Paranoid men with guns. What could go wrong? The old man who shot the 16 year old kid who rang his doorbell is described by his grandson as a right wing crank: Ludwig said he and his grandfather, who goes by the first name Dan, used to be very close. “But in the last five or six years or so, I feel like we’ve lost touch,” he said. “I’ve gotten older and gained my own political views, and he’s become staunchly right-wing, further down the right-wing rabbit hole as far as doing the election-denying conspiracy stuff and COVID conspiracies and disinformation, fully buying into the Fox News, OAN kind of line. I feel like it’s really further radicalized him in a lot of ways.” Ludwig said his grandfather had been immersed in “a 24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia.” “And then the NRA pushing the ‘stand your ground’ stuff and that you have to defend your home,” he said. “When I heard what happened, I was appalled and shocked that it transpired, but I didn’t disbelieve that it was true.
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Rupert and the boys must be wondering if they’re worth it This discussion at Puck about the Fox settlement suggests that the B list may be on the way out. Or maybe not. But whatever changes we might anticipate at the network probably aren’t going to be earth shattering. The “stars” are safe which means nothing will change. Dylan Byers: …This settlement changes exactly one thing behind the scenes: Fox News as an institution will take greater steps to ensure that it doesn’t leave itself vulnerable to further defamation claims. But that doesn’t mean they need to change their editorial strategy. If you look at the primetime trifecta—Tucker, Ingraham and Hannity—they are really masters in the dark art of floating conspiracies without running the risk of libel. Tucker doesn’t say “votes were stolen,” he says, “we don’t know how many votes were stolen.” He raises the specter of scandal, of a liberal plot against America, etcetera, but he stays within the bounds of free speech.
The collapse of the governing party of the Scottish colonial administration is a direct consequence of the Union. It shows the need for Independence. Devolution infantilises Scottish politics. The Scottish Government budget is a massive £60 billion. But that all comes through London. The Scottish Government has no effective control on the productivity of its […]
The post It Is The Union That Is Collapsing appeared first on Craig Murray.
Local Sam Gorst must have Labour worried in new Garston ward – where none of their candidates live in the ward The Labour party has brought it’s disgraceful sewer-level campaigning tactics to Liverpool, mounting a frankly disgusting assault on south Liverpool councillor Sam Gorst, who is standing as an independent in the new Garston ward […]
When young white women are being shot? America today is like living in a zombie movie. Except it’s the zombies who have the guns. Daily Beast from Tuesday night: Four cheerleaders involved with the competitive program Woodlands Elite Cheer were in a parking lot after practice when one of them accidentally tried to get into the wrong vehicle, Bastrop County sources close to the investigation told ABC13. According to cheerleader Heather Roth, she had just jumped out of her friend’s car when she opened the door to what she thought was her vehicle. When she saw a man on the passenger side seat, she thought a stranger had entered her car, so she got out and jumped back into the friend’s car. The man in the vehicle then got out, approached the friend’s car, and as Roth wound down the window and began to apologize, the man “threw up his hands, pulled out a gun, and started shooting—he fired multiple shots at the group,” she said. Roth was grazed by a bullet and treated and released at the scene. But teammate Payton Washington, 18, was hit in the leg and back. “Payton opens the door, and she starts throwing up blood,” Roth said.
More accountability, please CNN: The Fulton County District Attorney’s office said some fake electors for Donald Trump have implicated each other in potential criminal activity and is seeking to disqualify their lawyer, according to a new court filing. The district attorney’s office is requesting that attorney Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow be disqualified from representing a group of 10 Republicans who served as electors for the former president in Georgia – a state Trump lost to President Joe Biden. The DA’s office also accused the lawyer of failing to present an immunity deal to her clients last year, according to the filing. The new filing offers the latest indication that immunity offers could still be in the works months after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis suggested charging decisions were “imminent.” Not imminent enough. The Guardian: The claims of additional illegal activity by one of the fake electors comes as state prosecutors in the district attorney’s office consider asking a new grand jury to return a potentially sprawling criminal conspiracy against Trump, his top aides and the fake electors themselves.
I’m really surprised that no one is actively talking about what an America run by the GOP looks like. We can see it in deep red states right now, and it’s horrifying. First, there’s the gun violence. Red states have all but abolished gun laws, and are awash in firearms. The result: lots more death, both in terms of murders and suicides. We see people randomly blowing away innocent strangers all the time. Then there’s the death from preventable disease, maternal mortality, and infant mortality. Half of the Ob-Gyns in Idaho are gone. So are most in MS. Life expectancy in red states was low, and is plummeting. China’s life expectancy exceeds ours. We're repealing child labor laws now. Letting them work in factories, night shifts, and bars. Given increasing wealth inequality, and low wages, more families will choose to pull kids out of school to work. More high school drop outs, and poverty cycle continues. 4/n We’re also looking at the end of the line for the LGBT community, and particularly trans people. The laws being passed in Florida and elsewhere resemble something out of Russia or West African nations infiltrated by the religious right.
We know who they are. We heard it in their own words Talk about an anticlimax. For the past couple of weeks we’ve all been on tenterhooks waiting for the latest trial of the century, the defamation case by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News. The judge had already ruled that there was ample proof that Fox had lied so all Dominion had to prove was that they did it with malice (which I think we can all see every day by the venom they spew). The weeks of very juicy discovery material which had already become public, exposing the executive suite and all the top Fox stars as venal liars, were thrilling previews of what was assumed to be the main event: the prospect of all of them, including the Murdoch patriarch himself, Rupert, on the witness stand trying to explain how they could square what they said in private with what they said publicly. It led to the exciting expectation that this was going to be a long overdue comeuppance for the right-wing propaganda outlet. Sadly, it was a dud. Just as they had chosen a jury and were about to start opening arguments, a settlement was reached and the trial was over before it started.
DeSantis can’t seem to get Florida officials to endorse him He’s an ass. That’s all there is to it: It was supposed to be RON DeSANTIS’ big day on Capitol Hill. Yet DONALD TRUMP managed to overshadow him from almost 1,000 miles away. In the 24 hours leading up to the Florida governor’s much-anticipated meeting with GOP lawmakers, two members from his own state — Reps. JOHN RUTHERFORD and GREG STEUBE — endorsed Trump. A third Floridian — Rep. BRIAN MAST, who was once considered close with DeSantis — told CNN’s Mel Zanona that he’ll soon follow suit. And a few hours later, in a stone-cold act of political brutality, Rep. LANCE GOODEN (R-Texas) walked out of the DeSantis meeting and declared his support for Trump. “It’s a killer!” said one positively giddy Trump confidant, who was on the phone with Playbook when news of Gooden’s surprise endorsement broke.
Tester knows what he’s doing. Manchin doesn’t. Maybe Manchin should have kept his mouth shut instead of showboating with Kyrsten Sinema. He might not have found himself in this position: Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Joe Manchin of West Virginia are expected to face among the toughest political environments as the Democratic Party attempts to hold the Senate next year, given that the two incumbents hail from states where President Joe Biden performed poorly against then-President Donald Trump in 2020. But the Montanan is beginning the cycle with a huge popularity advantage, while Manchin remains among the country’s most unpopular politicians — fraught territory in the face of an expected challenge by his state’s popular Republican governor, Jim Justice, according to the Morning Consult’s latest quarterly approval ratings. Surveys conducted between Jan. 1 and March 31 show that 58% of Montana voters approve of Tester’s job performance, making him one of America’s most popular senators.