That was a wild fitness class…

Let me guess, the conspirators can all be found hiding in the basement of a pizzaria?

I was talking about if it had been a member of the Secret Service that misidentified the guy as the shooter

So I’ve got this dog… She’s a 2 year old rescue. She was supposed to be someone else’s, but she was so traumatized by something that they couldn’t train her, couldn’t even pet her, and eventually, one thing led to another and we ended up with her. Took about 2 months before anyone in the house could even pet her, but now she’s super lovey to everyone who lives in my house. She is “growling and barking when someone walks past the house on the other side of the street” levels of protective, though, and it’s disruptive to our lives. It would be easy to just kick her or yell at her or get a shock collar and solve the problem that way, but I haven’t done that because I’ve spent a lot of time rehabilitating rescue dogs and I know that abusing her will male her stop barking but at the cost of her personality. If our house becomes another abusive situation, she’ll regress and, rightly, start being scared of people again… maybe forever this time. Instead, I got a sonic egg that distracts her when she barks, and I’ll gently pet her and talk softly to her when she’s spazzing out. She is slowly getting better. Some days, it’s still frustrating and disruptive, but the way i solve the problem is important to my desired outcomes. I want a dog that loves and trusts me and my family and still wants to protect us but doesn’t feel like we need protection from everyone who walks by.

In the same way, and as you said, with much higher stakes, I want Trump to lose , and I want the US to remain (and even improve) our democracy. Political assassination is incompatible with functional democracy. I know the US has a lot of problems with our democracy, but I’m not ready to “kick my dog” yet. I still want to save it. That does NOT mean I won’t put the dog down if she bites one of my kids, but I kick her, then she bites… that’s on me.

I think “killing political opponents is detrimental to democracy” and “let’s save democracy” are pretty consistent.

That was one of my theories, too, but I didn’t want to be the first to say it. It’d be a heavy load to carry, knowing you shot an innocent person like that.

I have no reason to suspect this was staged but,I mean, it’s a pretty compelling fit to the current narrative… Trump strong, Biden old and feeble. Plus, all that coverage of Project 2025, “Trump’s big weakness,” just died with that first gunshot. Evangelicals will eat this up with their “he’s Chosen” LARP. I can already imagine the “bulletproof” NFT trading card series…

As long as Trump doesn’t die of a heart attack, this is only going to help him.

Man, I would love to watch his supporters work through the dissonance on that one. On one hand, they already chose Trump over their god… On the other hand, “come and take it” culture is right up there with evangelicalism as far as being really ingrained.

Do we know yet whether the would-be assassin or Secret Service hit the bystander? I was driving when it happened and am still getting up to speed

Edit/update: It seems the gunman was on a rooftop, not in the crowd, so, no idea what happened. I have a few theories, but I’m not gonna risk starting rumors.

“sudo is not recognized an an internal or external command”

• and cops

If posting them in the churches didn’t stop priests and pastors, why would it work differently with teachers in schools?

Often, yes, there just aren’t enough union shops anymore.

He’s being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!

Has real GI Joe PSA vibes…I love it

I mean, making dubious consequences apply to the “in group” is a vital step in getting rid of those consequences. Most conservatives were fine with treating addiction as a crime in the 80s when it was black folks getting arrested for crack, but when it was white, working class folks getting arrested for opiates, we were able to start talking about addiction as the medical condition it is. It’s a shitty road towards progress, and I wish we could better… but changes in a democracy require convincing people of the need to change, and sometimes that just can’t happen until they fall through the cracks in society personally.

If there were a “no genocide” candidate that could win, making that a single issue would matter. Biden supports Israel despite their actions in Gaza… which he has publicly stated he doesn’t agree with and has taken concrete, if underwhelming, steps to try and stop. Trump has shown us during his previous administration and told us recently that he will support Israel harder and will likely take steps to decrease the resistance to the Palestinian genocide if not outright accelerate it. He’ll also accelerate Russian aggression in Ukraine and likely would ignore our Article 5 responsibilities when Putin advances farther into Europe. I’ll assume you’re familiar with the policy differences on climate and how climate change impacts poor regions (like Gaza) more than it impacts affluent ones like the US (and even we’re getting our asses kicked by climate change this year). You can vote to take a moral stand, or you can vote for desired outcomes. The people trying to convince you not to vote 3rd party are trying to convince you to vote for a desired outcome. There is presently no likely outcome that gives us a non-Biden, non-Trump administration for the next 4 years. Based on that fact, we want to maximize the likelihood of the best availa le outcome. That’s what we’re asking…to think about what the world looks like for the people you care about under Biden and compare those outcomes to what it will look like under Trump and vote based on those outcomes. The time to find the ideal candidate is at the beginning of a presidential term, not the end of one.

You can bet your ass most of us are including the ongoing genocide in our voting decision, we’ve just thought about it enough to know our options aren’t between “stopping genocide” and “continuing genocide”, the choice is between “resisting” (aka, the status quo) or “accelerating”.

Even Krusty’s dad eventually loved him.

It was a rough estimate. 50% plasma, which is 90% water.

It’s like… she’s trying to do an impression of Angelina Jolie… in her mugshot?