Politics is Stupid

general
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If you’re in the U.S. and there’s anything you need or want to buy that will come from a different country, try to order it now. Not only will it be subject to a tariff that you pay despite Trump claiming the other country will pay it, but starting on August 29, 2025, it will be subject to a duty (tax) because he eliminated the “de minimus exception”. That’s where if you ship something worth less than $800, a duty isn’t placed on it.

He already did this for China and Hong Kong in May. Now it’s for all countries. The “Big Beautiful Bill” was going to get rid of it in July 2027, but Trump moved it up to this month.

Trump’s justification is this was being used for illegal activities, where the illegal items are slipped in with legal items in a bulk shipment. That’s likely to be true. But this is also a case where everyone is being affected whether or not what they are ordering is illegal.

The rates are as follows:

  • If the tariff for the country you’re ordering from is <16%, the duty is $80 per item.
  • If the country’s tariff is 16 to 25%, the duty is $160 per item.
  • If the country’s tariff is >25%, the duty is $200 per item.

The article linked to below says “Some of that cost could be passed down to consumers.” Assume most or all of it will be passed down to consumers, as there haven’t been any companies I know of that have said, “We’re going to eat 100% of the tariffs on what we’re importing and have lower profit margins so we don’t raise prices for our customers.”

In the article, it doesn’t give a definition of what “per item” means. Is it a single shipment? Is it every individual item inside a box that is shipped? It would have to be the first because otherwise, ordering any kind of small item like a box of pens would be unaffordable.

In related news, the courts are just now getting to the point where they will be taking a look at whether Trump imposing tariffs by whim and executive orders is even legal, since it’s Congress that does that. But since he was given full immunity by the Supreme Court last year for “official presidential acts”, will the courts rule he can do it anyway even if it is illegal? The Trump administration is already defying or ignoring a third of court orders issued to it since January, so what’s one more?

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Let’s play a game: “Spot the flaw”.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley has introduced a bill called the American Worker Rebate Act. Under that bill, checks will be sent to U.S. taxpayers for a minimum of $600 per adult and per child in a family. Simple math says two parents and two children get $2400. It could be a stimulus check like what was sent out during the COVID-19 pandemic, or could be a tariff rebate check. The latter is the most common way it’s being referred to in articles.

If you haven’t spotted the flaw, I’ll give you a hint, but you’ll have to de-blur it.

Dictionary.com says “rebate” is a noun and defines it as “a return of part of the original payment for some service or merchandise; partial refund.”

Still haven’t figured it out? Here’s another hint.

Donald Trump has repeatedly said that it’s the other country that pays the tariffs.

You should have gotten it by now, but if you haven’t, here’s the answer:

As per Donald Trump, people and companies in the U.S. have paid nothing for the tariffs he’s placing on everything that’s imported here. It’s all the other countries and companies doing the exporting to the U.S. that are paying them. Therefore, there is no original payment to return a part of to people in this country. You don’t pay anything due to a tariff according to Trump, so you get nothing coming back to you. That’s an awful lot of time and money to be spending creating millions of checks each with an amount of $0.00.

Edited to add the really big flaw that I forgot to put in last night: By calling it a rebate check for tariffs, it is an admission that people and companies in the U.S. really are the ones paying the tariffs, not the other country. That directly contradicts what Trump has been saying.

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I’m just happy everyone is now agreeing that taxing corporations and their owners is actually taxing people. Next time Democrats want to increase taxes on “the rich” we can just point at all the hours of tape they’ve been making about tariffs. Not to mention the “rich” people hammered hardest by corporate taxes are actually usually upper middle class or lower upper class, not the mega rich, who don’t actually make something as crass as actual money any more.

Also, the irony of Texas Democrats running to Illinois to stop gerrymandering is rich.

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3241

Oh, joy. Trump screwed up the way implementing tariffs would be done. Not only do we get a reciprocal tariff from him on the other country because they put a reciprocal tariff on the US because he put a tariff on them in the first place, the tariffs going in effect now are being added to the existing tariff instead of being a higher replacement for it.

For example, you like Kobe beef? The tariff that would have been 26.4% is now 41.4%

But don’t worry. The Trump administration has apologized for this “extremely regrettable” blunder and will get right on fixing it lickety-split. Just as soon as Trump gets back from his latest US taxpayer-paid golfing trip. He’s currently clocking about 33% of his days on the golf course, including flying to Scotland to open a second course there, complete with a gift shop with a very high amount of products made in China.

This is why you do not use A.I. to write national policy executive orders.

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In order to make Trump happy and to protect themselves in next year’s election, Republicans in Texas wanted to gerrymander five districts so they could all but guarantee those will vote for Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Texas Democrats left the state to prevent the vote under their quorum rules. They came back recently after arrest warrants were issued for them that couldn’t be enforced outside Texas. Waiting for them was effectively a continual police escort to make sure they didn’t leave again. They get escorted to where they will vote and escorted out again. At least one refused the escort and stayed all night in the chamber. The vote was held and it passed.

Over in California, Governor Newsom began working on countermeasures to redraw the boundaries of five CA districts to make it more likely they would vote for Democrats in races for the U.S. House. But he did it differently. Instead of doing it just because Trump said to, Newsome arranged for a special election this November to get approval from CA voters.

There’s been two effects of these efforts.

The first is the Texas Republicans just now realized that when they redrew the five district borders, they took Republican voters away from other districts. There are ten districts that had been leaning Republican which are now leaning Republican a bit less than before. In other words, Republicans went +5 on districts to guarantee those wins but will subtract up to 10 districts that have a better chance of voting for Democrats. They could end up losing a total of five U.S. House seats next year.

The second is a mailer was just sent out to CA voters, encouraging them to vote against the redistricting. It uses a quote from the League of Women Voters on the front, which implies the League supports this. The League issued a statement denying involvement.

On the back are a few other quotes by people and lists Charles T. Munger, Jr. as the top funder of the Hold Politicians Accountable Ad Committee. He donated $10 million. Munger is an architect of California’s independent redistricting commission, so he’s not new to the situation. Because this is a ballot initiative instead of a candidate race, limits on donations don’t apply.

The mailer also has a link to the CA Fair Political Practices Commission, right below the statement saying Munger was the top donor. Specifically “Ad paid for by Protect Voters First, sponsored by Hold Politicians Accountable Ad Committee’s Top Funder”. The placement of the FPPC website address on the line below it implies the FPPC may have been a part of creating or distributing the mailer. The FPPC has posted a statement on their website denying any involvement and points out that’s not what they do.

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All of the discussion here about tariffs have been centered around the fallacies of Trump’s statements about them. He has repeatedly said it’s the other country that pays the tariffs, and yet, companies like Apple, GM and Walmart have released info about how much they expect to lose on what they import due to the tariffs. That’s accompanied by admitting they have to pass the cost onto U.S. consumers. It’s a contradiction of what Trump says, backed up by data and reality.

There’s another statement by Trump that I only heard him say one time: other countries should pay for the privilege of selling to the U.S. If that’s what a tariff did, then that would match what Trump has been saying they do. But if the other countries are paying the U.S. so they can sell products to the U.S., why is Apple, et al, losing money?

There’s another statement that I’ve heard Trump say only one time when asked about tariffs: “They won’t cost Americans anything.” I’ve referenced that many times. I’ve seen a few things recently that have been costs to Americans that aren’t about money they’ve had to pay. Instead, they have been costs about money they won’t get.
 

Green Grocer is a produce supplier to grocery stores in Canada. There was an interview recently with them where they talked about when Trump started imposing tariffs, they began reducing how much of the groceries they sold came from the U.S. They got it down to 28%. Then they said, since we got it down that low, can we go further? They did, and now they sell zero U.S. produce. They shifted those purchases to other countries.

Result: Trump’s tariffs cost Americans these exports. It will be much harder in the future to win back the trust of companies like Green Grocer. It will be even harder if the tariffs stay in place in the years and decades to come.
 

Earlier this week, eight countries suspended almost all postal shipments to the U.S.: India, France, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy and the UK. A few days later, the number jumped to 32.

It’s because of a lack of clarity about Trump’s tariffs and because he ended the de minimum exemption. There’s questions about who will collect the duty and who it will be sent to. If it’s a letter or package worth less than $100, it will won’t have a duty placed on it and it will still be sent.

Result: Trump’s tariffs will now cost Americans in at least three new ways.

  1. Even if they’re willing to pay the tariff that Trump says the other countries pays, they may not be able to get their order anyway.
  2. They may have to break up their order into smaller orders to avoid having duties placed on them, which will increase their shipping costs and increase delivery times.
  3. The de minimus exemption ends in three days. How many more countries will join the club, resulting in Americans ordering items from overseas having to spend more time searching for alternate countries to order from that didn’t join the club?
     

Tourism in the U.S. is one of the largest industries we “import”. It’s an industry that stays put inside the country, but relies on people from other countries coming here to be a part of it.

Education is another large “importer”. Students from other countries come here, pay to go to universities and institutions in the U.S., pay for housing, groceries, etc.

Trump have been very strongly anti-foreigner. At the core of the many things he’s said over the years is they are the cause of all of the USA’s problems, so if we get rid of them, everything will be great again.

He doesn’t want them in the U.S. if they’re already here. This has taken the form of deportations, which were only supposed to be for the really bad criminals, but quickly became anyone could be deported. Visas for students that came from another country have been revoked, making it more likely they could be deported. This has led to statements by universities and institutions of “Don’t travel to a different country because you may not be let back in.”

He doesn’t want them coming into the U.S., unless they have about $2 million to spend on a new “we like you because you’re rich” certification, or are willing to pay a new $250 fee to get a Visa, or are willing to put up a bond of around $1500 to enter the country, which they will get back after they leave. Like that will never get “lost” and be unable to be returned to them.

Result #1: Trump’s policies make it a lot riskier to travel to the U.S. These policies also make it more expensive to come to the U.S. Trump’s tariffs have made it more expensive to buy things in the U.S., no matter how much he says it’s the other country that pays them.

Result #2 resulting from Result #1: Fewer people are coming here. Towns on the US-Canada border have really been hit. Las Vegas has really been hit hard. That’s leading people in other countries to ask why they should bother coming here when it will be less hassle and less expensive to go somewhere else.

Result #3 resulting from 2, which resulted from 1: The 2028 Olympics will be in Los Angeles. It is very expensive to host it. The city that wins the bid has to spend a lot of money to get ready for it, often building new venues for the events. It can put a big strain on their finances if it doesn’t go well. It’s so expensive that the International Olympic Committee has been criticized for basically forcing the cities to do this for the privilege of hosting it.

If tourism in the U.S. is already down after just a few months of Trump’s tariffs and policies, what is it going to be like three years from now? Will it only be very rich people from other countries that come here because they can afford the higher costs to get here, the higher costs while being here, and the additional safe passage costs?

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Towns on the US-Canada border have really been hit. Las Vegas has really been hit hard.

One of the biggest things the current administration’s tariffs and rhetoric against Canada has done is unite a lot of people on disparate points of the political spectrum against the U.S. I literally cannot stand our current Premier (he’s theoretically at the opposite end of the political spectrum to me) but I am fully on board with his stance towards the U.S. and how he is dealing with the tariff situation; something I never thought I’d say.

As far as produce (and other groceries for that matter) is concerned, there’s a big “buy anything but U.S.” movement up here. I know I’ve made myself much more aware of what I buy and where it comes from than before, and have definitely cut down on U.S.-based products. And companies are taking that to advertising as well. A lot of the ads for groceries, restaurants, etc., that I see these days are pointing out “we’re Canadian”, either by directly stating it, or by using humour to get the point across (one of the sub chains up here - can’t remember which - is offering 15.91cm subs).

Travel is another place Canadians are uniting. Many are making the deliberate choice not to visit the U.S., either because they are concerned about being stopped at the border, having their phones confiscated, etc., or simply because they don’t want their money going to the U.S. Mr. TM and I are in that group. There’s a bunch of places we’d like to go in the U.S., but not while the current administration is in place, and maybe not for a number of years after that. The U.S. has lost us probably for the next 10 years or so.

We did our big trip this year to Europe - and something interesting; we didn’t get asked our nationality nearly as much as we had in the past and, when we were, you could see a change in attitude when we said we were Canadian. Next year will probably be spent exploring our own country, something we haven’t done nearly enough. 2027 maybe - hopefully - Portugal. We’d love to do more cruising, but Mr. TM doesn’t even want to fly into and out of a U.S. port to board the ship.

All in all, I don’t think that some people (not all, but a significant number) realise just how much irreparable harm the current administration has done to the Canada/U.S. relationship; not at the political level, but at a grassroots individual level, which is even worse.

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I wouldn’t visit the US either if I were you. When this nightmare is over there needs to be a reckoning. Nuremburg style.

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So, corporate taxes and taxes on Billionaires are paid by them, but tariffs are paid by the consumer….

Interesting take. One would think that they would both have the same affect. I would assume since Trump was a Democrat for most of his life he’s just extending the logic he grew up with to another form of taxation. Taxing the rich, and the other, is good. Also, good way to make owning the means of production more painful and stick it to China and Russia, or something.

Nuremburg style? For tariffs, deportations, and patrolling the street. You’ll notice that the camps full of kids aren’t full any more. And that human trafficking is down, and illegal border crossings are down. Sure, apparently after decades of never deporting the wrong person to the wrong place (Believe that and I have a bridge to sell you) the press has a hard on for finding the errors. Hell, right after 9/11 these are the same idiots that were deporting Canadians from Maine to the Middle East. Or decades of shooting up dogs because they felt like it. Or shoot old men in their driveways, or dropping flash bangs in cribs. Or just sniping families and firebombing compounds. But it only matters when its it’s certain people doing it and only when done to certain people. Reform now, but not when we are in power, just when they are.

I think the tariff war is stupid in most cases, and I think the President acting unilaterally on them is unlawful, at least as I understand it. I would prefer if he kept his damn mouth shut most of the time.

As for deportations, good. I know multiple people that have immigrated legally and they make me look like a bleeding heart liberal on this. Most of the cases I have seen are people who broke the law; after illegally immigrating in the first place, missed hearings, were given multiple dispensations, or expressed opinions against the US as a country. They are allowed to not like the US, but I think it’s cultural suicide to welcome people who hate the US. We are a melting pot, not a layer cake, as people move here they change their culture and change the one here as well, and some change isn’t worth importing. 400+ workers at Hyundai arrested, if this is like the meat packing plant then they were using stolen SSNs and severely screwing up people’s lives that had nothing to do with this. Everify is apparently a joke. Enough to cover the company from wrongdoing, but apparently not enough to actually stop the crime.

Some people are being deported mistakenly, because there is no recourse against an officer attempting to maybe possibly do the right thing this has always happened and sucks. This needs to be fixed. However, since you are dealing with a population that is already using fake IDs and documentation to exist I don’t think it’s a simple proposition. I would like to see quicker and more accurate vetting. But, that’s something I have always been in favor of.

As for other countries reacting to how Trump has spoken of them, I do wish he would shut up, but frankly most of the world has talked shit about the US for decades. I’d be pissed about apparently randomly talk about annexing my country too. And the tariffs are what they are, interesting how much I’ve learned about how much other nations tax our goods though.

On a related note, I read that big pharma is going to stop selling drugs under cost overseas. This could do more to reduce the cost of drugs in the US than most things done lately.

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So the Hyundai raid was 300 South Korean nationals who all had their paperwork wrong. Somehow every one of them had “minor” paperwork issues…. Apparently most in country on tourist visas and B-1 and B-2 visas.

So, someone managed to get a whole crew to the US legally, but not legal to work, and then put them to work building the plant. A company somewhere is going to get the ever living shit fined out of them.

I do wonder who the other 175 foreign nationals are.

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Hot Take, drugs shouldn’t be advertised like freaking chewing gum on TV.

What a weird way that link is showing up. Anyway, Trump signed a memorandum to remind drug companies they have to follow advertising laws.

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Quote of the day on the new Banksy.

Just so people don’t get the false impression that the government does censor critics, the government has censored the critical artwork that highlighted how the government censors critics.

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Just in case it’s needed, this post is about a recent shooting, so skip reading it if it might affect you more than average.
 

Four days ago, there was a shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado. It is among the latest incidents of what has become all too common. I got a reminder of how common it is while at a school recently during work and was looking at the design cut into 8 foot tall metal plates that turned the gates into shields. While there were critical injuries to some students at Evergreen, the only death was the shooter, who killed himself after he couldn’t get away fast enough.

You may not have heard about that because there was a famous person who was also killed that day. Charlie Kirk was the co-founder of Turning Point USA. He was speaking at a TPUSA public debate at Utah Valley University and was shot by a person who was located in a nearby building.

Conservatives and Republicans immediately knew what kind of person would have done it.

U.S. Representative Nancy Mace from South Caroline knew it was “some raging leftist lunatic” and told the reporters, “Democrats own this”. One reporter asked if that meant Republicans had to own the killing of the two Democrat politicians a few months ago. She was incensed. She’s talking about Charlie Kirk, right here, right now and don’t you dare try to distract from that. She also said at a different point, “It sounds like the shooter was some kind of tranny, pro tranny.” She phrases it as they might be that, but it’s clear she knows they are that.

Trump said the shooter would be from the radical left, because that’s his go-to for any problem of any kind, along with fake news, witch hunts, hoaxes, being persecuted, being persecuted so everyone else won’t be persecuted, etc. Speculation ensued. Was the shooter some kind of operative? Were they a professional killer? An agent of organized political violence? Are they part of an elaborate conspiracy involving the catch-all boogieman of antifa? Maybe it was “Kirk’s rivals in the MAGA sphere”? I didn’t know things were so bad in the MAGA sphere that Kirk might have had rivals that hated him that much.

Trump Jr goes into a hate-filled anti-transgender rant, saying, “name a mass shooting, uh, in the last year or two in America that wasn’t committed” by one who’s a lunatic and “has been pumped up on probably hormones since they were three”. Junior, given the number of times you’ve been on camera and had a jittery, frenetic appearance about you, accompanied by extremely rapid talking, it’s more likely you might be pumped up on something a little stronger than caffeine, rather than who you’re certain you know is the killer.
 

Then there was the inaccurate law enforcement bulletin originating with the AFT about what was found written on the recovered bullet casings. The engravings supposedly were “transgender and anti-fascist ideology”, which inferred the killer was connected to the LGBTQ+ community in some way. So of course, knowing exactly what kind of person the killer would be shifted in that direction. Later, it’s revealed that some of the “engravings” were the bullet manufacturer’s identification marks. So the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives suddenly doesn’t know how to identify who made a bullet? Actually, they might not since the head of the field office in Utah was fired a few weeks earlier and she was a very skilled and experienced person. She just had the bad luck of being a Pakistani and she was no longer a “good fit” for the office.

FBI director Kash Patel makes an official statement on Twitter: We got the guy!. A few hours later: The guy has been released after an investigation. Then he said later on: We got the guy this time! A few hours later: Not him, he’s been released.

Finally, the guy that actually committed the murder is in custody. Before I give the details about what kind of person the shooter is, here’s what Utah Governor Spencer Cox, Republican, said about what he hoped that person would be at the press conference about the suspect being in custody:

“You know, this, bad stuff happens. And for, for 33 hours, I was praying that, uh, that, um, if this had to happen here, that it wouldn’t be one of us. That somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country. Sadly, that, that, that prayer was not answered the way I had hoped for. Just because I thought it would make it easier on us if we could just say, ‘Hey, we don’t do that here.’”

He then went on to describe some of the positive things the state of Utah has done. Behind him, Kash Patel is standing there, looking uneasy. In another video of the press conference, Patel is rapidly looking left and right, even more nervous and uneasy. He’d got it wrong twice. Very wrong.

Take a second and re-read Cox’s statement: He prayed the killer “wouldn’t be one of us.” He wanted them to be from somewhere outside of Utah, maybe from somewhere outside of the U.S. Because Americans shouldn’t do this to Americans, and especially not Utahns doing it to Utahns. Where have Republicans repeatedly been pushing as the source of all our problems? People from other countries.
 

So who did the killer turn out to be? One of their own.

After enough pictures and video were available and made public, the family of Tyler James Robinson began asking if that was him. He said it was. He’d also been asked by friends on Discord, but joked about a doppleganger trying to frame him, maybe the group can give him a cut of the FBI reward money if they were to turn him in, and pretended to be Kirk by saying he’d faked his own death to retire from political activism.

The information about how Robinson entered custody varies. One place says he turned himself in. Another (The Atlantic) says the parents called their pastor, who is also a court security officer with the U.S. Marshals Service, who then contacted a deputy marshal, who then came to the family home, then contacted federal law enforcement.

Whichever way it was, it wasn’t the FBI that found him and apprehended him. Kash Patel had a very high profile case dropped in his lap, and the agency he leads didn’t close the deal, even after Patel twice saying they had.

Despite what Governor Cox prayed it would be, the killer did turn out to be “one of us”. A white 22-year-old male, born and raised in a religious and conservative family that lives in Utah. He was registered to vote, but not for any specific party, and hadn’t voted yet.

The reaction has changed direction so suddenly it will give you whiplash. Remember the ones who were ready to flay the killer alive, who they knew for certain what evil group he was a part of? They’re now advocating prayer and compassion for the killer.

The narrative is also shifting to someone that is supposedly a roommate of Robinson that is supposedly cooperating with the FBI, even though Robinson was living at home with his parents, and that other someone once used a filter on a video two years ago to make him look like a female anime character, so that obviously means he’s transgender and he’s actually the reason why Kirk was killed, not Robinson.
 

Yet another example of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance allowing people who know they’re right to twist things around so they can keep being right and to keep having a reason to hate others.

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They absolutely shouldn’t.

”Ask your doctor about $Drug.”

I will not. Because you didn’t even tell me what it’s for (about half the time).

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Not allowed up here. It’s hilarious when I see pharma ads when I’m in the US or at a hotel with US channels - the highspeed “side effects may include…” cracks me up every time.

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It didn’t used to be allowed here, but they opened it up a little and now it’s the biggest ad buy in the US. My doctors all hate it. For the one person that ends up in better care there are hundreds asking for stupid drugs they don’t need who then doctor shop until they find someone to give it to them.

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Disproven. To begin with TRN doesn’t make 30.06 which is what was supposed to have been shot with. Also there actually are engravings, everything from Helldivers II commands to Italian anti-facsist songs. I would say that the ATF/FBI does know the difference between a manufacturing stamp and an engraving.

There are apparently people on the alt-right and farther out there that believed Moderate Kirk was actually Leftist Plant Kirk. Not commenting on motives until and if it’s determined why he did this.

Here is my real issue. Certain people have been describing their opponents as Nazis and Fascists, without even knowing what that person actually believes beyond 1 or 2 line snippets from hours long conversations. And the US has been saying for ages that that what you do with Nazis is punch them in the face, killing fascists is good. Then, when someone who is often described as a Nazi Fascist is shot and killed during a peaceful debate some are so eager to blood dance in his “justified” murder, of course you get shot and killed if you are spewing hate, of course such a horrible person should be dead. All over X, Facebook, Bluesky (The place everyone went to get away from toxic X appears to be a horror show), people talking about conversations with real people advocating for his death being a good thing….. yet, his stance on most things is closer to more than half the countries stance on most things. He never raised his voice in anger, and several times he admitted when he was wrong or changed his stance on something. Most of where he was coming from would fit in a sermon in 90% of Christian churches. Much along the lines of hate the sin, not the sinner. Not, “stoning gays”, fucking Stephen King.

So, after these people post all this poisonous shit a lot of moderates and run of the mill conservatives are realizing that their personal views are worth killing them for for a not insignificant percentage of the population. Thoughts like, “I don’t like that thing you are doing”, or DEI makes me doubt the competence of anyone that is promoted using that process, illegal immigration is a crime.

I give a shit about politicians trying to pin this on each other, I care about rank and file leftists cheering when someone dies, just because they disagree with who they think he is. Normal people celebrating someone dying, not extremists. You’ll always find someone pulling that shit, just like there are people who supported Hitler, or Mao, or Pol Pot, but normal assed people. Even leftists that expressed sadness or regret had to preface it with “Well, I wasn’t a fan, but”, or “He advocated violence, so it’s unfortunate, but predictable” no, it’s not. Al Sharpton has called for more violence than CK did, or Nancy Pelosi, or any number of celebrities.

Now that they killed the reasonable “let’s talk” guy, who is stepping up? Fucking Milo? Good lord, reasonable just went the hell out the window. And now we’re all in a mess.

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My secret plan to get people to participate continues to be a success by occasionally getting things wrong.
 

I think I’m seeing this way too often, but most likely it’s skewed by the extremes people have gone to in their views and beliefs. Where someone that used to be “one of us” becomes “one of them” because they won’t also advocate those same extreme views and beliefs.

Being willing to admin if you’re wrong on something and being willing to change your views and beliefs is what I think each of us should strive for. Not enough do.

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And I have seen multiple videos where CK changed his mind, or at least modified his stance on a subject because the person he was talking to gave him a data point, or an argument that swayed his opinion. But, someone, who uncountable numbers of people have celebrated, decided that he was a Fascist and killed him.

So now, we get more of Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens (Someone I used to like who has totally jumped the shark), and ::shudder:: Milo. Since being outgoing and engaging in polite discussion didn’t work, the attack dogs are loose in the pen. They’ll match energy with Obama, Pelosi, Kimmel, The View, and everyone else like them and it will just be a bunch of chimps throwing shit at each other until more people are killed for being “Nazis”… as if the word has any real meaning beyond “someone I think it should be legal to kill”.

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In 2024 the US Department of Justice published a study from the National Institute of Justice that studied acts of political violence.

That study had been in place for over a year, until it was quietly removed last week. Why was it removed? Only the DoJ can answer for sure, but the obvious answer is that the statistics didn’t fit the current narrative.

Since 1990, far right extremists have committed far more political violence than far left extremists, including 227 events that took 520 lives. In that same time period, far left extremists have committed 42 acts that took 78 lives.

I shouldn’t need to say this, but I probably do. BOTH ARE WRONG!

But the current narrative that leftists are responsible for all the violence? Bullshit!

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