The Real timschochet

The fault here is Hamas. The fault is almost always Hamas. Hamas is evil. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be critical of Trump. I wrote last week that no matter what happens now, Donald Trump deserves great credit for getting the remaining hostages out. That remains true, it always will be true. But I also believe there were some real opportunities here for a more lasting peace in the region and rather than take them, Trump did what he always does: spent his time congratulating himself and crowing about his achievements.

No it really wasn’t. You only believe this because you bought into the nonsense that liberal protests are inherently violent. The truth is that, on either side, the only sort of protest that brings about violence is when the protest is because of a specific perceived injustice- the beating of Rodney King and acquittal of the police officers that did it, the murder of George Floyd, MAGA believing that Trump was cheated out of an election. And even in those cases the violence is typically unrelated to the actual organized protestors. Political protests that are organized as a result of longstanding or larger concerns- e.g. the Civil Rights movement, the Tea Party movement, or the No Kings movement- do not result in violence. This has been true in American society ever since Martin Luther King. Jr., following the example of Mahatma Gandhi, set the template for the modern day protest. The fact that there was no violence yesterday was entirely predictable as I wrote prior to the protests.

Rather than argue over the actual numbers, would you agree that yesterday’s peaceful protests were significantly large?

When the Tea Party protests occurred in 2009 a lot of people, myself included, dismissed them as manufactured events paid for by billionaires like Charles Koch which would have no effect on events. We were wrong. The next year, 2010, saw a large Republican wave election led by the Tea Party movement. These current protests are much bigger than the Tea Party ever was and I think conservatives are making the same mistake we did back then.

They’re losers wasting their time on a Saturday. It was all meaningless. They hate law and order, hate America, love Hamas.

It’s bullsh!t It’s a old wives tale you dudes tell yourself because you don’t want to believe that you’re on the wrong side of history on some of these issues. But you are. 7 million people showed up yesterday. The most ever in history. You can try to diminish it for now. After next year’s election you won’t be able to.

Bullsh!t

Portland was peaceful yesterday. Like everywhere else.

Trump’s AI video is not a reason to oppose him (I have plenty of those) but it is really distasteful and demonstrates once again that he is, above everything else, just a mean-spirited classless jerk.

Thanks for the concession.

If that were happening it would be all over Fox News at the very least. Why isn’t it?

A lot of folks that voted for Trump wanted security at the border and inflation controlled. They didn’t want higher prices, or mass deportation, or the tariffs, or all of the authoritarian crap. So now they have buyers remorse. You will see the results.

I don’t need MSNBC. Show me a link from somewhere. Show me a video, anything.

So far as I know there was NO violence today. I can’t find a single report of violent activity, @EternalShinyAndChrome you promised to come in and admit you were wrong if there was no violence. Well?

Hey I read The Water Is Wide. Great great book. I’ve read pretty much everything Conroy wrote.

Entirely predictable

Where is my money?

Seems like, just like everywhere else, the Portland No Kings Rally has been peaceful: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/protests/no-kings-portland-protests-live-updates/283-e9b9788a-07f3-4244-a804-7fad0a5e9a0f Of course @Maximum Overkill seems to have contradictory information. Perhaps he will share it with the rest of us?

Care to share?

I know you’re asking this question with scorn, but I think you’ll have your answer, partly, in two weeks, when the turnout in voting for New Jersey, Virginia, and California on the Democratic side defy all expectations. Then you’ll have your full answer in November of next year.

Yeah Fox News keeps talking about how these are paid protestors, George Soros funding the whole thing, etc. it’s very frustrating to me: almost every political event I have attended over the last 20 years or so was supposedly paid for by Soros and I have yet to see a dime. Oh well. The tangible objective of all peaceful political protests, including this one, is to energize and activate those that want to see political change, so they can (a) apply pressure to existing elected officials (b) raise money for same and (c) come out in droves in the next election. Today has been the largest peaceful protest in American history, so I am hoping that it has the greatest impact. Can I guarantee that? Nobody can. We can’t know for sure until November of 2026. (That being said, at the rally I attended there was much attention paid to Newsom’s Prop. 50 which would serve to counteract What Texas did. It’s going to pass for sure, but what will be interesting to see is how many folks decide to vote in an off year election. If huge numbers vote for this, and also for the Democratic governor candidates in New Jersey and Virginia, that to me will be an early indication that today’s protests were impactful and successful.)

Boy this seems awfully upset.

No but there IS a way to report ICE members when they commit crimes: https://www.aclusocal.org/en/socal-rapid-response-networks

No. Today is far more patriotic. On July 4 at least half of those celebrating are drunken idiots looking to blow things up. They have no idea what they are celebrating or what America truly means. Everyone who is here today knows exactly why they are here. They are standing up for American values.

The United States of America.