Lewis2
6hr ago
Certainly a vile sentiment, but also not threatening violence, merely condoning.
That’s exactly the issue. I don’t think anyone expects Jones to go on a shooting spree at the closest Republican daycare, but I think it’s fair to say that he wouldn’t mind if someone else were to. That’s completely poisonous for an AG. He has given every indication that he will slow walk or prevent the prosecution of his ideological allies, even (or especially) if they commit violence against his ideological opponents.
That isn’t a theoretical fear. The members of the Weather Underground committed campaigns of terror, bombings, murder, robberies, etc., but they were given slaps on the wrist, pardoned, and ended up with cushy jobs in academia. At least one mentored a future US president. Similarly, the south had a long history of government officials overlooking, tacitly encouraging, and refusing to prosecute violence against blacks. I think it’s reasonable for the Republicans of Virginia to have the same disquiet at Jones’s election as the black residents of Virginia would have at the election of a Klansman as AG. The Klansman AG wouldn’t go out lynching people himself, but it seems like a pretty good bet that he’d try to prevent any other lynchers from facing prosecution and punishment. So also Jones.
You’re ignoring his follow-up phone call, the one where he said he wanted Gilbert’s children to be shot and die in their mother’s arms, so that he and his wife would change their minds on gun control. He then followed it up by texting
(Conyer) You were talking about hopping jennifer Gilbert’s children would die
(Jones) Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy
He then went even further, saying
I mean do I think Todd and Jennifer are evil? And that they’re breeding little fascists? Yes
He also previously told her that it would be a good thing if more police officers were shot, because then they’d be more reluctant to shoot others.
None of those follow standard joke templates, at least not where I’m from. The lady he was talking to also didn’t see any humor in those heated calls and texts, and she cut him off shortly thereafter.
It’s also good because the Minnesota AG recently gave an interview in which he lied about the provisions of the FACE Act in order to claim that the protestors couldn’t have violated it:
And the FACE Act, by the way, is designed to protect the rights of people seeking their reproductive rights, to be protected so that people for a religious reason cannot just use religion to break into women's reproductive health centers, so how they are stretching either of these laws to apply to people who protested in a church over the behavior or the perceived behavior of a religious leader is beyond me…. So I think that the FACE Act and the KKK Act are on their face inapplicable.
Interestingly, though Ellison doesn’t see a problem with protesting, harassing, and filming congregants at a church, back in 2020 his office was proud to assist in the prosecution of a woman “who has videotaped congregants at Dar al-Farooq mosque in Bloomington without their consent, causing those congregants and their children to feel intimidated and afraid.”
(Edited to include a link to the video and expand the quote.)
Lewis2
2d ago
If you are claiming that 53% of voters are willingly voting for a candidate who wants to murder you, you are imitating the professional victims who claim the same about Trump voters. "I am Hispanic/LGBTQ*!@#, and it is common knowledge that Trump wants to kill me for that. So all the people who voted for him are fine with me getting killed." It is pathetic when they do it, and it is just as pathetic when you do it.
Have you read Jay Jones’s texts? I don’t think complaining, “This guy actually said he wanted to see me and mine murdered, we have the receipts, he doesn’t deny it, and yet people elected him to office anyway,” is the same as complaining, “MSNBC called this guy a fascist, the Nazis were fascists, the Nazis murdered people, ergo this guy wants to murder people, and yet people elected him to office anyway.” In the one case, we are relying on what the guy actually said. In the other, we have to make several massive leaps to arrive at that objection.
Lewis2
2d ago
I was with you on aggressively paying down the mortgage (I’m at 6.25%), but looking at the increases in the stock market, foreign markets, and precious metals over the past year, I’m beginning to rethink my strategy.
Lewis2
11d ago
This finally made the “liminal spaces” thing click for me. I’ve never understood how anyone could find an empty or abandoned space scary (aside from concerns about deranged homeless people or animals, which people have always assured me aren’t what freak them out). Up until now, I’ve always chocked it up to people watching too many zombie movies. But then, I grew up in the country, and I spent a good deal of my childhood traipsing solo through abandoned barns and woods. Today, my nearest neighbor is about 300 yards away, and I sometimes find even that too close. I’m very much not used to being hemmed in by people. But if all you’ve ever known is being surrounded by other people, peaceful, quiet places with no one around must be completely unnerving.
Lewis2
12d ago
Also, the victim wasn’t black. Only blacks are allowed to be martyrs among a certain segment of the modern Left.
Some other Tweets I’ve seen but can’t find anymore:
“I’d like to remind y’all that “Say Her Name” is for Black women. Yes, it matters. Just like Rest in Power is for Black revolutionaries.”
and
why don’t Americans do something~ BECAUSE ICE WILL SHOOT US IN THE HEAD AND THEN CALL US TERRORISTS EVEN IF WE ARE UNARMED THANKS
THE BLACK COMMUNITY RISKED THIS AND MORE DURING THE CIVILS RIGHTS MOVEMENT AND IT’S CLEAR YOU WHITE PEOPLE WANT TO SIT BACK UNTIL MARGINALIZED PEOPLE GO FIRST AGAIN THANKS
You’ve probably also seen the video of the white woman who feels conflicted because of her own white privilege, to say nothing of the white privilege of the two women who were involved.
A lot of the diehard activists have been so caught up in racial discourse and race-based gatekeeping for so long that they can’t even set it aside when it might be beneficial to their cause to do so.
Lewis2
17d ago
It’s unfortunate that answering this question earnestly is so unwise. Brainstorming A) how much destruction one person, or a small team of people, could cause, and B) how best to prevent someone else from following through on those plans, would be a very fun discussion, especially in a group of smart people with diverse backgrounds. But as almost everyone else has mentioned, it would be extremely foolhardy to actually mention any concrete ideas in a forum such as this, or really, in any place where there’s a chance one of the participants might be tempted to follow through.
Lewis2
19d ago
his approval rating was in the gutter
A great sage predicted this moment 13 years ago…
Lewis2
19d ago
Lewis2
20d ago
Given that teenagers have been charged with the production, possession, and distribution of CSAM for sending nudes of themselves, CSAM charges in this case don’t strike me as anything close to nuclear, assuming the police can recover the images from Snapchat. The only thing I’m not certain of is whether they actually broke any CSAM laws. Is it actually illegal to draw a photorealistic, but fake, image of a nude minor? Perhaps more to the point, given how AIs usually seem to handle NSFW requests, is it illegal to put the face of a minor on top of the body of a definitely-grown adult? I have no idea, and it’s not something I’m eager to google.
Lewis2
20d ago
“Your tears say more than real evidence ever could.”
More seriously, to me, the part that struck the most discordant note was this:
She said the boy whom she and her friends suspected of creating the images wasn’t sent to that alternative school with her.
Which almost makes it sound like she wanted to keep going to school with the boy. If I were in the school district’s position, the last thing I’d do is ship them both off to the same location.
Lewis2
22d ago
Did the 23-year-old’s videos actually provide enough proof of fraud that it led to this defunding, or did they provide just plausible enough evidence to give the administration an excuse to do what they already wanted to do anyway?
It seems to me that Trump and his administration have a few goals that this defunding meets: 1) shrink government spending (at least in some areas), 2) emphasize criminal actions by immigrants, and 3) hurt Trump’s enemies. This nicely does all three. It decreases welfare spending, shows Somalian immigrants in a very negative light, and makes Tim Walz look like an enabler of massive fraud. I think it’s probable that at least one of the daycare centers in those videos will turn out to be completely legitimate when all the facts come to light, and it’s possible that the same will hold true for all of them.
Lewis2
26d ago
I agree, but will Americans still care that they’re first in liberty, or will they see that as an unfortunate holdover from earlier times? If things continue as they are, I think most Americans will see that as something in need of fixing, not something to proudly base their identity on.
Lewis2
26d ago
I wish I could agree. That is a future that previous generations would have been fine with, but modern Americans continue to value liberty less and less. See the steady attempts to carve away at the first, second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, tenth, and fourteenth Amendments.
Freedom of religion -> freedom of worship
Freedom of speech -> not including hate speech
Freedom of the press -> should only apply to professional journalists
Right to bear arms -> only if you’re a professional bodyguard or in the military
Freedom from search and seizure -> but only if it doesn’t make the police’s job more difficult
Pleading the Fifth -> “obviously guilty,” according to most people
Private property cannot be seized -> civil asset forfeiture
Right to confront your accuser -> unless the accuser would find it traumatic
No excessive fines -> unless you manufacture guns or are Alex Jones
Powers reserved to the states -> a joke
Equal protection under the laws -> affirmative action
Just to mention a few.
Lewis2
1mo ago
I unfortunately make only a fraction of that. I was basing my numbers on FiveHourMarathon and his wife’s combined income.
Lewis2
1mo ago
I think I mentioned a few months back that I once came across a book of etiquette from the late 19th century that recommended a gentleman spend two to three months’ wages on a good suit. Imagine buying a single set of clothing for $75,000.
Lewis2
1mo ago
Specifically,
Many of its top leaders, beginning with its chief, Roehm, were notorious homosexual perverts. Lieutenant Edmund Heines, who led the Munich S.A., was not only a homosexual but a convicted murderer. These two and dozens of others quarreled and feuded as only men of unnatural sexual inclinations, with their peculiar jealousies, can. (Page 120)
Shirer was one of the earlier and more vocal authors to claim that the Nazis were disproportionately gay, but my understanding is that that claim has been considered discredited since the 1960s. Obviously some were, but there’s no evidence the percentage was higher than that of the general population.
Lewis2
1mo ago
As far as I can tell, your expanded description still isn’t accurate, as no court has ruled that the arrest itself was wrongful. The only thing the police are in trouble for is repeatedly defying court orders requiring them to hand over evidence of physical abuse during the arrest. Certainly the arrest itself has not been ruled as a miscarriage of justice, as your original comment claimed.
Lewis2
1mo ago
see how Northamtonshire Police was recently forced to pay a £50k fine for a wrongful arrest of someone for just "mean tweets"
Are you referring to this? If so, that’s a completely false description of the incident. The police were forced to pay the fine for repeatedly and deliberately failing to hand over video clips of the arrest despite several court orders, after the detainee alleged officers physically assaulted her during her arrest. The fine was not because the arrest itself was deemed unlawful.
Lewis2
1mo ago
Maybe so, but that’s not the impression many Americans get through social media (only a tiny minority will ever visit in person).
Self-driving trains seem like an easier problem to solve than self-driving cars, especially for a metro system like D.C.’s. They more or less just need to know when to stop and go, plus maybe have a sensor to make sure they don’t run over a pedestrian who fell on the tracks but didn’t get immediately electrocuted.
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