Mass Shootings

[Lefty Specialist]

I disagree that not voting for Hillary in a state she won somehow
contributed to a Trump victory. This has been a sticky point here
with some but it holds no water with me at all.

Well, because states are always non-competitive until they aren't. Nobody saw Trump winning Pennsylvania, and I bet there were a bunch of people there who said "Screw it, I'll vote for Johnson or Stein because I feel like protesting". If you can determine the outcome before you vote, then have at it.

This time around a third party candidate better get no oxygen at all. It's too goddamn important.

[Frayed Knot]

This time around a third party candidate better get no oxygen at all. It's too goddamn important.

Well, unless a far-left candidate from the Democratic side scares enough of the center electorate into staying the course -- 'Well at least the economy's pretty good' -- at which
point the left (not to mention the remainder of the sane portion of the right) could find itself begging for a third party centerist to jump in.

Do I THINK that will happen? No, but it's part of my 2020 fantasy.

[Ceetar]

I disagree that not voting for Hillary in a state she won somehow
contributed to a Trump victory. This has been a sticky point here
with some but it holds no water with me at all.

It didn't. But what if enough New Yorkers thought like you and all voted for someone who had zero chance of winning? I believe that you should vote as if the election is tied, you're the last voter in America that will cast a vote and that your vote will decide the election.

What if enough voters actually voted for someone they liked that didn't conform to the two parties with the stranglehold preventing this country from thriving? Good?

Never mind that Johnson/Stein votes could easily cancel each other out, or that they might be replacing NON votes, not votes for one of the Goliaths.

Also remember that a vote for either of them is often a vote for more broader candidates in the future. All 7000 third party candidates were pretty much not fit (I mean, only one really was and she got the most votes) to run this country but if in 2020 or 2024 they realized that there was a LARGE contingent of people that WOULD be willing to vote outside the lines? Hell, criticize all the people that were "Bernie or bust" all you want, but it's stupid to keep ignoring a large swath of people that want something different. Instead idiots like Pelosi attack them.

And no, you could expand the MLB to 90 teams and you'd still have a level of competition above Indie ball.

[kcmets]

This time around a third party candidate better get no oxygen at all. It's too goddamn important.

I'll bet you a case of Dom that a Dem will win in my state regardless of who I vote
for in 2020. I really don't get why this is so hard for some to wrap their heads around.

[Edgy MD]

And I'm sure Gary Johnson siphoned more votes from then-Candidate Trump's total than from Secretary Clinton's.

Most indefensible thing I've read today: "Most of these shooters have one thing in common. They were educated in public school run by liberals. Think about that"

[Double Switch]

And I don't vote in primaries because i don't belong to political party.

There was a time decades ago when I lived in a state that required you to select a party when you registered for voting in the primary. Otherwise, you could vote only on non-partisan issues/candidates if you refused to declare a party. Then I decided to register as a Republican and vote for the worst clowns they were running in the primary and then come the general, I'd vote my usual Democratic choices. Voting in favor of total R clowns in the primary blew off steam but did not affect the general. Then I moved to a state that does not require this, which is much better.

[Double Switch]

Most indefensible thing I've read today: "Most of these shooters have one thing in common. They were educated in public school run by liberals. Think about that"

This boggles on several levels. Education is a relative term and public school runs for 12 years, so this is a generalization that falls in the realm of "Most of these shooters have one thing in common. They were live births." What proof is there that public schools are "run by liberals" (whatever that corrupted word might mean out of context)? We have school districts all over the nation that are run by barely literate cretins who punish students for having kinky hair or cannot pay for their school lunch.

I could go on, but it's that last bit that cracks me up: "Think about that." Because thinking about anything is well nigh beyond the scope of the same sort of people who believe in conspiracy theories, vote for Donald Trump, and are scared of "liberals." They "feel" but they don't "think."

[MFS62]

Seeing Donald Trump going to El Paso to comfort Mexicans and Mexican-Americans was like watching the Ayatollah going to a Bar Mitzvah.

Later

[kcmets]

And if he didn't go it would be like...

[MFS62]

And if he didn't go it would be like...

Yes, if he didn't go, it would't have moved the needle one way or the other.
His supporters would still not go against him. As it turned out, he didn't talk about, much less offer, any consolation about either shooting anyhow because he doesn't seem capable of doing that in any situation.
He stayed on screed, and blamed the press and the Democrats (including Bernie Sanders ???), anti- racist demonstrators (antifa) and nothing about hate, white supremacy or guns.
I'm just surprised he didn't throw paper towels into the crowd in El Paso.

Later

[kcmets]

Didn't mean to throw sand in your shorts.

Sooner

[MFS62]

Didn't mean to throw sand in your shorts.

Sooner

No offense taken, Case.
No blood, no foul.
I think this is another one of those times we are in violent agreement. :)
Your post gave me the opportunity to continue posting my thoughts.

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

Donald Trump is ill-suited to every aspect of his job, not least of all when he has to be "comforter-in-chief". He's about as incapable of empathy as it's possible to be.

[Lefty Specialist]

We are ruled by a severely damaged person. This is sick.



https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... photo.html

[A Boy Named Seo]

We are ruled by a severely damaged person. This is sick.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/201 ... photo.html

"That’s the president, grinning and giving a thumbs-up, as the orphaned child is held out like a trophy. If words weren’t inclined to fail, ghoulish and surreal might serve. This child has no parents because a shooter spouting Trumpist talking points about foreign “invaders” went to El Paso to kill them."

[Lefty Specialist]

I imagine the next move will be to load him in a catapult and fling him across the border.

[metsmarathon]

"fucked up" doesn't even come close to covering it, here.

what is the possibly positive spin that you could put on this fucking disgusting photo op? a fucking thumbs up? you're not standing in front of the fucking superbowl trophy with tom fucking brady. this is a tiny defenseless human, whose slightly larger defenseless human parents were slaughtered in your fucking name. and you stand there and smile and give a thumbs up?

maybe give a thumbs up when you sign the goddamned bill that takes AR-15s and similar semi-automatic rifles out of the hands of any yokel who wants one. maybe give a thumbs up when you realize that blaming mental health problems means that you should immediately offer free unlimited comprehensive mental health care to everyone in the fucking country, so as to not allow this to happen again, if you're so convinced that the problem isn't really, actually, the guns. maybe give a thumbs up when you stop acting like, and promoting, racist white supremacist, white nationalist filth. maybe give a thumbs up when you've gone a day without lying out of your asshole of a mouth about every single fucking thing, especially those lies that are demonstrably, provably, objectively false and utterly meaningless. maybe give a thumbs up when what you're doing to the country and our reputation doesn't look like what's left in the bowl of your golden throne after you're done disseminating your presidential missives to the twitter-hungry masses. maybe then. maybe.

but not now. fuck.

[Double Switch]

As grotesque as this seems, Newsweek has a different side of the story.

[Lefty Specialist]

Tito wanted to see if his reaction was genuine? Well, you got your f'n answer, Tito. His reaction was grotesque.

A real human being would have been moved to tears by this baby.

[whippoorwill]

I sometimes wish ‘Go Fund Me’ would die out

[Lefty Specialist]

Hey, it's back to school time again! Be sure to stock on the essentials!!!!

[Double Switch]

Hey, it's back to school time again! Be sure to stock on the essentials!!!!

Katy, Texas (because .... nothing surprises anymore).

[Ceetar]

I was pretty much already at the "round 'em up and destroy all the guns" stage, but today's adventure into this culture of mass fear has pretty much cemented that.

My daughter had an accident at kindergarten, and required some new clothes, specifically shoes, so I rushed home to get them and went to school, feeling for her, wanting to comfort her, etc. But all I got was speaking into a speaker to be let in, and then placing the stuff into a double glass door pass-through like it's a jail. She's at the nurse and nobody is allowed in the building. This is 2019 in America.

[kcmets]

A child that age should be able to see one of their parents when
they show up to help. Pure lunacy and likely more CYA on the district's
part than an actual security protocol/procedure/whatever.

[Ceetar]

give trump credit, hasn't been a school shooting in days.