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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Link is part of a live feed. Here’s more:

    DHS claims Padilla ‘lunged’ toward Noem ‘without identifying himself’ – despite footage showing he identified himself

    Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, has claimed the senator Alex Padilla “lunged” toward Kristi Noem during the press conference “without identifying himself” despite being told to back away.

    She also claims that the Secret Service “thought he was an attacker”.

    In the video footage of the moment, Padilla can be heard clearly identifying himself, saying: “I’m Senator Alex Padilla” and trying to ask Noem a question.

    Not only did he identify himself, I didn’t see anything I’d call a ‘lunge’. Here’s more:

    Asked why the response was to forcibly remove Padilla, Noem deferred questions to law enforcement and doubled down on the claim that Padilla didn’t identify himself first (again, he did):

    • “But I will say that it’s – people need to identify themselves before they start lunging at people during press conferences.”

    MSNBC reminds us of Biden’s State of the Union when Bobert and Marjorie Taylor Greene started acting up and yelling and no one threw them out. Commentor wants to know why Noem didn’t call off the guards as soon as he identified himself.






















  • Refresher on McCabe from The Guardian:

    McCabe was part of FBI leadership, briefly as acting director, during investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 election and links between Trump and Moscow. Trump fired McCabe in March 2018, two days before he was due to retire. McCabe was then the subject of a criminal investigation, for allegedly lying about a media leak. The investigation was dropped in 2020. In October 2021, McCabe settled a lawsuit against the justice department.

    I mention this because y’all know that Trumpers will immediately brush off McCabe’s comments as a known-bad-guy who was fired for being so awful and is now trying to get revenge.


  • You’re right. I hear you. Intellectually, I understand that the conservative/fundamentalist mindset gives higher importance to following leaders and is more triggered by moral disgust. I understand that a conservative may feel a liberal is less moral because liberals ‘lack’ a moral imperative to follow leaders simply because they are leaders. I even accept that agreeing to a premise has utility by getting everyone to work towards a common goal. Unfortunately, I get stuck on the bit where the premise seems illogical to me, or the leader seems to be obviously lying. That’s the part where any intellectual understanding of why someone might choose to ignore obvious red flags flies to the wayside and I can’t figure out what to do about it.

    I’m pretty sure that journalists should continuously report which things are unfounded lies, but I don’t think that will sway those who believe those lies. It might, however, convince the continuously emerging crop of newly interested people to be skeptical.


  • I spent a good while writing up a reply, but it was long and the main point was: while any group of 100+ people is likely to have a bad actor, you look for credible proof (like Edward Snowden showing evidence rather than Sidney Powell saying she had ‘visions’). Side bit: tales of killing/eating/sexually-exploiting babies and pets by a GROUP should always be taken as a manipulative lie because it always is. When some whacko actually tries that crap, the Boys in Blue get up in arms – even if it means ignoring pressure from their bosses, “He’s Illuminati. Let it go.” No. That sort of thing gets exposed.