Well.
Well well well.
Honestly, I don’t have the heart to read all the comments on the last post. I’ve been sitting here draped in Glum all day. It’s been very hot this weekend, and I went to a friend’s house yesterday for poolside dips and cocktails, and came home to see the big news. I had about one wine spritzer too many, and all I could think was: Shit. He’s gonna win. Mother. Fucker.
I know, I know, don’t lose heart. It’s still three-plus months until November, but lately I’m thinking of Biden as hopeless. He reminds me of a man I used to work for, who believed in this mythical past where we all sat down at the table of brotherhood and hammered out compromises that none of us were totally happy with, but were best for the country. It’d be one thing if he were just old, but old and out of touch is unforgivable.
I know, I know: Everything could change, etc. And it’s not like there weren’t glimmers of humor in the day. Take this utter horseshit:
There’s a longer statement, which you can find on the web; it’s just as ridiculous as this snippet. Like, oh…
A monster who recognized my husband as an inhuman political machine attempted to ring out Donald’s passion – his laughter, ingenuity, love of music, and inspiration. The core facets of my husband’s life – his human side – were buried below the political machine. Donald, the generous and caring man who I have been with through the best of times and the worst of times.
I feel like we’re living in two realities. Or else she is as diseased as he is – a strong possibility, actually a certainty – and is simply reacting in kind.
Oy. I need to feel bad for a while. But here’s a new thread.
Sherri said on July 14, 2024 at 8:27 pm
I’m sick of living in a country where people living in completely safe middle class suburbs like Bethel Park own assault rifles as if they live in a war zone.
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brian stouder said on July 14, 2024 at 8:30 pm
He’s not gonna win. Joe and Kamala will prevail, and keep America great, again. And if, in 2025 or 2026, ol’ Joe says ‘I’ve had enough’, President Harris will carry us forward into the ‘30’s. Betcha a large icy-cold Diet Pepsi!
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David C said on July 14, 2024 at 8:45 pm
There was nobody in the whole fucking world more disappointed that it failed than Melania.
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Dorothy said on July 14, 2024 at 8:58 pm
My parents moved to an apartment in Bethel Park in 1993 after they sold their house. I’ve heard the shooter lived very close to those apartments. The quilt store where I started working in 1992 is in the same vicinity. It’s so wild to see the neighborhood on the news stories.
He’s not going to win. It cannot be. There are too many people who abandoned him after all that has happened since he was in office and thereafter. Please trust and have faith!
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Heather said on July 14, 2024 at 9:16 pm
He might win, but I don’t think this weekend’s incident will have anything to do with it. If anything I think more people will be turned off by the bloodthirsty rhetoric and real violence. Plus when stuff starts getting canceled due to threats, people gonna get mad. Don’t inconvenience the American people!
OTOH, if he doesn’t win, I don’t trust the Supreme Court not to pull some shenanigans to put him in office.
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Jason T. said on July 14, 2024 at 9:19 pm
I had a vision last night of Melania googling “how to put cork back in champagne bottle.”
But I agree with you: She’s every bit as calculating as he is. He’s her meal ticket until the final hamberder clogs what’s left of his heart.
They are made for one another. If it was true of Hillary ‘n Bill, then it’s certainly true of Mel ‘n Don.
I know Butler County, Pa., well. It’s what people are thinking of when they say “Pennsyltucky” — God (the Protestant kind, naturally) and guns on every corner, alongside a healthy dollop of white people who moved out of Pittsburgh to get away from “those people” (but please, always to be saying “lower taxes”).
I know the farm show grounds well, too; I was up there for an event a month ago. It used to be out in the country; it’s now surrounded with car dealerships, pet grooming parlors, $500,000 homes … and apparently one poorly guarded office building.
It’s the kind of place where someone will tell you about how they want to return to traditional values, and decrying profanity and crudeness, while standing in front of a sign that says “JOE AND THE HO GOTTA GO.”
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Jeff Borden said on July 14, 2024 at 9:20 pm
We must exercise patience. Ride this out. Target the prime time shit show from Milwaukee next week. Remember, aside from the cult, everyone hates the basics of the QOP platform and Project 2025.
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Julie Robinson said on July 14, 2024 at 9:48 pm
One of the attendees interviewed afterwards was wringing her hands wondering how America had gotten so full of hate, and that we all needed to start praying again. She’s supporting a candidate who spews vitriol and hate, and wonders how the country got this way. Hmm.
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Jason T. said on July 14, 2024 at 10:04 pm
Julie @ 8:
“I Never Thought Leopards Would Eat My Face,” Sobs Woman Who Voted For Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party
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Jim G said on July 14, 2024 at 10:07 pm
Honestly, my first thought on hearing the news was that I thought the Secret Service was better at its job than that. A shooter on a rooftop? Really? So a threat model out of 1963 is actually still viable? If Obama could make it through two terms without even an attempt on his life (that wasn’t thwarted by the Secret Service before it became something that would hit the news), I really thought that “lone gunman” assassination attempts were no longer possible. But here we are.
As far as the effect on the election: I doubt if it will have much. We were screwed before, we’re still screwed, but not because of what happened yesterday. Trump’s cult is Trump’s cult; they were already voting for him. Staunch supporters of Biden aren’t going to suddenly switch to Trump because someone took a shot at him. And as for the mushy middle—the people who somehow manage to be undecided when the choice is (1) abandon the whole democracy thing or (2) vote for an old guy who’s showing his age—well, who knows what the heck they’ll do, but it’s not like Biden was doing great with them in the first place.
I wish I could be as hopeful as you, Brian. But when Biden won in 2020, by a very narrow margin, it was when he had to (i.e., got to) campaign mostly from home because of Covid, he was a challenger instead of the incumbent, and Trump had clearly botched the pandemic response. This year, he was vulnerable even before the debate due to Israel, the economy, and all the drags on his approval rating that come with being the President. Heck, by many measures the economy is doing well—but what voters know and remember is inflation.
Yes, the Democrats outperformed the polls in 2022. Will the electorate still be as angry about Dobbs in 2024? I’d like to hope so, but the electorate has a very short memory. And the polls show Biden trailing in all the swing states he needs, plus some states that shouldn’t be battleground states.
I really, really hope I’m wrong.
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Cheez Whiz said on July 14, 2024 at 10:48 pm
This was always going to be a totally off-the-rails election, and that train is right on time so far. I want ro remind everyone that each of Trump’s “formal” speeches so far (his first nomination acceptance and inaugeration) were completely insane, and this next one is going to top those. We are going to live through the most insane election in American history, so don’t be supriswd or discouraged by anything that happens. Do the work and don’t stop. That’s all we’ve got.
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Deni Menken said on July 15, 2024 at 12:29 am
I read an excellent article today online in The Atlantic by David Frum called The Gunman and the Would-be Dictator. It summarizes in a calming manner all the ways this sitch can be played for maximum shenanigans. And then he gives us hopeful smarty-pants folks some very clear facts to help us stay focused. Don’t fall for the evil BS. I did not get hung up in a paywall. Let’s take a collective deep breath. I need you guys.
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Mark P said on July 15, 2024 at 3:06 am
I have no idea who will win in November. In a sane world, Trump would be such a fringe candidate that only insane people would support him. But somewhere around half the voting population will vote for him. It is an alien concept to me, totally beyond my understanding. It’s like finding out that the laws of physics no longer hold. How can anyone make rational predictions about what will happen when we are in the midst of a societal collapse, where the norms and values we expect in a civilized society are dumped in the trash? And we see people acting like these are normal times. We see the mainstream media talking about Trump as if he were just another candidate.
Have any of you seen videos of an object being spun up faster and faster until it disintegrates and flings shrapnel in all directions? I feel like that’s the United States today. I wonder what will be left.
Oh well. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
And, boy are we there.
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Suzanne said on July 15, 2024 at 7:56 am
Here is the Frum article and it is excellent.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/07/donald-trump-democracy-dictator/679006/
One thing that seems obvious from the photos of the Trump rally in PA is that there weren’t many people there, adding to the strangeness of it all. I talked to someone last night who despises Trump but was appalled that anyone would think this was a false flag kind of thing because someone died. If it was something set up by Trump, he wouldn’t bat an eye at someone dying in service to his desires, even one of his hardcore supporters. Why can’t people understand this?
I am trying very hard not to go down the conspiracy rabbit hole, but so much of it still seems off to me in ways I can’t really explain.
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alex said on July 15, 2024 at 8:32 am
The only thing that seems “off” to me is that the White House, the media, politicians and public figures are calling for unity and magnanimity and condemning this act as horrible, yet no one has the balls to say “You reaped what you sowed, asshole.”
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Suzanne said on July 15, 2024 at 9:02 am
Well, that, too Alex. 100%
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Dexter Friend said on July 15, 2024 at 9:22 am
My step-grandson called gloating how Trump just won the prize…he’s a real-gone Trumper and won’t listen to me as I rile him with facts, just facts.
When I saw the commotion, and the TV went nuts about Trump being down, I instantly thought heat stroke, then when it was apparent something really occurred, I was amazed at the inept SS as they allowed the goddam dumb son of a bitch to pop up shaking a fist WITH A NON-NEUTRALIZED ASSASSIN STILL ACTIVE !! Andrea Mitchell was apoplectic yesterday describing what a huge target that fucking fat head presented to a possible second, third? shooter. “Let me get my shoes.” What the FUCK ! ? The SS should have have had three bodies atop the fat fuck like their training compels them to do.
First, a bullet, no…glass shard…then Trump TS’s it was a bullet, and all media I saw flip back: “oh it was a bullet, not glass, because Trump said it was.”
There are 3 main sized rounds that are used in assault rifles. The .762 would have torn the whole side of Trump’s face off.
The 5.56 or the .223 would only do slighter damage. The 5.56 is the military go-to these days, called the NATO round. No, I have not fired an assault rifle in 54 years (didn’t kill anyone in Viet Nam to be clear) but I watch a lotta TV. Still amazed that no snipers were atop the firing site building. Trump? Just a lucky fuck.
Americans better have short memories as always is bantered about, or we are really fucked if this little dust up flips undecides enough to get Trump to 270. Like Sherri, I won’t leave if Trump prevails. I’ll just wear out the paint on these keys writing poison pen exclamations of protest at every fucking thing that bastard does from Day 1 Dictatorship.
Poor darling whore Melania! What would Barron do without the always-absent-from-his-life daddy?
And What the FUCK !
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Jeff Gill said on July 15, 2024 at 9:43 am
Can’t help but wonder if Melania even saw that statement, let alone approved it. Apparently she didn’t sign it, which is . . . odd.
As someone who talks to a few dozen Thomas Crooks a year, I am stuck on the question of what we can do differently in such situations.
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Dave said on July 15, 2024 at 10:33 am
Cannon dismisses all charges. There truly is no hope.
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alex said on July 15, 2024 at 10:43 am
I bet the case is reinstated on appeal and Cannon gets thrown off of it. Remember, the judges in her circuit were already on her case about her ineptitude and underhandedness.
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nancy said on July 15, 2024 at 10:52 am
The weird broken-but-not English tells me this is Melania’s work, perhaps auto-translated. Because I am me, I noted the incorrect use of “ring” in the italics graf I pasted. “Wring” is what she meant, but even that word isn’t exactly right. Meanwhile, Axios is teasing the idea that this whole event will be life-changing, and a kinder, more unifying Trump will emerge. I nearly cancelled my subscription on the spot.
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Suzanne said on July 15, 2024 at 10:55 am
Alex, what you say is true but more likely is that there will be delays and more delays until the election, Trump is elected, and he halts everything. He will do so while the nominee because who will stop him? The past few years have shown that no one will. The far right owns the courts.
The center cannot hold and the beast is slouching toward Bethlehem.
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LAMary said on July 15, 2024 at 10:59 am
Dave, I was shocked! Shocked I say. Who could have foreseen that Trump’s pet underqualified judge would toss out the classified documents case?
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David C said on July 15, 2024 at 11:27 am
I’m sure we all knew someone like Crooks in school. They didn’t wear camo in my day. They wore high water pants and buttoned the top buttons on their shirts. But when they got through high school, there was a good chance they could get a decent enough job afterwards to get them on their way. I can’t imagine growing up in cousin-fuck PA with no prospects other than working in food service at a nursing home. Not that there’s anything wrong with that other than the rich bastards who own everything have made sure it pays so poorly it doesn’t allow kids to launch themselves. So they take everything and tell them guns will the great equalizer that will make you into something. Then they believe it and act on it.
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Mark P said on July 15, 2024 at 12:04 pm
I think that Aileen Cannon believes that Trump will be elected president, and that it was time to go all in for him. People have suggested that Trump will repay her with a seat on the Supreme Court. I wouldn’t count on it if I were her, but only because Trump has a history of not paying his bills. This does give us a preview of how government will work under Project 2025, when competent, unbiased government workers are replaced by Trump loyalists.
It means the end of the United States as a nation of laws and the end of the United States as a constitutional democracy. We will be Russia writ large, a mafia-run kleptocracy, and Putin will have won the Cold War.
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Suzanne said on July 15, 2024 at 12:57 pm
Does anyone really think a court is going to save us at this point? If they could, they would have. It’s been 4 years almost since the insurrection. Mueller didn’t save us, the court in Georgia didn’t save us, the Supreme Court is in the back pocket of Trump and the Heritage Society, some lower court overturning Canon’s decision isn’t going to save us. Trump and the Heritage Foundation/Christian nationalists have the courts. Congress is gridlocked and scared of the lunatics.
There is no knight in shining armor coming.
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Dexter Friend said on July 15, 2024 at 1:39 pm
Who remembers the anticipation of “Fitzmas”, when Fitzgerald was gonna come down hard on W, and nothing, crickets…just nothing.
We all remember Mueller , mister “That’s out of my purview…” nothing.
Recently, SCOTUS gave Trump all he asked for, now this? I wanna go live in the past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fbOAyNOpM
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Jeff Borden said on July 15, 2024 at 2:08 pm
tRump was so broken and moved by the death of the fire chief at his Pennsylvania rally he played golf all day Sunday. The dead man would’ve wanted it that way.
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Suzanne said on July 15, 2024 at 2:25 pm
“The distinction between violence within the rhetoric of liberalism and Trumpism is this: Democrats employ clunky metaphors meant to suggest an intensity of focus; Trumpism traffics in bloody parable.”
“Those who claim calling Trump a threat to democracy is violent rhetoric are doing a kind of rhetorical violence to democracy, screeching it to a halt, making of an ever-moving idea a static one, writing a banal and brutal ending onto a story that’s meant to keep going.”
https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/one-nation-under-fist
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Sherri said on July 15, 2024 at 3:02 pm
This shooter didn’t grow up in CousinFuck, PA. He graduated from a high school where most kids go on to attend a 4 year college, and he took multiple AP classes. He was working at the nursing home while attending community college, where he had just finished an associate’s degree in engineering science. His parents were both professionals.
He may have been an alienated young man, but it wasn’t because he lacked opportunities.
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jim said on July 15, 2024 at 3:31 pm
Well, we’ll certainly all rally around and be unified by JDfuckingVance
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Jakash said on July 15, 2024 at 3:35 pm
“We will be Russia writ large, a mafia-run kleptocracy, and Putin will have won the Cold War.” The irony of which being that it will come to pass courtesy of the freaking Republican party, which had been virulently anti-communist and anti-Russia for all of our lifetimes. How they’ve twisted themselves into backing Putin is one of the marvels wrought by the Biggest Loser possessing one fateful talent — that of being a world-class charlatan and carnival barker. Well, along with his having been enabled by a top-notch disinformation campaign specifically engineered to help elevate a pro-Russia stooge to the presidency.
I would so sincerely love to be encouraged by Brian’s optimism and his appreciation for Kamala Harris, which I don’t seem to see being shared by many. I’m afraid, though, that Mark’s analysis tracks more with what I find likely, and #doomed didn’t become any less apt over the weekend.
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David C said on July 15, 2024 at 3:48 pm
Didn’t know that Sherri. I did read yesterday he’d won math/science awards in high school but I hadn’t read until you posted that he was successfully going on in his education.
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Suzanne said on July 15, 2024 at 3:54 pm
Trump has picked Hillbilly JD Vance as his running mate. Poor Tim Scott got that fake fiancée and exceeded expectations for groveling and it got him nothing except pity from people watching the whole sickening show.
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Deborah said on July 15, 2024 at 4:04 pm
My niece and her husband and I had started a contest to see who was right about Trump’s VP. I picked Vance long ago. I don’t even remember now who they each thought it would be. Oh yeah now I remember my niece at first thought it would be Noem, but she changed that after the puppy killing. She had never even heard of Vance when I first mentioned him and she’s fairly up on things.
I read someone refer to Vance as pucker face a while ago and I can’t think of anything else when I see photos.
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Jeff Gill said on July 15, 2024 at 4:51 pm
Ingenuity. So that’s what the kids are calling it?
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Sherri said on July 15, 2024 at 5:16 pm
I went to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to find out about the shooter when I heard he was from Bethel Park. I’m familiar with Bethel Park from my time in Pittsburgh and still know people who live there.
The PG further reports that the young man had been offered admission at both Pitt and Robert Morris University as a transfer student for the fall semester, and had chosen Robert Morris.
We may never find out what motivated this man to do this shooting, but for a look at the Internet culture of nihilism that has grown out of 4chan and the like and spawned Gamergate and the alt-right and political violence, check out this interview with Elle Reece: https://www.forever-wars.com/they-want-to-be-a-part-of-history-elle-reeve-on-the-extremely-online-fascist-resurgence/
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Sheryl Prentice said on July 15, 2024 at 5:42 pm
“You reaped what you sowed, asshole.”
Alex at 15 for the win!
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David C said on July 15, 2024 at 6:03 pm
I heard last week that Noem scrubbed all of her social media. I thought, no it couldn’t be the Cricket killer, could it? Nope, so Vance it is. He could have picked someone randomly off the street and it wouldn’t make a difference. His fans, like him, don’t care about anybody but him.
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Colleen said on July 15, 2024 at 8:14 pm
Years ago I worked part time at Fort Wayne’s conservative radio station, and I worked with the woman who now hosts their morning news. All that to explain why I am in FB and IG contact with her. I actually think I hate follow, but whatever. Anyway, she is the Trumpiest. Today she posted something on her IG about how the right isn’t having riots in protest of Donnie’s incident. Then said “imagine if it was the other side.” Implying, of course, that we lefties are lawless rioters. Does she not know who has been spouting violent rhetoric for nearly a decade?
I just don’t get their total lack of connection to reality. How can a reasonable person listen to what he says and not note the undertone of violence?
I guess that’s rhetorical. They have no connection to reality.
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Dave said on July 15, 2024 at 9:08 pm
Colleen, isn’t that a requirement to work at that radio station? Let me add, at least, to be an on-air personality.
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Colleen said on July 15, 2024 at 10:41 pm
Yeah, you pretty much have to toe the MAGA line. I did not fit in. I did morning traffic and some newscasts….it was a part time job between jobs.
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