539 Comments
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Jul 14
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I dont know how old you are, but it's going on 30 years since Tim McVeigh blew up the federal building in OKC killing 168 people, including 19 children. That was blamed on overheated political rhetoric too, and IMO it was not really fair to do so. IMO, we should hold back for now until we have more solid information about who this shooter was and what his motivations might be. I doubt he's a "lone nut" but he could be someone very far off the deep end, dedicated to some fringe cause as Sirhan Sirhan was or the guy who shot the Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn.

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Jon refuses to see the skull- fuckingly obvious. Must be a day ending in "Y."

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OK, and Gabby Giffords was shot because of Sarah Palin's campaign ad that put bulls-eyes on Democratic candidates.

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Jul 13
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seek professional help

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Aw, i'm sorry I missed the show.

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Jul 13
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Went to Vigil, had no idea. About to do evening prayer!

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Same with me -- vigil Mass. Prayers continue...

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Good idea. Meant to go to confession Thurs evening for the first time in years, but was exhausted after looking after my wonderful and much-loived father in his final days. He died peacefully on Monday afternoon in his home. Still have to care for my mother, happily. I'll go next week to prepare for his funeral. Dad was an old-school newspaperman of the "Front Page" style that Rod spoke of. I wonder what he'd make of all this.

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I just said a prayer for you.

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I join Laura M in prayers for you, your dear father, and your mother, Haligonian. I think caring for your parents brought you all the mercy and forgiveness you'd have received in confession. You are exactly where God wants you to be, doing exactly what he wants you to do. Trust that he will give you the strength to keep doing it, and be at peace.

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Prayers for you, your Mom, and your Dad.

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Jul 13Edited
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Of course there is no place for this kind of violence, and there is no place for racism in daily discourse, and there is no place for bullying in school... but we live in a world where some fraction of people will try any or all of the above. So we have to deal with that, instead of pronouncing that its unacceptable. Prevention, and apprehension, although in this case, it seems the perp is dead.

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Yes, but the SS was lax in not preventing the shooter from climbing onto a roof 400 ft from former Pres. Trump's podium. AND SS and other LE lax in responding to those at the rally who saw the shooter climb onto the barn roof and alerted them to the danger.

Inexcusable.

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Yes, they caught him with a bullet. I'm actually all in favor of dead assassins.

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Praying now

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It's all coming apart.

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Not necessarily, not any more than previous such attempts. It could be another apolitical nut job, like the Giffords shooter.

UPDATE: the speculation now is that the shots came from outside the security perimeter. That would mean a shooter with more skill than a nut job likely would have, unless like Oswald they had military training.

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Bbc just interviewed a guy who said he was telling the police & secret service ignored him telling them a guy was crawling up on a roof with a rifle

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Honestly, I've been a little surprised that the political assassination phase hadn't shown up sooner. Maybe video games and pornography kept men too busy. But now it has arrived, so I guess we'll see what's next.

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I'm seeing a similar report, that the shooter was on a roof outside. The shooter wasn't a crack shot as he barely grazed Trump but killed another person. Oswald scored a direct hit on JFK,. though wounded the governor of Texas too.

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Two direct hits, first JFK's neck (which passed through and hit the governor) then his head. The middle shot missed the car entirely and went into the asphalt.

A fellow parishioner and retired FBI agent told me that the U.S. military built a moving replica of the street in Dallas. It used a carwash type mechanism to move a limo with dummies. One hundred servicemen with rifle experience were picked at random, put in the tower that simulated Oswald's window, and told to kill the simulated president. Ninety-four succeeded.

That parishioner BTW had just joined the FBI in November 1963 and was stationed in New Orleans. Practically his first assignment was to go through the entire public library collection there to find any books that had been checked out by Oswald when he lived there. He found four: two novels of political assassination and two nonfiction on sharpshooting.

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When the presidential motorcade made a sharp right turn from Main to Houston Street, placing the Lincoln directly in front of the Texas School Book Depository building, whoever was on the 6th floor had a clear, unobstructed shot of the president. Why would the gunman wait until the Lincoln made a 90-degree left turn onto Elm, gathering speed as it passed beneath the tree canopy before firing off the shots?

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Oswald was nervous. Wouldn't you be?

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Yes, PBS did a computer simulation of his actions. He took the second shot, the one that missed the limo, too fast.

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A Dallas cop who rushed into the Depository, gun drawn, moments after Kennedy was hit, found Oswald in the 2nd floor lunch room drinking Coke.

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Don't know all the details, but my friend told me it was a close replica of the scene. Ninety-four kills are still 94 kills.

Also, don't believe everything you have read about that day. My uncle was on Air Force One that day as flight engineer, and I know from his own words that many popular accounts are erroneous.

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That is some information. Is this known to anyone else? If not, why not? It should be a news story at the very least.

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Couldn't tell you. Perhaps it is buried in the Warren Commission report? As briefly worded footnotes? I suppose an intrepid reporter could make a FOI request. I fully believe my friend, he was an honest and upstanding man.

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Two hundred yards. It was actually pretty good shooting. An inch further into Trump's skull might have killed him.

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Possibly for the first shot, yes. But it appears he had problems with follow up: as they say after the first he just "sprayed and prayed."

Trump had just turned his head, actually giving the shooter a better target had he been aiming for a few moments. My guess is the shooter followed the turn of the head and over-compensated.

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People were yelling at the Secret Service that there was somebody on the roof. It's possible the shooter felt rushed, because he believed he was about to be shot.

The Secret Service guys who jumped all over Trump seem to have done their job well, as well as the counter sniper shooters who shot the attempted assassin. The failure to secure an obvious vantage point for a shooter is going to cause some serious recriminations.

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Yes, it appears the Trump security detail was smaller than they wanted to be. Reports are they requested more assets but were denied.

The people yelling were too far away to be heard. They were pointing, and the counter-fire team saw them pointing, but the shooter was on the other side of the crest of the roof; the counter fire team could not see him until he raised his head over the crest.

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LOL, right Oswald had a direct hit, smh.

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Sgt. Hartman was impressed.

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Read Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History."

I was eleven that day.

You don't know what you're talking about.

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the shooter was 130+ yards away with a clear sightline. the question is how did the shooter get on that roof and why weren't the SS on that roof to begin with

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Well, they can't be on every roof. Moreover, the Secret Service NEVER excludes local law enforcement as a possible threat, so they can't be used as fillers or substitutes.

From the photos I've seen it appears that the shooter kept a low profile on that roof.

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when you look at a map of the venue the SS should have been on that roof

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Do you have a link to the map with the location of the shooter pinpointed? I've looked on all major media that doesn't use paywalls and found nada.

I can assure you that if there were 10 nearby rooftops the Secret Service counter fire team - or any of their other agents - can't possibly put two agents on each roof and still be near the VIP.

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here you go, scroll down and you'll see 2 aerial views. the second one shows the location of the shooter , the SS and Trump

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/07/report-secret-service-agents-were-standing-rooftop-near/

as for how many rooftops the SS puts agents on , you put them on strategic rooftops not on every rooftop

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streamfare.com/foxnews

Good information, such as the map, shown and discussed continually.

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Can't they be on every roof with a line of fire to the person they are protecting? Can't they at least have eyes on every roof, so they can get the target under cover more quickly?

Years ago, my wife worked in Washington, D.C., and her firm had rooftop access with a view of the path of inaugural parade. We watched the new President walk by, and there was a Secret Service agent on that rooftop balcony.

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As I posted in my last reply to you, there are reports (see Steve Skojec's Substack) that Trump's security detail was understaffed and their requests for more assets was denied.

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It is tragic for the bystanders who were killed and wounded, but I strongly suspect that Trump's security team just got bigger.

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Most current thinking (1am Eastern Time): 130 yards is not a difficult shot for a marksman according to the advanced security person I just saw interviewed. The head turn timing was amazing. - It seems likely there were not enough SS. Perhaps they were not given enough, staffing but we do not know for certain This should not be considered a fact. There would have been a plan with "rings", various perimeters. There was likely a failure to properly and continually secure that roof, but we do not know that for sure and we don't know how understaffed they could have been. We do know the SS was amazing in the split second after the shot in shielding and caring for Trump.

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Linda, you sound like a seasoned security expert in this and other posts, and yet I'd wager you've never fired an AR-15 in your life!

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I've held a Kalasnikov. If only we could post pictures. I was on the Afghan border with a mission group, age 29, when I was handed one by a Pakistani soldier while wearing my eastern style dress and partial veil.

I guess many long years teaching high school in the inner-city toughens one a bit :) Anyway, thank you so much. There are times I'm the forum Eowyn, perhaps.

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Just saw a clip. Before the kids' shots, two Secret Service agents had a bead on him and were lining up their shots. They were a couple seconds slow in getting their shots off.

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Would you provide a link to that clip, please.

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Not yet. Hold fast to your faith.

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Reports say the shooter and some bystanders are dead.

Re heroism, it's 1912 with Teddy Roosevelt all over again.

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One bystander, is what the news reports all say. No word of anyone else wounded,

I think everyone needs to be careful of repeating "someone say" rumors at this point.

TR's wounding was much more serious and shortened his life.

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No, it was TR's Amazon trip that shortened his life. Ten (error: seven) whole years between the shooting and his death is an awful long time to have 'shortened his life.'

Besides, he predicted decades before that he would only make 60 or so.

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OK, maybe I'm thinking of Lenin who was semi-invalid after he was shot.

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Lenin, Roosevelt, what's the difference?

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A bit of irony but on Facebook a "This day in history" post just popped up intended for July 11 noting it was 220 years ago that Aaron Burr shot and killed Alexander Hamilton.

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They both intended a shooting though.

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Yes, Lenin was permanently weaken by that bullet.

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What the hell is going on …???????This is insane!!!!!!

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I feel like this entire scenario speaks to the accelerationist in me. "Please end, world, while I'm still young."

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What’s going on? The world is turning and turning and turning and sloshing around in darkness now. Welcome to our new pagan revolution. Not sure if you are a Christian. But I am. I know a little about the history of the Christian church. Remember Nero? He sent Christians to be eaten by lions and tigers in the Roman Coliseum. For fun and amusement. Then he set fire to Rome and blamed it on Christians. And then he killed more Christians and also put them on wooden poles on the Appian Way, a Roman highway, and brushed them with tar and pitch for ships and set them on fire as candles for entertainment.

Christians in America should expect this now as our persecution increases. Jesus Christ predicted our persecution in the Holy Scriptures. To be absent from our bodies is to be present with our Lord instantly in heaven.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

The good news is that Jesus Christ died on the cross and shed his blood for the remission of our sins. Leonore, if this all concerns you, then find a true Christian church and ask their Pastor or Priest to explain it all to you.

Christianity was born in persecution and violence against us 2000 years ago. We survived this long and will live in eternity with King Jesus forever in eternity.

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I hope you’re right, yes I am a Christian , and I know what’s going on, Satan the Divider in Chief is at work. IMHO.

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The next debate is gonna be great. Biden won't know where he is and Trump won't stop showing off and talking about his ear. The memes are gonna be legendary

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To make it a fair fight, Trump needs to be in a coma.

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I was just thinking that even if the shooter got him square in the brain he could probably still win the debate

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they could be in side-by-side hospital beds, hooked up to machines. must-see TV!

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OMG, I had better watch SNL next week.

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lol

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What did Rod call Biden? A Zucchini…🤔

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Ambulatory Zucchini. Classic.

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I had grilled Zucchini for dinner. But yes , CLASSIC!

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He really shouldn't insult zucchinis like that.

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He was only referring to ambulatory zucchini’s, he non-ambulatory ones are perfectly fine on the grill or in my skillet.

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Orange Van Gogh.

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I like that song. Its on a Don McLean cassette tape I picked up at a flea market 25 years ago. It does not evoke Biden for me.

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Trump needs to get Mike Tyson's endorsement.

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I'm a Trump supporter. Always have been. However, I'm not MAGA.

This really makes me mad. Mad at the media for convincing people that Trump is Hitler 2.0. I'm just so angry right now.

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Agreed. This rhetoric needs to stop. It has consequences. It’s the work of Satan.

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In fairness, slow down a bit. Maybe this guy was trying to impress Jodie Foster. Maybe he was a disgruntled Nikki Haley fan. We just don't know.

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Or maybe he’s confused and thought he was at the Taylor Swift concert?

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Teflon Don took a bullet off the ear! And shrugged it off!

Whatever doesn't kill him makes him stronger!

One inch to the right and orange man dead...

This really is starting to resemble 1968.

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Terribly sorry to hear of the violence especially if anyone was hurt.

Prayers said.

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From what I'm hearing, one of the rally goers has died.

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Sorry to hear that.

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A young CNN reporter had a moving interview with a middle aged spectator (I don’t remember his name) who recounted how a man near him was shot in the head and killed and a woman shot in the forearm.

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Biden told donors on a private call this afternoon:

“It’s time to put Trump in the bullseye.”

12:09 PM · Jul 8, 2024

If this is true then the situation is even worse

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Doesn't matter if this is true if the story spreads.

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Jul 13
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I truly hope there are no revenge attacks. Remember that Osama Bin Laden himself said during the Obama administration, not to harm a hair on Biden's head. He does far more damage to his own side while alive.

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It should matter. "I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood," uttered by the character that JRR Tolkien said was most modeled on himself.

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For a Christian, there could be no separation of means and ends.

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Holy Sarah Palin, Batman!

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I found that so incredulous that I had to look it up. Biden sealed his defeat with those words and this attack today.

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Huh? The only reported words of Biden's are to express sympathy for Mr. Trump and the other people present.

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Several days ago, he said to donors that it was time to put Trump in the bullseye. Everyone knows it was just rhetoric, but the timing is real awkward for Biden.

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Don't worry, the mainscream media will bury it fast. Winston Smith - or his latter-day equivalent at the Washington Pest - has probably already consigned it to the memory hole.

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I don't begrudge Biden or Palin using what is a common metaphor.

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Yes - it is a mistake to blame Biden in any way because this is more serious that even the terribly-serious outcome of our election.

I will say privately here that of course Biden's dreadful rhetoric - for example the "red speech in Philadelphia" - was inflammatory, and of course the Dems with their constant lies about fascism and Jan 6 incitement, bear responsibility. But I agree with you - if we publicly point this out then we inflame things further.

We must not blame the other side for radicalizing this shooter, even should it be true (i.e., if the shooter was not a mere madman). Confine blame to the shooter.

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Completely disagree. They should be nailed to the wall for their inflammatory rhetoric. They have a absolutely sowed, now the reaping comes.

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Good for you, Tee. I don't want to go down as trying to tell the men not to be angry.

But let's do see whether the shooter had political motivation. And I guess - justice in rhetoric. You know the liars and fools who claim Trump incited a riot when he didn't? There has been inflammatory rhetoric from Dems, of course, but not to the point that Biden is proven, directly responsible for this, nor did you say that. Not at this point.

Also, anger is justified but I know you do not mean going out and doing physical violence because this happened.

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Being angry doesn't give you a license to be a douche. Isn't that what you are constantly telling people here? But if one is going to be angry, and keep escalating how they express it, and insist on people paying attention, well, don't act shock when at some point, "they" do just that.

Hitting that vote yes for Trump this year is a middle finger to those cretins. And I've got two of those.

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Agree with that you said!

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Tee, I repent. I repent of at least one past post I can think of that I made, and probably more. Anger is an emotion, and emotions are not right or wrong, they are people's feelings. "Be angry and sin not".

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Biden is channeling Sarah Palin?

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That’s really dark. All the dems—and I’m a registered democrat!—-are now saying “political violence has no place is America,” once again as if they’ve been handed the same script. Of course, 1968 is in mind, but for me also the Clintons, House of Cards, eight years of venom, the endless lies, even Obama—“turns out I’m good at droning”—who seems to be running things—I dunno, a thousand dark thoughts swirling. It’s all extremely disturbing.

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Can someone actually verify this quote from a legit source other than Twitter?

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I figured Biden said that meaning "let's focus on making him look bad in the media," not killing him. It is easy to imagine he meant otherwise, and I can't stand Biden, but let's not rush to judgment. More concerning, to me, was the interview with the young man who saw the shooter a few minutes before he shot, and was trying to get the police and feds to stop him. I find THAT very suspicious. I have great faith in the incompetence of government employees, but this seems a bit much. Can't help but wonder if Trump's "security" really cared about his security. But I don't think Biden called for his assassination on his private call with donors.

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Well, he's not Sarah Palin, so . . . .

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History happening right before our eyes!

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As if I don't hate California enough.

That photo at the lead is iconic already. President Trump is a ****ing American Hero now.

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This was in Pennsylvania

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He's talking about the people in California who cheered.

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The people who cheered were in California.

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Keep in mind, these are the same idiots who've repeatedly voted for Pelosi, Newsome, Breed, Bass, Brown, Boudin, Gascon and their ilk for years. California is consequently beset with crime, trash, corruption, waste, debt, illegal immigrants, homeless addicts and psychhotics, crumbling infrastructure, failing businesses, growing unemployment and a gini coefficient that would do justice to many third-world kleptocracies. I wouldn't give much weight to their reaction; they're clearly a little dim.

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Yes but they vote and their reps have a bullhorn in the Public Square. And there are others in CA that want a less left wing world. How can anyone be ok with cities where one needs a "poop map" to walk? Or the crime in Oakland? Or the endless ranks of homeless on LA streets? Or the rampant crime? I could go on

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"Joe! Jill! Secret service protection for RFK Jr also! Have some decency." Yahoo rejected this comment.

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Yup. He's already well inside the window in which he is entitled, by law, to secret service protection, and yet he still doesn't have it. Unreal. Especially if this election season is going to start echoing 1968.

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Write your congressman.

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I did today, also both of my senators. BTW, apparently Trump's team had asked for additional protection and was denied. This is unconscionable.

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