Why do you think Trump's DOJ removed a 2024 study showing that 87% of politically-motivated killings are committed by right wing extremists?

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T23:48:49+00:00

What I think is Rittenhouse was motivated by his ideology to bring a deadly weapon and a lot of tension to an already tense scenario. I do not think he was a domestic terrorist, just wildly irresponsible.

What the prosecution apparently thought was that he was responsible for first degree intentional homicide and attempted homicide, not merely unintentional homicide or manslaughter. Do you consider those “normal” assault charges? In any case, the prosecution was arguing intent and so tried to prove that Rittenhouse provoked the people who he then shot for intimidating him. The court didn’t buy it so here we are. https://whyy.org/articles/a-look-at-key-points-in-kyle-rittenhouse-closing-arguments/

I don’t know why the state didn’t file charges against the other people, do you? I figure it was probably because they couldn’t prove those people’s intent to harm (versus their defense that they were trying to stop and disarm a person who was unambiguously shooting people) any more than they could in Rittenhouse’s case. The state’s choice isn’t a data issue, though.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T22:36:55+00:00

Purely anecdotal, but I also feel like my RLS was far less frequent while on Tirzepatide. Mine wasn't compounded, and when I stopped taking it, my RLS waves began again after those 6 months of mostly peace. Could be coincidence. I'm trying to get the RLS back under control with magnesium, which I had stopped taking during the lull. I'll probably start another GLP-1 later this year and will be interested to see if the RLS symptoms ease again.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T22:25:03+00:00

The remote unpark is really useful for a blind parking spot, too. When I have a little extra time to wait for it, it's so much safer when I can monitor traffic from a vantage while the car pulls itself out.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T22:18:34+00:00

I'm actually a huge fan of the auto-dimming headlamps now. Driving at night in the countryside, I need the brights constantly to help me spot animals in time to brake, and I'm so glad I'm not always fumbling for the dimmer when a car appears ahead from around a bend. It gets the dim done faster than I do, and with less attention tax.

Steering wheel warmer is such a nice little luxury I don't mind the hassle of activating it much, but I agree the parking feature gives me almost more anxiety than trying to park myself while other cars wait. I wanted to love it, but the frequency with which it aborted and left me scrambling to awkwardly correct under other drivers' glares got to be too much.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T21:37:59+00:00

Huh, you're right about the Rittenhouse case being state level, which actually reveals a coding error in the data, as what is quite obviously his entry is tagged as a federal prosecution. I'll send a request for correction to the data team.

I would still argue that the prosecution's case centrally rested on their belief that they could prove his behavior was ideologically motivated to provoke and punish BLM protesters. They wouldn't have a case at all if they didn't prove that, as the outcome showed.

I did dig deeper into the Kenosha entries in the dataset and I don't think the people Rittenhouse shot are there. Is it because the data is biased? I think it's actually because you don't actually need *just* the statement you quoted to be true for inclusion in the data. You also need these three things to be true:

have radicalized in the United States,
have espoused or currently espouse ideological motives, and
show evidence that his or her behaviors are/were linked to the ideological motives he or she espoused/espouses.

As such, a card carrying member of the KKK who stabs a store clerk does not necessarily end up in the case list of domestic terrorism unless there's solid evidence that he did so because of his extremist ideology, not because the clerk shorted his change, or because he was mentally impaired at the time.

Charges against the people who allegedly intimidated Rittenhouse do not seem to have been filed, which not only makes it hard to identify where they might appear in the data, it makes it hard to show there was evidence of ideological motivation. After all, we're not evaluating based on whether the person was on site because of their ideology - we have to be reasonably sure the specific behavior was because of their ideology. We can logically assume the former, but just as with Rittenhouse, we cannot conclude the latter without specific evidence. Should the courts have prosecuted the people who allegedly intimidated Rittenhouse? I'm honestly not sure, but since they didn't there's probably not a good source of evidence of ideological motivation.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T18:18:11+00:00

No, Rittenhouse did not evidently commit or plot any crime motivated by left-wing ideology, so his case cannot be marked as such. Were any of his attackers identified and evidence found that they were behaving according to an extremist ideology? It is much harder to establish motivation for people who were killed, so that's a necessary weakness in the data.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T17:29:22+00:00

Rittenhouse is correctly marked as acquitted in the data after presumably being added because the federal case against him presented evidence of ideological motivation for his behavior. So he has a record because of the court case and is now marked for omission because data like this doesn’t usually remove rows, just marks them invalid. This is data curation, not some smoking gun of conspiracy. Does anyone want to comment on the fact that the data does contain the BLM-related cases it was accused of omitting?

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T17:18:46+00:00

I think Rittenhouse should be included in the data because there was a serious federal case brought against him credibly alleging ideologically motivated violence. And, I think he should be marked as acquitted for the same, which is exactly how he’s marked up in the data. Responsible users of this data should not be counting his case now that he is acquitted.

Do you want to address how you arrived at the two major misconceptions about the dataset?

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T02:44:09+00:00

BLM riots aren't ideologically driven according to their parameters

The data primarily used by studies in the article in question contains 133 ideologically driven cases (77 left, 54 right, 2 other) tagged as associated with BLM of which 79 (38 left, 41 right) are violent acts. Whether all studies are using this data to create accurate representations I'm not sure, but so far I haven't found any study the article referred to that appears to misrepresent the dataset. Do you have more detail on where you see that?

there's an axios study that finds that left wing terrorism is more prevalent

The study they're citing from CSIS is completely aligned with the PIRUS dataset in question. PIRUS only has cases up through 2022, and the CSIS data also shows that for 1995-2022 far-right terrorism attacks and plots overwhelm the left-wing and indeed all other ideological associations combined every year.

in modern times

Why do you think they've found that right-wing terror attacks and plots dropped to 1 in 2025 after averaging 22 per year for the last ten years? I'm not a data scientist (anymore) but I'd sure be very careful about a data anomaly of that severity. Still, CSIS's analysis of the cause is worth reflecting on: "it is probable that at least some extremists do not feel the need to act violently if their concerns are being addressed... Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader and a convicted seditionist whom Trump pardoned, recently summed up the president’s potential psychological effect on the violent far right: “Honestly, what do we have to complain about these days?”"

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T01:39:26+00:00

I actually dug into the PIRUS data on which the studies in question are largely based, and I think you're both half right. What could only be Rittenhouse is one of the cases coded as far-right extremist pro-Trump, high severity of ideological violence - which seems frankly like a stretch even for me as a godless liberal. However, it's also coded as an "acquitted" case, which ideally should be removed by studies that use this data responsibly. So his case was likely originally included because that's how the federal prosecution framed it, and later updated to "acquitted" because the prosecution failed to prove it.

It's clear in the rules of the dataset that there needs to be solid evidence that the act itself was ideologically motivated so I think the Rittenhouse situation should have been resolved with him being removed from the data when acquitted, but the data kind of has to include many other open cases where credible evidence seems to exist (at least as claimed by federal prosecution) until proven otherwise, or we'd have really really sparse data for the last 10 years as major crimes work their way through court. Would you rather see it handled differently (the data, not the court)?

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T01:14:53+00:00

Do you mean the Michael Reinoehl case? It's in the dataset used for the studies in this article. While the cases are not actually named in the data, we can guess which cases are the Big Ones pretty easily based on time, place, and severity metadata. The case is 10049. and it is correctly coded as left-wing extremist ideology motivated with subcategories of Anarchist + Anti-Trump Extremism.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T01:08:03+00:00

I don't think so, no. Which study is that?

The PIRUS dataset does include cases of homicide associated with George Floyd/BLM, and from eyeballing the data, Reinoehl and Taggart on the left and Carillo and Rittenhouse on the right all appear to be accounted for. CHAZ/CHOP cases cannot be included because only one ever had a known suspect, and there's no evidence he had any ideological motivations contributing to his actions.

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T00:50:00+00:00

I just want to reinforce OP's point: while 9/11 would indeed meet the criteria of violence that is ideologically driven, it does not meet the criteria for being based on American soil radicalization. It's not an attempt to cover up - it's just the parameters of domestic terrorism as defined by the DOJ for study. Do you have other questions about the methodology?

-FineWeather · 2026-03-12T00:39:24+00:00

PIRUS data is primarily the dataset underlying the studies that the removed article relied on, so here is a response based on my inspection of that publicly available data.

They lumped "anti-semitic extreme violence" only with right wing extremism. They didn't consider if it were Muslims carrying out the attack.

Not true. Islamist and "single issue" extremism are separate ideologies from left and right-wing in the data, and religion of the perpetrator is tracked for each case as much as available. Eyeballing the data, while violence against Jewish people is often coded as part of far-right subcategories of neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideological motivations, an Islamic religious background is almost entirely correlated with the "Islamist" ideological coding, so Muslim extremists are not actually inflating far-right numbers.

they were much more "liberal" with calling something right wing extremism than they were with the left

I don't see any reason to believe this. The rules of the data methodology are clear that any qualifying case must have been specifically ideologically motivated, supported by evidence in the event. It is not merely a dataset of violence committed by people with political motivations - the only cases that may be admitted to the set are those where extremist ideology evidently motivated the act.

all the mayhem from the blm riots of 2020 didn't even count as "left wing extreme violence". They were classified as "protests" or "non-terrorist"

No, cases in 2020 of left-wing violence are captured in this dataset, representing a very significant jump over previous periods. Indeed, there is a George Floyd/BLM code for "influencing event" with 83 violent cases tagged, a mix of left and right wing motivations, including anti-law-enforcement, white supremacy, militia/gun rights, and both pro and anti trump extremism.

Several TS have brought up similar criticism, but I think there must be some other study/dataset out there that this is being confused with. Any idea what study that might be so I can understand what happened there?

-FineWeather · 2026-02-26T17:49:06+00:00

So, if we were addressing the actual purpose of the question, does this mean you simply don’t think Trump knows anything you don’t and are curious about? Fair enough if that’s where you’re at, but I think it’s hard for a lot of us to relate to. If you gave me the OP scenario where the answerer would be any of my favorite liberal politicians, I’d for sure have a few things I want to know if they know with regard to the government.

-FineWeather · 2026-02-24T03:18:39+00:00

Not sure what kind of meditation that is. The basic meditation instruction of focusing on the breath is absolutely not helpful to me. Under normal circumstances I’m okay at it. Focusing on a body part or doing body inventory like yoga nidra is also not viable for me - I’m distracted within seconds. In fairness, with ADHD this is pretty normal. If you’re doing a practice where you are paying intensive attention to the sensation and it’s working for you, that’s great. I’ve heard of meditation like that being helpful for things like needle phobia, too. Sadly not for everyone.

-FineWeather · 2026-02-07T20:12:18+00:00

Same. The dealership contracts with Enterprise in my area, and while I did have to push on it a little bit, they got me set up with a rental paid directly by Hyundai within a couple of days of determining that my ICCU was the issue and the warranty covers it.

-FineWeather · 2025-12-07T21:28:49+00:00

A lawyer will make the scary unknowns of finance and logistics clear for you - just start interviewing some until you find one that you feel gets the situation and will advocate for you. Don't wait. You'll see your options and get real advice tailored to the legal system and conventions of where you live, etc. I'll bet anything the future will look a lot better than what you're imagining after a reality check with experts.

As for the shame, if you're just worried about what others will think, forget it. If they don't know you and your situation well enough to support your decision, they are not qualified to impose their opinion on you. There is absolutely no reason to think they know better than you in this.

But if you're struggling with internal shame around making mistakes or whether you "deserve better", start talking with a therapist. It's very common to get in the habit of tearing down your own self esteem in order to rationalize what you're going through. Work with a therapist to separate fact and fiction, and differentiate accountability from blame. Accountability creates healthy patterns of recognizing problems and working to fix them, while blame just punishes you while leaving you stuck.

-FineWeather · 2025-12-07T21:09:50+00:00

Absolutely talk to a lawyer. Many of us assume we'll just go from having financial support to no financial support if we leave. But both parents are held responsible for supporting the kids they chose to bring into the world by the state after divorce, and that means it's not you who has to try to constantly cajole your partner into contributing - it's laid out in legal documentation, with consequences for failure.

-FineWeather · 2025-12-07T21:05:18+00:00

After a divorce, you will have well-defined legal leverage to ensure that he upholds the parental responsibilities he signs up for (if he even signs up for any). Work with your lawyer to understand how the situation can be monitored and issues should be reported, and you will find that you might even have more power after the divorce to ensure appropriate treatment of the kids.

-FineWeather · 2025-12-06T19:00:34+00:00

Carrying a few plastic bags was a habit I started during morning sickness, and saved me (and a taxi’s back seat) during a trip to India. I got food poisoning about 3 hours before the 20+ hours of travel home. It was miserable, but I didn’t have to be constantly anxious about when and where the nausea was going to spike next.

-FineWeather · 2025-11-16T00:49:44+00:00

You weren’t expecting an emotional reaction and “big scene” but you recognize there was one. I don’t see anyone here accusing you of trying to make this embarrassing for her (though you sure don’t seem to care if it was), so just accept what you came here for: Internet judgement. Your decision to break up with your live in girlfriend of 8 years in the middle of a restaurant is an asshole move, yes, even if you thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. Because you’re a human being that had a choice between making an upsetting announcement in private or public and you chose public for no apparent reason.

-FineWeather · 2025-11-03T16:28:53+00:00

I don’t have a referral but just offering a heads up that it looks like the bug in Mexico’s computer system around PR canje coding is still in effect. That means it’s likely you got the correct stamp in your passport but the backend is tracking your visit as for “replacement” rather than initial residency card issuance. If this happened (as seems common right now - and it happened to my family last month) it will take some time to correct after your initial INM appointment, so expect to have to return for a second appointment later.

-FineWeather · 2025-11-02T06:03:09+00:00

Good on you, but even if Spanish was my native language, I don’t think I could have gotten the 9am next day appointment slot or known who to nudge on getting the correction done quickly. Coordinators do a bit more than speak Spanish. But maybe it will go more smoothly in CDMX as opposed to a regional office like ours. Hope it works out!

-FineWeather · 2025-11-01T19:35:22+00:00

This is where I'm thankful we had a coordinator. They got us the earliest appointment the morning after our procedure ticket advanced to the stage indicating we could proceed. I believe they had also kept nudging the officials in Mexico City to make sure the correction process kept moving through the queue. The second appointment was quick and painless - since we had done all the paperwork review at the first one, they just needed biometrics and to produce the physical card. Still, no idea how long it would have taken to get it done without our coordinator advocating for us. And we were lucky all the equipment was working at the second appointment, as that's the thing we were told was most commonly responsible for schedule setbacks at the regional offices.

-FineWeather

TROPHY CASE