Ohio has Issue 1 regarding gerrymandering…

…which the Ohio Supreme Court already told them to unfuck and the GOP was like, “nah, fam”…

…and which LaRose obfuscated (just like he did with the abortion amendment) via confusing language and outright lies (under the guide of free speech, apparently) to trick people into voting No

So, a No vote keeps the same crap we have now where a majority of the state has no voice. A Yes vote gives everyone a more equal say

I have seen so many signs in rural Ohio where people have taken sharpie to their Trump Pence signs to alter the letters to Trump VAnce

They are ingenuitive I guess but also like who holds on to political yard signs until the next term…

I remember when a guy got so excited his voice cracked on a stage at a rally and that torpedoed his whole political career

Now we have this gestures in bullshit

is my current spam inbox on my texts messages. I engage sometimes a la the top text, but also my name isn’t Renay and I’ve had this phone number for many many years

My sister in law is a Republican, but doesn’t like Trump, but also buys in to a lot of what he says (her entire personality is “pro-life”)

Yesterday, she’s talking to my wife, who is one of those people that keeps her conversations on speaker when she’s in the house:

SIL: did you guys ever vote early

W: yep, last several elections

SIL: I think I’m going to test them and vote on my mail-in, early, and in person on Tuesday

Me: you will go to jail for that…

They just gobble up whatever they hear in their echo chamber. Nevermind all the Republicans who have gone to jail for voter fraud

Also SIL: well the people who died two years ago that vote won’t go to jail

W: yes but the people that voted in their place did…

I’m just so exhausted trying to understand remotely where they come from

It doesn’t help that LaRose just writes whatever he wants to on the ballot issues (ie summarizing the abortion amendment down to more words than the original amendment, obfuscating this whole gerrymandering thing to make it seem as though a Yes vote will force gerrymandering into our already-gerrymandered state)

I’m surprised he didn’t just say “vote No and we will give you a free puppy and migrants will do your laundry for a year”

Omg can you imagine if Rogan fiees up a dutchie and Trump, feeling like he can’t be outdone since he’s the “alpha male,” gets way too fucked up and let’s all his bullshit out like “yeah I’m only doing this for the pussy, Joe. I love pussy bigly you know I used to grab it accordion hands”

I may also be fucked up on the dutchie

Vince should hang and so should Linda (both for a number of things)

They knew about it, fired everyone, then rehired them

But also TKO purchased them much more recently than these events, and the DOJ knew about it after it happened and went after him for steroids instead. It’s stupid bc there’s only a handful of people left who could (rightfully) face anything on this, but I don’t think TKO is one of them? Can someone ELI5 this?

Behind the Bastards did SIX whole episodes on VKM which is a great listen

Guild Wars 2

Maybe like 5-10 mins of Grim Dawn here and there

In the tabletop space, my group is recording season 3 of our podcast and this season we are playing Mausritter, and it’s a blast

This is pretty much the only video game I play like I’ll hop on Arkham Knight or Grim Dawn or literally anything else for maybe 30 mins and I’m like… Nah Mechanist go BRRRRRRT

Wife and I both are currently finishing SotO storyline, already did Janthir so I guess we’ll try and get sky scale after the story

2300+ hrs since pre launch and I literally haven’t done half of what the game has to offer

This a lot but also they grew up in the time before their hero did away with the Fairness Doctrine, so when they were formative and watching Cronkite and Rather et al on TV, it wasn’t obscured through an echo chamber opinion piece masquerading as The Truth ™️so they never needed to think critically about their news sources bc I’m sure most of what was reported was factual (albeit whitewashed I’m sure)

Some fast food places near me have started using automated ordering at the window ie a chatbot

Also order-yourself screens in the inside ordering zones

Which I guess is cool or whatever but some of us don’t mind human interaction and are fine paying .50 extra for a taco if that keeps someone employed until we can figure out how to move to a more automated world without fucking over those at the bottom

My job is doing outside sales in Ohio and my customer base is very much blue collar manufacturing. There is an obvious overlap in manufacturing and Trump supporters. A lot of places I visit have Trump memorabilia posted around - signs, stickers, flags, whatever.

The other day I was in a spot southeast of Columbus, near the Ohio River. I pull in to this smaller machine shop and see Trump signs in the windows and Trump stickers on the only car outside.

Go in and start chatting with the owner. Within 5 minutes he had already hit me with 3 hard Rs, going on a rant about the “criminals in office” and “if everything goes the way it’s supposed to November 5th” and “if it doesn’t there’s gonna be some problems on November 6th”. Had a Biden-Harris Target List hanging (idk if it was a list of people he wanted to kill or if it was one of those “people judge me for my shitty actions and I feel attacked” things).

He was carrying a Glock (not uncommon in a lot of these places that people open carry) and I’m not unfamiliar with firearms (I grew up in Kentucky and was in the Marine Corps), so in order to turn the conversation back to business and away from the racist pro-Trump conversation, I mentioned that the company I work for makes gun barrels for a couple high-profile gun manufacturers. Conversation went that way for a minute (he says it’s “bullshit that they try to take guns away from people like you and me (I’m a white dude so I guess we are the only ones supposed to have guns) when everybody knows the hard Rs and illegals are the ones committing all the crime”), then he says, “yeah, if you were a hard R, you’d be seeing this pistol up close”

Idk what my point is other than this guy is the type of dude that’s gonna vote for Trump and if that’s the people Trump supporters want to side with idk y’all need to look at yourself in a mirror or something.

I just like to present it since like a lot of the conversation revolves around, and I think most people, myself included, had their first exposure to the case through, Paradise Lost which is fr only one angle ya know?

Idk if I would’ve convicted them. I think there was a lot of stuff that wasn’t clear on either side which isn’t beyond a reasonable doubt

But I’ve also been on a couple juries and always voted not guilty so maybe that’s a personal thing lol

NOT MINE I’VE HAD THIS SAVED FROM REDDIT BECAUSE I HAVE FOUND THIS CASE FASCINATING DIR A LONG TIME SO EXCUSE IF IT’S SUPER ANGRY SOUNDING!!

• Damien has never come up with an Alibi for where he was during the murders. Well, actually he has, per Damien: “At the time the police say the murders took place I was actually on the phone with three different people. The problem was, my attorneys never called them to the stand.” - Damien Echols (source)

Really? Lets examine these three (actually four) other peoples testimony, shall we? Do they exonerate him like he suggests? In a word, no. They weren’t called because they exposed Damien’s alibi for the total lie it was.

• Holly George - Damien claimed he talked to Holly George on May 5th, 1993. Holly told police she didn’t talk to Damien that evening. She said she spoke with him much earlier in the afternoon, around 3:00pm or 4:00pm. (source)

• Heather Cliett - Damien claimed he spoke with Heather Cliett on the evening of May 5th, 1993. Cliett said she’d been unable to reach Echols until 10:30pm. She also mentioned that Holly George told her that Echols had been “out walking around” on May 5th, 1993. (source)

• Domini Teer - Damien’s girlfriend, Domini Teer, said she last saw Damien around 5:00-5:30pm on May 5th, 1993. She said she did not speak with him again until Damien called her around 10:00pm that night. (source)

• Jennifer Bearden - The one Damien misses out because it’s most damaging. Bearden told police in a 9/10/93 statement that she called Jason’s house between 4:15pm and 5:30pm on May 5th, 1993. She says Jason answered the phone and she talked to Jason and Damien for about 20 minutes. Damien told her he and Jason were “going somewhere” and to call him back at 8:00pm. When Bearden called Damien’s house at 8:00pm his grandmother answered. Damien’s grandmother told Bearden that Damien “wasn’t there.” In her police statement, Bearden says she finally reached Damien around 9:20pm. (source)

So where were Damien and co for four to five hours that happen to coincide with the time of the murders? Well we don’t know. Damien told Jennifer that Jason’s mom had driven them somewhere… which was a lie because she was at work til 11pm (source). It’s strange that he can’t come up with an alibi that holds up isn’t it? Surely if he’s innocent, he just needs to tell us where he was? So why doesn’t he?

• Jessie Misskelley has no alibi either. I know, you’re about to say he was in a karate tournament, but he wasn’t. The so-called photos depict a different event a month prior, and the “witnesses” all gave conflicting testimony. This alibi only emerged after a previous alibi (he was at a party with 12 other people) fell apart (source)

• And nor does Jason Baldwin, after an attempt to get his brother and a friend (Ken Watkins) to lie for him, he stopped trying to construct one; to the point that in 2008 his lawyer stood up in court and said he couldn’t find a reliable alibi witness for Jason. (source). It’s really weird that three totally innocent men all tried to fabricate alibis for the same period of time that just happens to correspond with a murder they’re suspected of. Really weird that.

• Blue wax found on the bodies matched wax found in Damien’s room and a candle belonging to his girlfriend (Photo of candle taken during search)

• The Knife - multiple people testified it was Damien’s knife, including his ex-girlfriend Deanna Holcomb (source). She said Damien’s knife stood out because it had a compass, and the knife manufacturer testified that the knife found was missing a compass (source)

• But it doesn’t end there. The so called “bitemark” on Stevie Branch (photo) perfectly matches the diameter of the compass slot, complete with central wound for the pin (picture of knife with compass to compare). It’s shocking that an innocent man’s knife would match not just the knife wounds, but other contusions on the body too.

• A necklace was found (too late to be included in trial evidence) in Damien’s possession that was covered with blood. Tests proved that the DNA on it was consistent with Damien, Jason and… Stevie Branch. (source)

• The three boys were tied with three, distinct, unique knots. This usually points to three distinct killers and is almost unheard of in cases involving just one suspect (source)

• Paradise Lost claims “there was no blood at the crime scene” which is… wrong. Completely. Here are the Luminol test results. “It lit up like a Christmas tree […] there was a lot of blood there”

• Damien was seen, by a family that knew him very well near the crime scene on the night of the murders. The Hollingsworth Family, who correctly described Damien’s clothes, thought they saw him with his girlfriend. They have never retracted this statement and gained nothing by coming forward, except to have their credibility attacked again and again by WM3 researchers looking to discount their sighting. Despite this, one of the key reasons Narlene Hollingsworth was called to testify was her reputation for brutal honesty, even when it came to her own children. (more info on The Hollingsworth Sighting)

• Green Fibres found at the crime scene matched a shirt in Damien’s home (source). Red fibres that the police suspected were from a bathrobe in Misskelley’s home but stressed that they couldn’t match them, were retested by the defense in 2008 and found not to match. It’s odd that they would retest the fibres known to not be a match, but not the ones that were a match, isn’t it? What’s even odder is that they neglected to mention that owing to evidence decay, most crime labs refused to retest for the defense, saying that after all this time they would have decayed too much and that “any findings, would be deeply suspect - no matter which side they favored”. Odd that they forgot to mention this.

• Damien is a liar. Straight up. He lies to his supporters to make his innocence seem more compelling and lies to make himself seem more of a martyr. A few examples:

• “I lived 15 miles away from West Memphis and the crime scene” (2010 interview, Larry King interview). He lived in a trailer park in West Memphis, less than two miles away from the crime scene.

• “I never went to West Memphis… Hardly at all” (2010 interview). He was known for walking around West Memphis constantly, and testified in 1994: “I walk around frequently… there’s not much to do”

• “I wasn’t familiar with Robin Hood Hills before the murders… it was a residential area, and I only went to West Memphis to go to Walmart and stuff” (2010). In 1994, in response to the question “how often do you go to Robin Hood Hills?” Damien responded “two, three times a week? Probably more”.

• He literally agreed with the prosecutor on the stand that he was moving events around depending on what time he needed to cover. You see him cover for this in Paradise Lost by saying he was “Daydreaming”

• In his book “Almost Home” Damien claims he “barely” knew Jessie Misskelley. The testimony of Domini Teer, Jim McNease, Jason Crosby, Deanna Holcomb, and about 15 others testifies to a friendship between the two, with everyone mentioning them walking around town together, attending events, turning up at people’s houses together and so on. It’s a total lie, and a poor one.

• Claimed Marc Gardner “raped” him in prison. He later retracted the whole thing after investigation proved he hadn’t. The prison at the time said he retracted the claims after he was told a report would be published that called him “a manipulative pathological liar”. He was concerned about the effect this would have on his supporters.

• Claims his mom and sister never visited him in prison (“maybe one or two times… but not often… my sister only came twice and stopped coming after”). Prison records prove he’s lying and that his mother visited weekly, while his sister came fortnightly or once a month when she was busy.

• He told Piers Morgan that the prison forced him to “eat with his hands”. “I had to learn to use a fork again”, a claim that is demonstrably bullshit.

Odd that an innocent man lies enough to be called a “manipulative pathological liar”.

• Misskelley and Echols failed their polygraph tests (Echols’ results | Misskelley’s results). Not conclusive, but interesting.

• It’s frequently claimed that Jodee Medford and the Softball Girls (the girls who heard Damien brag about the murders) have recanted their stories. They haven’t. It’s based on a misunderstanding of a declaration by Medford’s mother and ascribing her words to Jodee: http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/d_medford_declaration.html

Yes. Gravy Team 6 has spent generations fighting an asymmetrical war against Russia then the US and I’m sure they train every day at Taliban compounds or are remnants of the Republican Guard

Be real: they sit in their garage drinking shitty beer and jerking off their unsatisfying-to-anyone cocks to guns, trucks, and Trump

I mean, they did a great job Jan 6, when Babbitt did not comply, of fighting back and showing big ol tyrannical gov! /s

Jk, they ran like little girls as soon as the reality set in

Lemme see any of these fucks hump full battle rattle 15 miles before we talk about them staging an insurgent war against the US

Christ, I bet all but a handful can’t do a single pull-up

Yes, there are people in that culture that are capable of small-arms engagement, using fire and maneuver to close with engage and destroy the enemy, but the VAST majority of them are fatbody chodes who fantasize about living in right-wing Divergence or some other young adult fantasy novel series

Bruh the shit going on in Ohio this election cycle where LaRose has reworded (see also the abortion amendment where his “summary” was longer than the actual text of the amendment) the ballot to obfuscate the actual intent of Issue 1 to make people vote No which helps consolidate the Republicans grip

It’s ridiculous. My wife is relatively intelligent and she doesn’t understand the wording on the ballot and I explained to her that despite the reading, a No vote will continue the status quo. Like I’m a free speech kind of guy but just put the damn text on the damn ballot like don’t bullshit us Frankie!

Fuckin schmucks

Man of Steel Woman of Kleenex by Larry Niven is a weird take on this

Your guy isn’t in the inner circle of the highest ranking members of a party. Atwater was, and refer to the quote above. Rather than being overt, they couch the racism in other terms, but it’s the same terms.

Since the 1960s and the ERA and Nixon, racism and fear-of-the-Other has been intrinsic to the Republican party.

Like… Per their own words. In the quote I referenced. From someone in the inner circle of the Republican party, and who helped them get elected. How? By preying on the fear-of-the-Other ie racism

The current GOP is still entrenched in their Southern Strategy. To quote Lee Atwater:

Y’all don’t quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, “removed, removed, removed.” By 1968 you can’t say “removed”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “removed, removed.”

This plus fundamentalist Christianity is the basis of the modern GOP playbook, only now it’s Latinos that are the target, at least moreso than blacks

Sure we can’t distill it down to just racism since the GOP has become so entrenched with the religious right, so let’s just call it Christofascist Racism, but let’s not ignore 60 years of Republican racism and bullshit

Edit: Lemmy blocks the n-word even when it’s a direct quote, but Atwater was using that derogatory term for blacks in the above quote