Friday afternoon and the @PNCBank branch is understaffed. Three folks in line at the counter. One woman working the drive through and two behind desks and a greeter. No movement to address the line for 10 minutes. There has to be a better way. Ugh.
The Paxton victory in Texas has resurfaced the issue of character. I think young people would be shocked at how much emphasis Republicans and conservatives once placed on character: character in office, character in society. Personal responsibility. Etc. It wasn't that long ago!
You need to listen to what Malcolm Guite says here about the “meaning crisis.”
Postmodernism taught us to distrust and deconstruct the “old stories.”
But culture held on to these stories for centuries for a reason.
No one can live “story-less.”
It is depressing that Texas voters have to choose between a grifting adulterer dirtbag and an extreme far left lunatic with heretical and unacceptable cultural, theological, and political positions. Neither are acceptable candidates. Neither are conservative. Neither are moderate. Neither are fit for office. Any attempt to criticize one by defending the other is intellectually and morally deficient. BOTH candidates are unworthy of one’s support. It is not just that I CAN hold both positions at once (Paxton is personally unfit; Talarico is positionally unfit) - it is that I MUST hold both positions at once.
@bennyjohnson Benny - As a lifelong R, why do you want to back someone as ethically challenged as @KenPaxtonTX? I get @realDonaldTrump over Biden but I can’t in good conscience vote for anyone but @JohnCornyn.
"Sidney Crosby is our Tom Brady and our LeBron James..
I was on the ice with him when he was 14 years old and I could see how good he was then..
He should play for as long as he wants to play"
@WayneGretzky#PMSLive
New NYT poll: 75% of Democratic voters oppose U.S. military aid to Israel, up from 45% three years ago. 95% oppose war with Iran. 60% say they side more with Palestinians than Israelis.
So disappointed to see @realDonaldTrump endorse @KenPaxtonTX over @JohnCornyn. Paxton is such a disaster and a scandal plagued politician that is not right for Texas.
DAMN. Former Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Democrat, goes scorched earth on the current Democrats leading the state. Says they have no clue how bad their policies are for the economy.
CBS investigative journalist Catherine Herridge has gone public with explosive allegations: "CBS executives deliberately buried the 'Hunter Biden laptop story' and ordered her to wait until AFTER the 2022 midterms to help the Democratic Party."
I’ve waited a few days so I could read everything insightful and watch as many videos as possible. I try to never immediately comment on complicated, breaking news where “facts” are subject to change.
Here now are my observations on the attempted assassination attempt on Pres. Trump:
1) It wasn’t perfect, and mistakes were made, but the USSS did its job and did it well. Most people don’t know it, but the USSS agents who form the PPD (presidential protective division) are the most highly trained evacuation force you will ever meet. Their only job when things go wrong is to get the President out of there to an always-existing designated evacuation route. They did their job.
2) It’s not the USSS’s job to ask for IDs or to check tickets at an event outside the WH. The USSS could care less if someone was sitting at the wrong table or didn’t pay to get in. That’s the job of the host organization, the WH Correspondents Association. The USSS’s only job is to protect designated people.
3) Presidents routinely hold events and stay overnight at hotels. Their routes in and out are out of sight and reach from hotel guests and visitors. Stairways are blocked and elevators can’t open on certain floors. They use different elevators, hallways, ingress and exit points than the general public. For overnight trips, the travelling party blocks off a certain number of floors, but the overall hotel is typically still open to guests. Perhaps Presidents in the future need to stay at smaller hotels so they can reserve the entire place. But no hotel will make itself available to a President if it means no one else can stay at the location if that means hundreds of rooms must go empty.
4) Who tackled the gunman? Did he fall and trip? How was he captured? Could he otherwise have breached the ballroom? There still is a lot we don’t know.
5) Why were the magnometers taken down when they were? The event had begun and guests were already in their seats. But agents, including the Uniform Division officers who man the mags, let down the perimeter that must always block entrance to a potus event. No one should be able to run in a straight line and get past the outer perimeter, not even by 60 feet, which is not a great distance, but that’s the distance it’s been reported of the breach past the mags. They need to keep in place physical obstructions, in addition to human ones. They also should consider pushing the perimeter back so there is a greater distance between the mags and potus.
Note: There must always be a perimeter somewhere. On one side, the “dirty” side is regular life, meaning people with guns, knives and craziness. On the other side is the “clean” side, protected by an army of security. It’s impossible to stop the dirty side from approaching the clean side. But it’s the USSS job to make certain nothing gets beyond the perimeter. There are layers of defense inside the perimeter, but it’s troubling the gunman ran past the perimeter even for only sixty feet.
6) Who shot the USSS agent? Was it the would be assassin or was it friendly fire. One video indicates it was friendly. If that’s the case, the USSS should have admitted it already. I don’t rule out friendly fire. We need to learn the truth.
7) Shooting and hitting a running target is not easy. Even expert marksmen often miss. Is USSS training adequate?
Bottom line: In an atmosphere like this, things will go wrong. But unless the gunmen fell on his own before he could be captured or tackled, it appears the USSS layered defense did the job. PPD certainly did their job. Good questions remain about better perimeters, checkpoints and training.
But the excessive criticisms and allegations of failure by the USSS are off the mark.
I want the USSS to learn the right lessons. I’m grateful to them for doing their job and protecting the president.
David Cross: “I’m politically more Democrat Socialist.”
Bill Maher: “You’re plainly to the left of me if you even say you’re a socialist.”
David Cross: “Well, I said Democratic Socialist.”
Last night, another act of political violence shook the nation. At this point, no one should be surprised.
“The President is a fascist.”
“Eat the rich.”
“Let the streets soak in capitalists’ blood.”
“Globalize the intifada.”
“By any means necessary.”
This isn’t fringe rhetoric anymore. It’s been normalized, echoed on campaign trails, and amplified on podcasts where politicians regularly appear.
You don’t get to indulge this language, elevate those who use it, and then act shocked when it turns into violence.
We need to get back to sanity before we lose our country.
Relative to Americans with a high school education, Americans with graduate degrees are twice as likely to support political violence.
More education = higher support for political violence. It couldn't be otherwise.