US Politics: I Don't Like Mondays

[DireWolfSpirit]

We had lawn darts (and croquet) at grandmother's place. No supervision at all, I think the hope was fewer of the kids might make it back indoors.

[Toth]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Funny part is I was born in 88 and I only know about lawn darts because of Me, Myself and Irene. 

7 hours ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Ha. I was born in 91. I only know about them because of Jeff Foxworthy. “You could kill an elk with a lawn dart”

I was born in 93 and only know them from a joke in The Venture Bros.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

We had lawn darts (and croquet) at grandmother's place. No supervision at all, I think the hope was fewer of the kids might make it back indoors.

What the fuck is wrong with you to link an incredible game such as croquet with these murderous lawn darts?!?!? My family has a couple huge matches each year and if you try and stop us we'll have to protect our rights with these clunky mallets!!!

[Week]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What the fuck is wrong with you to link an incredible game such as croquet with these murderous lawn darts?!?!? My family has a couple huge matches each year and if you try and stop us we'll have to protect our rights with these clunky mallets!!!

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Week said:

 

 

[LongRider]

Oppsie, busted.5 Michigan GOP candidates for governor disqualified from ballot after board deadlocks.

 

Quote

Paul Egan, Detroit Free Press

Thu, May 26, 2022, 3:44 PM·7 min read

LANSING – A state elections panel on Thursday deadlocked 2-2 on whether five Republican candidates for governor should be barred from the August primary ballot because they each submitted too many fraudulent signatures, and an official said the effect of the vote is to disqualify the candidates.

The two Republican members — Chairman Norman Shinkle and Tony Daunt — wanted to put the candidates on the ballot. The two Democrats — Vice Chair Mary Ellen Gurewitz and Jeannette Bradshaw — did not.

The effect of the deadlock is that none of the five candidates will be on the ballot, said State Elections Director Jonathan Brater.

 

[Zorral]

21 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

The NRA convention forbids guns within the event itself, doesn't it? Almost as if they believe that guns are dangerous or something.

The orange shoggoth forbids not only guns, but laser pointers and much else, and has a massive security detail all around him at all times, not only at this Con, but whenever he goes out in public.  I didn't know that -- until reading it on CNN today.

But of course the Murdoch slime of Noose are all vaccinated, but tell their viewers not to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It looks like some of the school's survivors survived due to their drills, both teachers and kids.

.... “He feels that his friends and his classmates, at that moment, were being very brave even as they were so scared,” Ruiz said. “He kept saying, ‘We did good, Mom. We did good. We stayed quiet.’ ” ....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/27/uvalde-school-student-survival/

 

Heartbreaking.

 

[Corvinus85]

Wow, even Hollywood's biggest MAGAT, Jon Voight, has come out in favor of better gun control.

[Zorral]

Makin' the rounds in email and other media across the country:

We hate Ted Cruz at first sight because it saves us time.

 

[Zorral]

Lockdown drills in Uvalde Robb Elementary were useful.

https://www.vox.com/23144105/lockdown-drills-active-shooter-uvalde-robb-texas

Quote

.... These experiences suggest the lockdown drills really did help students and staff respond effectively. Evidence so far suggests children and educators in Uvalde followed their lockdown training well, and it was local police who failed to follow protocol. For now, most experts say if we’re stuck living in a society where school shootings are threats communities must deal with, then schools should plan for drills but be more conscious of how they’re executed, and take steps to mitigate needless harm. ....

However!  

Quote

 

.... Schildkraut’s findings indicate that staff and students who participate in lockdown drills feel more prepared and more empowered for an emergency. The trade-off, she found, is that students also felt less safe in school — potentially as a result of having to think about the risk they might one day face.

Some critics have said it’s not necessary to subject young students to the drills when they could just listen to their teachers’ instructions in the event of an emergency. A common comparison is flying on an airplane; passengers are directed on where to turn for information if there is a crisis, but they are not required to practice the emergency protocols before their flight takes off.

Schildkraut said a difference is that teachers are often the first people to be killed in a school shooting. “You can’t remove the only people with the information and then expect anyone else to do it,” she told me. “Everyone has to have the tools to stay safe in the moment.” ....

 

If I were parenting a school age child, I would prefer the kids had experienced the drills.  Though maybe not pre-schoolers?  Each parent has to decide for their own little kids.

Of course what would be most useful is a serious, caring mental health system with adequate funding, social media cracking down on hate, and getting rid of such much easy acquisition and access to so many so deadly weapons, that even a little kid can handle.

I, however, shall not hold my breath on that.

[A True Kaniggit]

21 minutes ago, Zorral said:

 

If I were parenting a school age child, I would prefer the kids had experienced the drills.  Though maybe not pre-schoolers?  Each parent has to decide for their own little kids.

Ummmm. Isn’t this the argument the right constantly uses in its push for ignorance in the classroom?

[Zorral]

29 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

this the argument the right constantly uses in its push for ignorance in the classroom

Not anymore, it looks like. Parents aren't allowed in some states now -- it's criminalized even -- for parents to support and assist their children with transitioning or other gender choices and decisions.  And lordessa save us if the schools or teachers do that -- or even, I guess, try to prevent bullying of a kid for not exhibiting the 'proper' gender behaviors.

Still, if I were a parent I'd want to look carefully at what my kids' school lockdown drills consisted of before giving permission for my kids to participate, I'd think. Because clearly some of them are dreadful -- just like the fools that run so many corporations' HR sensitivity etc. programs.

 

[Zorral]

But They have the world They want -- the Haitian model which has been running that country for the last year and a half -- crazy 18 year olds roaming all the communities, armed to the teeth, keeping everyone quiet and intimidated.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 5/27/2022 at 12:24 PM, Zorral said:

Further, in that same small report, one of the members of the Uvalde community said, "Something has to be done.  Something.  Why don't they do something?"  But it concludes, when considering the only thing that actually will stop this, making guns so available to anyone, he shook his head and said, essentially, we can't have the government take our guns away.  We need them.  

And we need to not let people like this decide these kinds of things.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 5/27/2022 at 1:18 PM, LongRider said:

About Texas:  

From this twitter thread, from a resident of Uvalde:

 

Very sad, and not surprising. Cops are the textbook definition of systemic oppression. Doesn't matter what race, ethnicity, gender they are--they perpetuate the white supremacist roots of U.S. culture.

Those Twitter posts are really sad--a cry for help from people feeling held hostage by a psychotic minority.

[Zorral]

Wanna read something weird?  Try this book excerpt - even Goldwater gets pulled into it.

The Plot to Out Ronald Reagan
A group of Republicans tried to stymie what they alleged was a nefarious homosexual network within the campaign of their own party’s standard-bearer. More than 40 years later, the story can finally be told.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/05/27/gay-history-paranoia-conspiracy-reagan-kirchick-excerpt-00035193

 

[Mindwalker]

I like the Anthony Davis weekend show on Sundays. Davis is a journalist originally from the UK. Here he talks to an economist about American media, American exceptionalism, the Eurovision Song Contest, and the collapse of American society:

 

[Zorral]

Recall how above I mentioned that part of the fascist take-over objective is to have our communities overrun by gangs of gun crazy 18 year olds as in Haiti?

The company that made the gun used in the shooting ran ads that were likely to appeal to teenagers.
Gun in Texas Shooting Came From Company Known for Pushing Boundaries

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/business/daniel-defense-rifle-texas-shooting-gun.html

Quote

 

After one of its military-style rifles was used in the Texas elementary school shooting on Tuesday, the gun manufacturer Daniel Defense published a pop-up statement on its home page sending “thoughts and prayers” to the community of Uvalde, Texas, and pledging to cooperate with the authorities.

When the pop-up disappeared, a different message took center stage: a promotion, adorned with gold-encased bullets, for a sweepstakes to win $15,000 worth of guns or ammunition.

The Texas shooting, which left 19 schoolchildren and two teachers dead and more than a dozen wounded, has put a national spotlight on Daniel Defense, a family-owned business in Georgia that has emerged as a trailblazer in an aggressive, boundary-pushing style of weapons marketing and sales.

Some of its advertisements invoke popular video games like “Call of Duty” and feature “Star Wars” characters and Santa Claus, messages that are likely to appeal to teenagers. The company was an early adopter of a direct-to-consumer business model that aimed to make buying military gear as simple as ordering from Amazon, enticing customers with “adventure now, pay later” installment plans that make expensive weaponry more affordable.

And the company’s founder and chief executive, Marty Daniel, has fashioned himself as a provocateur who ridicules gun control proposals and uses publicity stunts to drum up sales. ....

 

In the meantime the White House is so terrified to be heard speaking for gun control not a single one of them, starting with Biden, would accept an invitation to go on a Sunday AM talk program and talk about it.

[DMC]

7 hours ago, Zorral said:

Wanna read something weird?  Try this book excerpt - even Goldwater gets pulled into it.

The Plot to Out Ronald Reagan

Interesting read.  The paranoia of many described would be ridiculous and funny if it wasn't so sad.  Interesting that Woodward refused to speak to the author about it.  I think this was my favorite quote:

Quote

Best told Armstrong that he had informed a few other Republican activist types about these incidents and was confounded by their nonchalance. “Big deal,” he said was the reaction of Egil “Bud” Krogh, head of the Nixon Plumbers unit. “There were lots of gays in the Nixon administration too.”

 

[Fragile Bird]

7 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

I like the Anthony Davis weekend show on Sundays. Davis is a journalist originally from the UK. Here he talks to an economist about American media, American exceptionalism, the Eurovision Song Contest, and the collapse of American society:

 

This was fascinating! Thank-you for posting it. As a side comment, it was really interesting to hear Haque say the reason he’s the person he is today is because he failed to get into one of the top universities in the US and went to Canada instead, where he got his mind blown away by the differences between our two nations.