pithy

Never need to see Zuckerberg's mug again. People need to leave these platforms en masse, myself included. I'm on FB for Marketplace, and I only ever use the website, not wanting to grant an actual app permissions, but my intensifying sense is that even this is too much.

Ah, that's a great point: there are so many with nothing to live for who'd love to experience that infamy. It might inform their copycat crimes more than the righteous rage angle.

Well, it has to do with trying to deter people from emulating him. Even if he retains mass support, to let him be that sort of folk hero with minimal consequences would be to invite others to follow his lead - whatever that might look like to them. But to mete out the most severe treatment possible at every turn shows intent to "scare straight," as it were, anyone wondering if they should do as he did. He's not going to have an easy time of this; he won't get a pass. Which I'm sure he knew. He measured his life and determined this a worthy sacrifice. Obviously, our centres of power are determined to convince would-be followers it wasn't.

Do you think Shapiro did want to be Kamala's VP pick at the time? I doubt his being on the ticket would've made enough of an impact, so, from today's fuller perspective, his not having been chosen could only be to his career's great benefit. Hell, maybe he sensed where things were going and found the most masterfully tactful way out ever. Personally, I'm more impressed by Hakeem Jeffries so far. Also, yeah, someone needs to get Justice Sotomayor in touch with that one tech bro billionaire who spends most of his time trying to facsimile endless youth. She needs tips.

The voters shouldn't be held guiltless. They ARE still worthy of contempt. We all temper our expectations and acquiesce on some matters when we vote. It's not a mail order catalogue from which anyone can expect perfection. To sit it out because the significantly better of the two isn't stainlessly faultless is asinine and delusional and a luxury to which only the very few should ever feel licensed. Especially with so much at stake, I don't need to read too many excuses for the voters. It's a given that the DNC will need to reassess everything, obviously, but myriad things can be true at once.

Biden should've taken himself out of the race sooner. Irrespective of the fairness of it all, if you're tainted to that degree in the collective imagination, even mistakenly, you have to go. Another primary thereafter would've been ideal, but even having retrieved Harris from the basement a lot sooner could've given her a better shot. She ran a good campaign and revealed herself to have been underutilized from the get-go. On the other hand, yeah, these are quibbles when juxtaposed with the alternative for which people went out with bells on. Looking at the electorate, it's almost a lost cause.

The SCOTUS will be replenished with new Republican justices. There goes that for another few decades. There are basically no guardrails now and anyone sensible within his circle, anyone by whom his worst instincts could've possibly been dismantled, has left. This thing's far-reaching tentacles should be so much worse than before. It sucks, but, as this is what people went out and chose, it's almost hard to imagine the population could even deserve better. Whatever transpires, people will have done it to themselves. Anyway, I guess everyone on here, because of the nature of this board, has already cycled through chapters of NOT being protected by the various centres of power in our respective lives, whether that was because of someone's being gay or a woman or whatever. And although no one wants to regress, we've survived, even thrived, so I hope most will be able to once again recalibrate for whatever conditions come.

Over his comments in Philly from a few weeks ago. Let's hope his day will just keep getting worse.

Although we can never afford to take anything for granted, the picture that's been painted suggests she has the momentum. Even if she were to win, I would still be disturbed and honestly disgusted that it could be so close. But here's hoping.

She looked so formidable while speaking at the Ellipse the other day - so presidential.

His whole campaign is about being filthily racist. It's a feature - the feature - to his supporters, not a bug. He pretty much just cycles through the minorities, targeting each one in turn, routinely making every one of the rest feel like there must be at least some other sad, sad group less proximate to the "ideal" in the age-old hierarchy of societal partitioning he perpetuates: no opportunities, no prospects, but at least we're a little closer to the grail than those guys! Racism is all he has, and his supporters who mistakenly think they have some cell of skin in the game (literally, in the case of the impoverished white people about whom he'll never actually give a fuck, but who can at least be given carte blanche to revel in their being white) are happy enough with their lots not to want meaningful change, as long as they can go on lying to themselves that they're somehow superior to their fellow man. Least deceived by the schismatic rhetoric are black women, who can't believe they're proximate to white men because they know they are unable to reap unearned privileges of either race or sex; there are reasons why they make up the most consistent Democratic voting bloc. And, oh, wouldn't these truths of her identity make his loss to Kamala Harris that much more glorious and gratifying? She's not infallible but I don't care. She must win.

It's no secret that CNN benefits from the sideshow of buffoonery and societal decay. The Trump spectacle has done wonders for the network's ratings. On some level, I'm sure there are mercenary forces at play that continue to welcome the chaos. I haven't really watched much this year, but the talent was lacking when my interest dropped off. Some of its most gifted analysts are underutilized. If I had it my way, Laura Coates, whom I adore, would feature much more prominently.