I don’t know where to begin and cannot even explain why today, of all these too many days, I feel like just throwing my hands up and shouting, “WHAT THE FUCK!” First, there’s Trump and his usual idiocy about every-effing-thing. Then, there’s the Florida “armed security” person at Parkland who evidently has as much courage as Trump circa VietNam (so we see how effective it is to have armed personnel on campus), then there’s Wayne LaPierre who must personify pure fucking evil, then there’s that Republican female moron, Claudia Tenney, who has clearly drunk the kool-aid (and I do hope her fellow up-staters remember this in November), not to mention Rubio at the town hall. I’m exhausted just thinking about all the people who have exasperated me just today.
And to think, today wasn’t even that “crazy” of a day!
I believe we’re all here to verify our own sanity as the country we thought we knew is dragged down and assaulted by the most vile and blatant corruption and with the most putrid and unimaginable “leader” in our history. It helps SO much to know we aren’t the only ones seeing the same things, as we wait impatiently for Mueller to make it all stop. At least, that’s why I’m here.
I didn’t know about the forum until a few days ago, although I have just been weirdly attracted to the concept of this website for quite awhile. It’s like having crib notes for antics of this crazy man that somehow got elected president. On the night of the election, I had thought that starting a website like this, where information could be shared, with a laser light focus on Trump and his administration, would be therapeutic. I like to write, it helps me keep my thoughts in order. I already had some URL picked out, it was going to be www.non-compos-mentis.com - “not of sound mind”. I never dreamed in my wildest imaginations, that the dictator of N. Korea would teach me a new English word, but I’m happy to say that my vocabulary increased by one with ‘dotard’. My wife bought me a book I had put on my wish list called The Danger Case of Donald Trump in which 27 psychologists compiled some evidence that he is just a bat shit crazy arrogant narcissist which I look forward to reading. First I have to get through the Bruce Springsteen auto biography - don’t get me wrong, I like Bruuuuuce, but man, he has a really supersized ego.
As to the guns and the idea that arming everybody is the solution. It’s madness if you think about it. Let’s think about why that’s a bad idea.
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As witnessed in this case, The Good Guy With The Gun must’ve known his weapon was no match for the AR-15. He probably had a pistol which I believe are notoriously inaccurate unless you’re about 10’ from your target. Probably harder to aim when you’re shaking because the adrenaline is pursing through your veins. So, even though you had a “gun adept” person on site, didn’t change a thing.
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I guess they are talking about asking a majority, or all of the teachers, to be armed. Any 4th grader could come up with this list of potential issues, but here goes. Where will they store the gun? Where will they store the bullets? Would we be issuing government approved desks, of course, built by contracting with the desk makers who provided the largest amount of Republican campaign contributions, with special drawers for the pistol and enough ammunition? Then you get back to Issue #1, what is the right choice for arming a teacher? You would want them to have the best, right? So, a semi-automatic assault weapon to fight fire with fire, right? What if a student somehow acquires the key to the weapon drawer or it’s left unlocked and there is just another “gun accident” as opposed to an “active shooter” situation?
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What about the complexities of making an average citizen, a person who went to school to be a teacher because some part of them believed that it would be rewarding to help other human beings, make a decision about when and how to use deadly force to end a confrontation. The police have a hard enough time with that decision and they receive hundreds and hundreds of hours of specialized training. I would think that very few teachers would submit to this horrible idea, but if they had to, to keep their jobs, then what if they did use the weapon during an attack and innocents were killed by friendly fire? How would they live with that? Would there be legal consequences since it was a state imposed proposition and teachers are obviously never going to be as well trained as a law enforcement officer?
As for Rubio and the rest of the Republicans in our political system today, it’s really appalling how their party matters over everything else. The whole lot of them are guilty by association. They should be reading the Constitution trying to figure out a way to let someone else lead the country. He can be one of their own, but just not Trump and his family and friends. I hope the mid-term elections help to turn the tide, I guess it depends on how many people will be able to still make a clear rational decision while being literally bombarded by social media attacks by Russia. If I were a Republican and I fell for one of those Meet-Up Invites or some crazy ad or News Feed post or Tweet got me all stirred up, then I later learned that it was a foreign country that had “tricked me”, I would be so embarrassed that I’d just never go back online. Now that I think about it though, they’d probably just fall back to watching Sean Hannity and Fox News, the original opiate for the right wing retards.
Apparently, there are just a very large number of people in the Republican party that are extremely naive & stupid & bitter angry. Knowing now how pervasive the Russian influence has been, I am constantly on guard and when I see a person who has maybe gone too far in supporting Trump, I refuse to engage in a dialog with them because it’s a waste of my time. They’re either there simply to manipulate the stupid people or they are a foreign influence and, in either case, I know they’re not really prepared to debate the issues with an open mind. And that’s what I thought this country was supposed to be - a Democracy where people with different views were able to debate and compromise to find (imperfect) answers to the very real problems this country faces, but it’s not like that at all. It’s only about WINNING and that means sucking on the teat of the NRA and refusing to implement even simple quick win ideas that would help with the gun problem. There is just so much evil out there right now and they are not afraid to act on their evil ways ever since the dickhead with the long tie got to be president.
Someone I know since I’m a NYer (not in Tenney’s district) is running against her. His name is Anthony Brindisi. Show him some love! And don’t forget that Loesch imbecile, the NRA spokes moron. They are quickly losing their backers though…
This thread is devolving. Let’s get back to what matters: why you need wtfjht 
Sanity. Hope. Community.
Thank you, Matt.
Exactly! Well said Karen, and PJ - you and I are on the same exact page.
I been saying WTF? each and every day since tRump was elected. A blogpost I wrote the day after the election is titled [“What the F**K Just Happened?”] along with subsequent posts with the same theme. I was heartened to see this site spring up, especially since a friend and I tried to do this and were quickly overwhelmed. As we are each and every day…
And again today. The terrible news happens so fast that WTFJHT needs to be published at least 3 or 4 times a day now. I guess there is some solace in noting that we are witnessing history - it will either be the total degradation and decay of American society or the greatest comeback of all time. I really hope it’s the latter, but the 2 party system leaves me doubting.
Someday it’s gonna be one heckuva movie, but will obviously require a mini-series at the very least.
Call me delusional but I’m betting on the “greatest comeback”, in part because the criminality is SO
blatant that at some point there will be no more ways to deny it, even on FOX. And there’s already strong signs of a “blue wave” which coincidentally mirrors what happened after Nixon’s disgrace.
And better yet: Manafort’s due in court in September…that will be front & center in the news when the GOP is trying to change the subject to survive the elections, ROFL!
We do have to be careful about that blue wave though, because if there aren’t standards applied to the incoming left, we might end up here again pretty quickly. Just because an opposition to the current party is incoming doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. If they fall through on promises, we’ll just repeat another cycle of this. X_X
This is the part that is really troubling to me. So blatant, so obvious. At least with Nixon there was some semblance of reality, although it wasn’t the 24-hour news cycle like we have now. It was only sometime later that Nixon’s potential problems with alcohol and lying finally was divulged to the media, and I suspect it is going to be a similar situation here in that years from now the truth about what Trump’s mental state is at this point. Today, with Trump, it is somewhat different in a way, because rational people can clearly see that Trump is a mad man, whereas back in the early 70’s, Nixon gave the outward appearance that he was a somewhat rational person, perhaps even clever in some ways, yet he couldn’t hide his guilt. There is no illusion with Trump, he is not clever, and he is not smart, yet party allegiance makes it completely unnecessary for him to hide his guilt.
Nixon was intelligent & quite rational by comparison, but at least his shenanigans didn’t involve selling out our country. I think it makes people feel better to focus on the comparison to Nixon, as if at least we’ve been here before, but this is truly uncharted waters. I don’t know if he changes his mind every other day or if he can’t remember where he left it, but trump is just so exhausting.
@elaphe, @zilla, @thehellyousay let me restate:
Start a new topic if you want to talk about Nixon, or anything else off-topic from the current thread.
You make the news bearable and that is a HUGe GYNORMOUS thing. I tell everyone how wonderful your work is. Thank you.
The GOP & NRA (& all those siding with them) are ridiculously evasive when confronted with the OBVIOUS need to get assault weapons out of our society…next they’ll suggest that all children attend school on Mars, rather than admit they’re just f***ing wrong. I can’t imagine how they were raised to have turned out so callous, only sorry that they were.
While it helps to know that the risk & repercussions of accidental friendly fire that would undoubtedly result from teachers being forced to carry weapons would reflect back to the attacker, it doesn’t change the equation: that’s asking far too much from those unprepared for such a line of work. The guy they hired, who was trained & armed, just stood outside while this went on. The only thing that does make sense is to get these damn weapons OUT of our society, period. The physical damage they do (compared to “normal” guns, which are bad enough) means a much higher mortality & just unimaginable wounds that no doctors can even repair. So, enough of their lies that all we need are more “good” people running around with weapons…I too call B.S.!
Matt,
If I were a rich woman you’d be a rich man because I’d pay BIG just to have you there.
Geez.
Well, welcome to the family, Steve! If it weren’t for WTFJHT I’d feel all alone in this strange and disturbing new world. I, too, am hanging my hopes on the mid-terms - at least to bring some accountability to Congress and to improve the line of succession.