Lurker > legendary_zell

This has happened a couple of times before and unfortunately (fortunately? There's no fortune in a situation like this) those were also determined to be suicides.

There's not enough time in the day.

The Kirk part has a lot to do with it and it's the reason we're hearing about it at all, why she was expelled, and why ghouls like Cruz and Abbott are trying to score points with it, but I hope the arrest specifically was about the alleged assault.

Or I hope they really stepped over the line and will get rekt in court. Though a Texas court in Lubbock might not be very helpful....

This is genuinely chilling language from the VP. They already had plans to weaponize the state against every element of society that opposes them, they're just taking the chance that has presented itself to justify it.

They plan to come after every independent pillar of society and scare it into submission.

All of our media institutions have been rotting from the inside for decades and billionaire control has led us here.

That's why media needs to be a public service and not entertainment or a propaganda tool for plutocrats

One of the biggest risks he faces is a police strike, so it makes sense to do this. We all know they were and still are racist.

Basically made for me and yet I'll never touch one because if I do, that's the end for me. It'd be like finding out you really really like gambling or heroin.

If Charlie rises from the grave in three days, I'll reconsider a lot of things because it's clear that both Etsy witches and Satan or someone similarly evil are real and powerful.

WingsOfGood posted...

what does him being college student have to do with anything?

he did 1 semester
in Utah

It's more about his age than any actual education he got. That's around the time when big ideological shifts tend to happen.

To be clear, I don't believe this is what actually happened, there's no indication of that. That's just what I expect the narrative to be on the right until things get cleared up.

Definitely looks like he was raised right wing. But he was also a college student and could have recently rebelled. We don't know enough yet.

But if he was right wing, the conspiracy theories and mass pivot to other issues on the right will be wild to see.

I really hope this is true, but if it is WSJ and NY Post should be shut down.

They are seizing charge of the narrative as they always do. They want to seed conspiracy theories that will bloom even if the shooter turns out to be right wing. And if they turn out to be mentally ill, apolitical, or right wing, they'll just never talk about this again. It's a win win for them, truth and their actual feelings don't enter into the equation.

I feel sorry for his kid, she does not deserve this.

What a country, Jesus H. Christ.

Squall28 posted...

The accountability is with the voters who picked a rapist, pedophile, racist, fascist, and traitor. Stop trying to pass the blame. It's the MAGAs. It's the "she needs to earn my vote" liberals. It's ignorant, terrible people.

Trump sold them a dream, domination, and others didn't believe how bad he would be. Most people don't pay that much attention; they just go with their priors. They bear responsibility for the consequences.

But you also have to live in reality. You can't rely on people having a sudden epiphany that Trump is a fascist and literally anything would be better when they don't actually believe that. You actually have to run and win elections, you can't simply do it by default. You have to get people to vote FOR you at some point, not just against the other guy. Because there's always the option to stay home.

The next Democratic candidate needs to be someone with a genuine groundswell of support and a vision, a fighter, someone that energizes and is not considered someone to settle on. That's when Democrats win.

We've seen from 2016 and 2024 that "the other guy is just so bad" is not enough and focusing on that at this point is a path to death. We won't get another chance.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


I genuinely don't understand this perspective. Biden was tanking, he was viscerally hated by half the country (for reasons I also don't get) and thought of as too old and unfit by like 75 percent of it, including most Dems. We'd be in an even worse position. Changing candidates is the only reason the House was so close. Turnout was already down with Kamala who ran a pretty good campaign for a month or two before falling off. With Biden, it would've been catastrophic.

He never should have ran again. He should have given ample time for the country to find the absolute best replacement and he should have prosecuted Trump immediately.

Absolutely tragic...

Sariana21 posted...

Don't ride the funicular. :-(

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/facts-lisbon-funicular-crashed-180029761.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

Holy shit, I rode one of those, I'm shocked that it would crash with enough speed to kill that many people.

The Asian food is shockingly good
Going to places like Sintra is worth it
Consider doing a highly rated Airbnb tour

In popular areas, when they see you're a tourist, people are likely to come up to you and offer to sell you trash drugs, don't buy, ignore them of course.

There's an area up in the hills Northeast of Alfama that's really cool, but on the way there, there's a strange neighborhood that seemed to be entirely populated by South Asian men, and there were no women anywhere. They all just kinda stare at you like you shouldn't be there. I wouldn't go there alone as a woman or just as a pair.

He kept us out of war.

Basically saying you're going to start wars of aggression and break international law. Not that we weren't doing that already but it's even worse to gleefully say it.

The Trumpcession is upon us

Damn, not sure a show will ever reach that level of cultural spread again. I didn't know most of these were from the Simpsons.

That's what solidarity looks like.

A "leftist" telling people not to join unions is someone lost in the sauce. This is a person that's primarily a contrarian and a forum debater, not a leftist organizer.

masterpug53 posted...

This, ffs. I'd love to to see the Venn diagram between the "why isn't anyone fighting back?" crowd and the "whatever, Trump'll just ignore it, none of this matters" crowd.

Pessimism almost always tries to sell itself as realism. Because as we all know, nothing makes for a better motivator than crippling despair and hopelessness.

You speak the gospel truth. It's a sign that he has people feeling so defeated that they're jumping at shadows that aren't even there and laying on the ground in prep for blows that might never come.

monkmith posted...

people do this because they understand reality, that anything decided by a lower court will just get reversed by the supreme court. all this ends up being is a speed bump, in the meantime the grand recipients will fail because the money will still be contested and in the end the supreme court will just go back to sucking off trump with their pro-dictatorship decisions.

That's not true. The vast majority of these cases don't go to the Supreme Court. You just never hear about those, you only hear about the ones that do.

I really doubt that random laymen on Gamefaqs understand these dynamics better than federal government attorneys that have to implement this stuff.

Maybe I need to just stop talking about this stuff, it's exhausting.

I find it very frustrating when people can't even celebrate wins and just reflexively crap on anything good that happens.

My coworkers have spent the last several days working their asses off to get frozen money out the door after a victory by nonprofits against the admin in court. We get emails every week informing us of cases that the admin lost and how we need to implement the decisions.

This idea that nothing matters and he just ignores the courts is false and toxic. It may make people neglect to protect their rights because they think they're already lost.

He's definitely a criminal that tries to flout the law whenever he thinks he can get away with it, but a win is a win is a win.

I mean this happened with Biden at the late stage too. Turns out he had cancer and actually was unwell.

I'm sure he's been hearing the rumors and memes and wanted to make a show of strength. If we can't do that....pretty bad sign for him.

This IS bad news for Biden.

Update: looks like I was wrong, some at the EPA and potentially FEMA are being fired right now.

I think they'll ultimately win as long as they didn't sign using government equipment or during government time. But yeah, they're attempting to extend the terror.

McSame_as_Bush posted...

They will not be paying them to not work for the next 3.5 years. They're coming up with justification to get rid of them right now, and if they sue and it goes up to the Supreme Court, the FEMA employees will lose.

Yes, because they will take them off admin leave or pretextually fire them for cause. That won't go to the Supreme Court, it'll go the MSPB where they'll win immediately and get reinstated with backpay and without the ability for the admin to appeal anywhere.

McSame_as_Bush posted...

Trump just signed an executive order banning flag burning. You can't get more in direct opposition to the first amendment than that. They don't give a fuck.

He signed an executive order urging the AG to challenge the SC made law that says flag burning is protected. That's different from core 1st amendment speech law AND multiple whistleblower protection laws.

reincarnator07 posted...

Everything that happens has to happen for the first time in order to happen. Please don't think that something not happening ensures that it won't happen. Until last year, you never elected a president that was formerly impeached. You didn't have the courts literally rule that said president is above the law. You didn't have a health secretary that literally doesn't believe in modern healthcare

Sure, any awful thing is possible, but I'm talking about how reality has actually proceeded thus far under the current President. Since January 2025, I've had multiple friends who have spoken out publicly, on camera, are union leaders, have signed petitions, are in disfavored offices like environmental justice etc who have been put on admin leave and then taken off. They work for absolute bootlickers. And yet they couldn't be fired outright. That's why the admin has had to use reductions in force and probationary employees to create reductions. Because despite it all, you cannot readily fire a rank-and-file federal worker, especially a whistleblower or someone that spoke out publicly.

Trump has outright fired the heads of several major agencies, but has merely suspended these rank and file workers even though they publicly attacked him and it should be easier to fire them in your mind. That's because of whistleblower and first amendment laws.

McSame_as_Bush posted...

They will never work for FEMA again.

SCOTUS has already given the okay for Trump to fire heads of independent agencies, you think they're going to draw the line at random mid-level FEMA employees

Even under this administration, no one has been fired for speech like this. There's a reason that even in the press statements attacking these workers, they make sure to say this isn't a disciplinary action or they don't give a reason at all. And there's a reason they are suspended instead of fired.

Political appointees are subject to entirely different laws and don't have the same protections.

Trust me, I'm a federal worker that's very intimately involved with this area of the law right now for many reasons. They want the headlines and the fear, but actually if they felt they could fire them, they would have.

Just a correction, these people weren't fired, they were placed on paid leave as an intimidation tactic. It's evil due to that attempt to intimidate and because they won't be allowed to do their work in the immediate future. But they have not been fired either at EPA or FEMA.

Because they have no basis to fire people for whistleblowing and using their first amendment rights. That's why they'll put them on admin leave for 70 days to scare them and then quietly bring them back. If they fire them, they'll get sued because this is 100000% protected speech, the most textbook example possible.

I have rarely heard of a baseball player who isn't one step away from fascism. This isn't that surprising.

This feels a little Dark Brandony. It appeals to a subset of core Democratic voters, but doesn't do much for anyone else.

I applaud whoever is fighting back and the redistricting thing is the most concrete thing anyone has done so far.

But I don't like Newsome and I will push hard for someone better. And I don't think he can win because he comes off as slimy and is from California. That's more than enough to lose an election over.

For democracy to survive, all these people must be fired and banned from coming back.

It's not nothing to completely miss the stakes of the moment and to walk into the exact trap Trump laid by focusing primarily on her race and gender.

It's not that hard to point out his targeting of black women AND point out that this illegal power grab could have catastrophic economic effects. It's actually pretty easy to do. And it's what was required in the moment.

But Jeffries is having a pretty hard time recognizing that in general. He makes me miss Pelosi.

This is one time I actually agree with the "what do you people want" types regarding a politician. This is about as far as he can take it without promising open violence against the President and federal law enforcement/troops.

This is what all the governors should be doing.

Why shouldn't we be anti-WW2 Japan? Especially China of all countries? You aren't entitled to maintain your good reputation after doing horrible things and you're not entitled to have other people ignore what you did.

I'm not a Russia obsessed guy, but if someone was sent as an operative to destroy the US from the inside out, I'm not sure he'd do anything different than what Trump is doing.

But this won't just affect the US, it'll affect the whole world. We're killing research and spreading disease.

Stopping the rapid decline and getting some investigatory light shone on all ways they're breaking the government and the law right now is far better than the alternative. And it's a necessary step to have any shot at a future.

But again, as 2017-2020 showed, not Trump or opposition to him is necessary, but not sufficient. Democrats must offer a distinct and bold alternative that people feel will actually solve their problems.

This happens all the time with basically any big verdict against a rich or powerful person or with punitive damages. This doctrine exists entirely to reduce consequences against the wealthy, there's no one else it applies to.

Link_of_time posted...

No it's explanation. There is no excuse. Interacting with different lvls of right wingers, one of the constant jokes across 2 decades is how the left will label anything facism, or call anyone a nazi. Unfortunately, this has basically wiped away all meaning of the word for those on the right.

Have you ever thought that maybe the far right itself had an interest in training people not to take accusations of fascism seriously? They deliberately used "ironic" racism to desensitize people to saying racist things and mainstream their ideas as well.

Their one play is to target unpopular groups and people as a Trojan horse. It must all be opposed, you can't give them any daylight. If you give them an inch, they'll take your head.

And I'm saying this as someone who views Bolton as pure evil.

Good to see people of conscience. I hope it's not just a general anti-corruption/anti-authoritarian thing and most of these people also oppose the genocide.

I never really saw any, except early in the War on Terror where this one Arab kid named Muhammed caught hell for predictable reasons. It was really messed up and must have been an awful time for him. I hope it was short-lived.

That's murder, ain't it?

LightSnake posted...

I'm kinda wondering how much of the sudden Newsome backlash from progressives is that Bernie is transparently testing the waters for a 2028 run and they're kind of panicked Newsome is pushing to sew up the lane

As a Bernie fan, this has nothing to do with it and more with Newsom reminding everyone of the boneitis guy from Futurama and having no strong views about anything other than brutalizing homeless people and hanging out with Carlson and Bannon.

Bernie is too old to run and absolutely should not, we can go down that road again.

The redistricting thing is fighting fire with fire. This is just mid-level memeing.