So a college kid has been arrested for celebrating Kirk’s death in Texas, where 100 uni profs are also being investigated for the same, and Vance is vowing to shut down ‘liberal institutions’ and is attacking The Nation, all under the guise of civility??
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Meanwhile, Vance lectures Europe on freedom of speech and expression.
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Real life is South Park, except everyone is Cartman.
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It’s nice to see good, constructive news coming out of that country for once, instead of the usual tripe we are served with these days.
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We are in a very weird place right now in terms of a lack of shared reality.
There was a common sentiment on the right before the 2020 election that it might be best for the country for Biden to win because with as much tension as there was the left wont be able to take another Trump win and will riot, whereas the Trump supporters will just accept the results and move on. It was astonishing in its stupidity and how much traction the idea had. Not only did it not reflect the long well-establish track record of organized political violence on the right, there were already flashing red alarms going off about the plans that we’d ultimately see unfold on Jan 6th. It required not just ignorance of entirely knowable stuff, but the creation of entirely fabricated reality
Jan 6th then happened, and it’s just been completely memory holed. The right are now acting in exactly the same way as they were in October 2020 in praising the dignity and compassion of their movement in the face of provocation. They are contrasting their own Christ like behavior against how we “know” the left would act if the situation was reversed. They ignore the violent gutteral reaction of not just internet randos, but important people in the movement, even people with official positions in government, crying for retribution and declaring war. They are declaring war against a foe for whom there is no evidence they actually killed Kirk and are ignoring all the signs that the shooter was more likely one of them. And they are ignoring their long history of political violence against the left that didnt result in the social carnage that they picturing.
And they’re all just so certain about it. In lots of cases people are sharing unverified ideas to support their position, but in lots of cases it is just an attitude based on an article of faith.
I dont mean to be fatalist about it, but I dont know how we come back from something like this…but then this is Ben Collins saying these things already 3 years ago
https://x.com/oneunderscore__/status/1587065749692112899
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I just saw the Redford news and bringing this comment here to not make the RIP thread go down a political rabbit hole, but he is a fascinating case study in how much our politics have changed. He was a staunch defender of the environment and advocate for native americans and LGBTQ right…and yet he was politically active for decades for the republicans. Oh how the world has changed.
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Trump has filed a $15B defamation lawsuit against NYT over their…well, it’s not exactly clear what the argument it other than a collection of unrelated stories that he thinks are mean towards him.
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Between this, the reemergence of diseases, the rise of AI, and accelerating climate change and how it’s all feeding off of each other… I don’t know how anyone isn’t fatalist. I guess that’s why a lot just check out of all this and pretend it’s not happening. Which makes them even more vulnerable to do misinfo… and on and on it goes.
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I just don’t see it as possible without some incredibly convulsive crisis. Again and again I come back to how similar the US seems to the discourse of the 1850s. I don’t think a similar pathway is really possible, but I am not sure the available alternatives are less destructive. I am taking deliberate steps to reduce my use of all things American - I just blocked the purchase of a Microsoft CRM system (Dynamics) because of data sovereignty (Microsoft has said in Europe in court they will ignore EU law where instructed by the US government or courts). It is in part risk management, it feels like some kind of implosion is the only way from here. Best not to have any exposure.
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This is from a piece in the New Yorker by Claire Mallone about one of MAHA’s most prominent influencers, here she points out that those at the head of MAHA know the food stuff is just cleaning their image to give them cover to go after the vaccines
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It’s pathetic how predictable and even widely predicted so much of this was. It was very clear that it would be an administration that lied with abandon and reconciled their own data not supporting their lies by fudging or deleting the data.
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The authorities have released the communications they have between Robinson and his roommate as part of their charging documents, and its sus as hell. This is not how young men have talked since the 1920s
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LOL. Cheers for that. Nailed my gut instinct on that chat. 
(intentionally not written in the style of a 1920s FBI recruit - apologies if that came across as facetious)
Do you think so ? I doubt it is more than very mildly re-written at most. I don’t understand what there is to be sus about this matter either if I am honest. Those texts were not more incriminating and didn’t cast the shooter in a worse light than originally.
I just don’t understand why anyone would fiddle with the transcripts when they clearly have iron clad evidence.
Anyway, I read the entire convo and didn’t think it that archaic at all. But I am not American of course.
They don’t want evidence that he did it, they want evidence that he was a left winger, or not homophobic, or something other than a right wing nutjob.
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But nothing so far points to him being a right wing nutjob. All we have is nutjob.
I mean, there are fake stories circulating on Twitter that he was a grouper and ladi da, pushed by someone who probably would like him to be Right Wing; but that story was fake, after all. He may still be, but the story so far posted about him being Alt-Right was fake according to a Fact Checker I follow.
So far, best potential motive we have is potentially sexually repressed/confused individual from a conservative Trumpist family and background, who might want revenge on demagogues who talk like Kirk and make the life of Homosexuals and trans-people more challenging. You can add potential mental health issues to that obviously. But that’s not much. I am more interested in hearing what he tells police and the court later on.
I doubt they are fabricating evidence at this stage (if they are, they better silence him). Not that I think that is an impossibillity in the US, just that this case looks too solid to even bother.
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Most whiny leader I have ever heard about
https://x.com/atrupar/status/1967957633370828892
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Hmmmm. Knowing his presence online, that transcript is far too ‘clean’ to be real. Not buying it.