I helped out with elections, doing scut work that it took then, setting up the voting places, drop box, etc, even before I could vote. I believed in our democracy. I’m not sure I do any more. We have better police forces, made up of men/women, of all colors. At least in the big cities. But we seem to have a large percentage of citizens who think that the racism, hate and whiteness was better. It’s NOT EVEN CLOSE. And I’m an old, white man. My very best friend died of Sickle Cell, she was a 35 yr old black woman.

    We can do better. Far, far, far better. I lived in the south for 2 yrs while in the USN, 50+ yrs ago. It was beautiful. I hated it, because of the history and the fact that a lot of the people wanted to go back to that history that we were putting behind us, even then. And a lot of them still want that 50+ yrs later.

  38. 38.

    rikyrah

    Symone D. Sanders Townsend (@SymoneDSanders) posted at 7:16 PM on Tue, Sep 03, 2024:
    What some in the Republican Party want is for the Harris team to engage in multiple convos on race/gender. B/c if they can make the convo about that then voters will find themselves distracted by something that has nothing to do with who is more fit to sit in the Oval Office.
    (https://x.com/SymoneDSanders/status/1831124233864577032?t=ULLhcic7VcVUJxb5ArJOTw&s=03)

    DFW Sports 4Life (@Kennymack1971) posted at 6:55 AM on Wed, Sep 04, 2024:
    She’s not playing the game the way Republicans and the legacy media that coddles them want her to and it’s driving them nuts.
    (https://x.com/Kennymack1971/status/1831299973658677689?t=9vyG_REGz3w0Lbubx9dgRw&s=03)

  39. 39.

    Anoniminous

    With this Supreme Court there’s no way reasonable gun control legislation can be implemented so we’ll continue to experience the Tree of Liberty be watered with the blood of children.

  40. 40.

    SatanicPanic

    @rikyrah: yeah I saw that now FOX is asking stupid questions at press conferences. Harris knows how to handle this though- brush it off.

  41. 41.

    FastEdD

    KH used to tell a story about how she was required as a DA to look at crime scene photos of mutilated bodies that were a result of gun violence. She thought that members of congress should be required to look at the same photos when they considered gun legislation. That sounds like a good idea to me.

  42. 42.

    rikyrah

    Once again…
    the only vetting done for this man…
    was to see if Thiel’s check cleared.

    Dassit.

    Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) posted at 6:34 PM on Tue, Sep 03, 2024:
    Did anyone from the Trump campaign vet JD Vance? Because there’s something seriously twisted about this man…

    In Vance’s world, women are only valuable as long as they give birth. He has made that clear.

    This is even clearer in a series of 27 Heritage Foundation essays that Vance wrote the introduction for and praised — on how families are made in America and what they should look like.

    🚩 Women should get pregnant younger instead of using IVF treatments later in life

    🚩The ideal family is anchored by heterosexual parents

    🚩Abortion should be considered unthinkable

    🚩Hunger is a good motivator for greater employmenthttps://t.co/tVkPl9WpQu
    (https://x.com/cwebbonline/status/1831113497255739795?t=6K7ryTeKoq3eaBHTQhYjsg&s=03)

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    @KatKapCC:

    I’d bet they’d care about their kids dying. It very, very likely wouldn’t change their minds about guns, other than maybe they’d think kids should be able to carry them.

    Mostly they are republicans who want to return to the late 1940s/early 1950s – or before, to get rid of all the democratic changes of the last 75 yrs.

  44. 44.

    KatKapCC

    @Ruckus: IMO, if their own child dying from a shooting wouldn’t change their mind on guns, then no, they do not actually care about their children.

  47. 47.

    rikyrah

    @FastEdD:

    KH used to tell a story about how she was required as a DA to look at crime scene photos of mutilated bodies that were a result of gun violence. She thought that members of congress should be required to look at the same photos when they considered gun legislation. That sounds like a good idea to me.

     

    I know that it was always up to the parents, but, I was always hoping a few of the Sandy Hook parents would have been as brave as Mamie Till. Her decision for Emmett’s open casket funeral changed America.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    @Ruckus:

    Mostly they are republicans who want to return to the late 1940s/early 1950s – or before, to get rid of all the democratic changes of the last 75 yrs.

    They want to erase the 20th Century.

  49. 49.

    sab

    I had bomb drills in 1960 in Florida. Those turned out to be useful when I lived in California with earthquakes.

    My oldest grandchild is 25. My youngest grandchild is 10. They both have had active shooter drills their whole school life. I will never accept qthis as normal.

    We really need to bring a sledgehammer down on parents who let their too young to buy gun teenagers have access to the family guns.

    ETA I am sorry that you are so out of touch with your own child that you don’t see the risk, but that should be your problem not ours.

  50. 50.

    karen marie

    @FastEdD:   I can still hear the voices of the survivors of a  December 2000 workplace shooting in Massachusetts as they testified.  They cowered under desks, listening to the life bubbling out of their coworkers, wondering how long they had left to live.  The wiki article says the victims were shot in the back of the head.  But that doesn’t fully describe what happened.  The bodies of the victims in some cases were shot to pieces.

    Transcribing criminal trials is emotionally exhausting.

  53. 53.

    Betty

    @Scout211: The LEO doing a presser was anxious to tell us the 14 year old will be tried as an adult as if a 14 year old has the mental capacity of an adult. The kid is guilty but so is the society that enables these tragedies. I taught junior high. 14 year olds are often mixed up.

  58. 58.

    wenchacha

    @Ishiyama: But but but she doesn’t know how to speak without script! She doesn’t know words! Only CFDJT knows how to weave together so many pieces in an always brilliant manner, according to English professors everywhere.

  59. 59.

    sab

    @Betty: I met my youngest stepkid when he was fourteen and his parents had just split up. He was a mess. Now twenty-five years later he is a lovely well-adjusted man approaching middle age. Of course, we didn’t let him have a gun back when he was confused and very angry.

  60. 60.

    wjca

    @gene108: Until Republicans lose something that’s irreplaceable to them in a mass shooting, they will never care.

    Step 1, obviously: figure out what (if anything) they regard as irreplaceable.

    Maybe someone using their 2nd Amendment rights to shoot up a gun manufacturing site?  (Can’t readily shoot up an NRA meeting.  Those guys have serious anti-gun restrictions when it’s their own precious hides on the line.)

  61. 61.

    laura

    @Betty: the odds that the 14 yo shooter has been bullied is greater than zero. He may have a severe mental illness, he may have a history of anti-social behavior, he may have a history of contact with law enforcement or child welfare, he may have had easy access to weapons of war, he may listen to music wilder than Lawrence Welk. Or he may be a child who was tormented and believed the only relief to be found was via a gun. He is now a child who has killed, but for all intents and purposes he is an adult. What a tragedy- another American Tragedy thanks to the guns.

  62. 62.

    wjca

    @FastEdD: She thought that members of congress should be required to look at the same photos when they considered gun legislation. That sounds like a good idea to me.

    No.  Way, way too antiseptic.  Make them visit an actual scene.  See the blood and guts.  Smell the smell.  (Barf their guts out, most of them.)  Pictures just aren’t real enough to drive the point thru their defenses.

  63. 63.

    wjca

    @Ruckus: Mostly they are republicans who want to return to the late 1940s/early 1950s

    Ah, back to the days when the NRA was a strong advocate for gun control.  Sounds like a step in the right direction.  (At least on this issue.)

  64. 64.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    GOOD!

    It will be their country for a long time and a lot of old farts want to go backasswards to a time when there were only 2 main traits that counted. White skin and a penis. But this is a country that was founded on giving the citizens control. And according to our original paper a citizen is someone born here or naturalized. Gender/color of skin doesn’t affect that.

  65. 65.

    Ruckus

    @wjca:

    I’d bet a lot of the gun owners of today are NOT NRA members. The NRA used to be about safe use and ownership of guns, not that everyone should have one because everyone else had one.

  66. 66.

    wjca

    @Ruckus: The NRA used to be about safe use and ownership of guns,

    I remember.  Before it got re-purposed as a sales and marketing arm of the gun manufacturers’ industry association.  (And a damned effective one it has been, too! Unfortunately.)

  68. 68.

    steve g

    I remember thinking the other day that we hadn’t had one of these for a while. Then I felt like I should suppress that thought, we would probably get one pretty soon. So we did. It’s weird how pseudo-normal these events are. Even though they are horrific, they are also somehow routine at the same time, which is just awful to contemplate.

  69. 69.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Barbara: except it will never happen to their kids or grandkids. Their kids/grandkids probably go to private schools where guns aren’t allowed on campus and more than likely they’re in blue states probably attending essentially liberal campuses.

  73. 73.

    karen marie

    @Betty:   Unfortunately, so are LEOs.  Report I saw earlier said the fucking police couldn’t figure out where to go.

    Yeah, their confusion definitely could not have been an unwillingness to get within firing range of the shooter.

  75. 75.

    TBone

    The bearded law enforcement guy who spoke at the press conference (Sheriff maybe?) made me absolutely sick.  “This really affected ME” with tears in his eyes (of course he centered himself as tragic victim), before he gave Gov. Kemp an absolute tongue bath.  He kept saying “lift up” in prayer while I was screaming LIFT UP SOME COMMON SENSE GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION, MOTHERFUCKER!

    I wish he could’ve heard me yelling.

  79. 79.

    Citizen Alan

    @TBone: Deep down, they love this shit. Every time there’s a mass shooting, all the gun nuts freak out and get paranoid about a government crackdown and they run out to buy ammo and guns, so the gun stores are flush. That, in turn, makes the gun manufacturers flush. Which, in turn, makes the gun lobbyists flush. And that, finally, means more donations from the gun lobby to the GOP.

    Republicans adore mass shooting and especially school shooting. I bet Brian Kemp’s dick got hard when he heard the news.

  81. 81.

    cain

    Ultimately, this is going to backfire because the next gen of voters are all victims of gun violence and school shootings. They know thoughts and prayers is not enough. Boomers and older GenXers are the ones driving this stupid 2nd amendment worship.

    The demographics are changing and these assholes will have to lean more and more into anti-democratic, fascist leanings to keep the grift going.

  84. 84.

    dr. luba

    Republicans don’t give a fuck about children

    by JEFF TIEDRICH

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from learning that Rosa Parks was black that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from seeing that Michaelangelo’s David has a penis that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from finding out that men can love men and women can love women that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from being read to by grownups wearing costumes that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from eating a subsidized school lunch that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from reading that Roberto Clemente experienced discrimination that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from discovering why Anne Frank had to hide that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from knowing how their own bodies work that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    Republicans were so busy protecting children from having access to healthcare that they forgot to protect them from being murdered in their classrooms.

    oopsies!

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