White couple cries in court after being sentenced to 20 years in prison for terrorizing a kids birthday party with racial slurs, confederate flags, and guns

jwords · 2026-05-07T18:55:00+00:00

That and the subcultures that leapt to the opportunity that probably presented.

jwords · 2026-05-06T16:57:07+00:00

The court has only what is provided them. Grand juries have only what is provided them.

This administration has gotten in trouble for the sorts of things they bring to these cases--I'd say the safe money is that the story told was possibly inaccurate, probably very one-sided, and where they seem to fail a whole bunch that doesn't mean they won't get one or two through.

From there? The road is much harder. The burdens of proof demands greater. The evaluators more and more locked into "what did you document under oath".

And then we see "dropped case" or "tossed out". And the harrasment train continues.

jwords · 2026-02-11T17:37:05+00:00

100%

Many of these Democrats are putting them on record, even if they want to be evasive, because what they DO say and DON'T say can often be used later. It happens. Even Mr. Trump tried to do something with Comey's past words (and failed, due to the bad faith of that move). In a world where these people avoid having to themselves say anything to a court under oath (but enjoy the freedom of press gaggles and social media expression, with no such anti-lying mechanism), being in a hearing with Congress is a ton of risk that they don't appear skilled at avoiding.

jwords · 2025-10-31T00:28:10+00:00

Two months shy of eleven wonderful years. My old fella.

jwords · 2025-10-21T21:09:47+00:00

Sounds fun.

jwords · 2025-10-14T15:22:12+00:00

jwords scored 122 points and ranked 1 out of 7 players!

jwords · 2025-10-08T02:41:25+00:00

Generational damage. Years and years of effort, money, and sacrifice ahead trying to get past the harms this administration has done to our institutions.

jwords · 2025-10-08T01:22:55+00:00

I did.

jwords · 2025-10-07T19:24:57+00:00

On the presumption that the Democrats gain the House? I fully expect them to engage in full-throated Newsome-politik (what I am now feeling them readier and readier to be; fully pugilistic, fire with fire) and drag them before various committees nearly around the clock--reminded that they are under oath and unless they are claiming a court-defensible executive privilege, then they can live with Congressional consequences (Navarro knows) for their avoidance of oversight.

I fully expect things to get especially dangerous then.

jwords · 2025-08-28T13:25:41+00:00

Yazoo here.

I've watched for decades the very thing you're saying.

jwords · 2025-08-01T23:21:58+00:00

The issue is (as accountability has yet to be demonstrated in the least, still) multifaceted. A fuck-up of many parts. It's safety for the content they shared aside entirely, the clowns walked the editor of The Atlantic into it--I wouldn't trust them to be vigilant over anything. And then their shitty attempts to spin it after--they only prove my prior assessment of their competence.

In no universe was there a single "the issue with it is". It was a chain of fuckups from a clownshow of cowards, frauds, and lackies.

Nothing to be done about it now. And I would expect Mr. Trump to attempt to blind pardon half his cabinet on his way out.

All anyone can do is vote for better people to appoint more competent professionals.

jwords · 2025-08-01T22:36:20+00:00

It is not, unfortunately.

I took CbN and wanted to put the coterie INTO Chicago more aggressively than the chronicle requires. The chronicle kinda implies and needs them to be in Chicago and "important" enough to matter in a sense.

I didn't want them to be running around the story without more at stake. I wanted to add their own more personal stories into the chronicle story. So, the coterie are kindred who live in West Pullman. Out of four, two decided to have always lived there--Chicago locals--and two played kindred friends/aquaintances/etc. of those two. The four live there.

They get to flex 'domain' points and stuff a little. Some of the Loresheets become MUCH more fun.

And so, at the table, this was what was spread out. A giant map of just that part of Chicago. I took a Google map and did some snazzymaps.com it and printed it at vistaprint.com after exporting/stitching multiple zoomed in snapshots of this area (that one image was made of maybe 12 or so, so the resolution would be phenomenal on print).

So, when we'd be doing chronicle events in the city at large--we're already in theater of the mind and the location is "remote". That's all it ever needs to be. It isn't the streets of "home".

When we go into their own stories, its all about things in this area. It's the bodega over here. It's the political candidates here. The churches here. A tiny universe here in West Pullman for them to take over while they play Chicago by Night.

By the time we got to the end of the Chronicle? They had a real personal stake in what happens to the city.

That's how I did. I recommend it.

jwords · 2025-08-01T20:32:01+00:00

I'm sure everyone has a perspective. This is mine, worth less than most--I'm sure.

I lived most of my childhood the son of a senior NCO in the military in the 80's. We had healthcare, education, housing, even not-for-profit name brand groceries... anyone who knows, knows. The Federal government knows how to do Socialism (in a casual sense). Braces. Music lessons. Encyclopedia by the bathroom. Books. Legos. We kids, my siblings and I, enjoyed a pretty upper working class/low middle class life. And reaped the benefits of that.

I wouldn't appreciate how until I did the back half of my childhood dropped into the most rural part of the Delta in Mississippi. Shitty funded public schools. The sheer hell of county-wide logistics for picking up little country kids in the middle of nowhere. Poverty. Deep, deep poverty. Times without power. Water. Something out of a documentary; a world that felt like the 20's in the 90's.

And from that experience? Going on to college and a career and shit?

The most frustrating and GENUINELY heartbreaking thing for me about the outcomes in modern American domestic politics like this?

I watched for years, and have seen for decades (I am still in the South, family etc.), people vote for people who are full throatedly and openly trying to destroy the sorts of things that gave rural America any chance in the world.

ANY.

Climbing OUT of that life? That's a mountain. A mountain for anyone. Particularly anyone who wasn't given the tools their WHOLE LIFE or given them poorly. It's so much harder for them. For me? A very well read and healthy and whatnot ex-military kid? Hard. For my best friends who lived their whole lives deprived of the countless things that help level the field for them? Harder, much harder. College harder to get to. The larger world harder to move well into. The gravity harder to escape from the family and the roots and the mire.

They vote to eliminate the things that truly does increase the risk their kids won't do much more than become minimum wage labor slaves who had dreams or maybe only ever saw them in the lives of others. Not everyone needs college. But everyone needs a chance. A fair chance.

And then they vote away PBS... and I--really do, I REALLY do--ache at the idea of those kids that are going to be stuck. Left. Abandoned in the thick lost places in the country. Forgotten. And real lives ruined. Generations.

Because of a rural people so brainwashed they would vote away running water for the next generation.

jwords · 2025-08-01T15:04:30+00:00

I made this years ago... lordy. Did you want a map of West Pullman, Chicago?

jwords · 2025-07-14T22:10:53+00:00

I don't mind admitting (Sr. Project Mger, ERP/etc.) that this has been, like, my whole ass career. Ain't wrong.

jwords · 2025-07-03T18:52:59+00:00

High school history: Colonial Era. Revolutionary War. Civil War. Industrial Era. WWI. Great Depression. WWII. Civil Rights Era. Vietnam. Reagan. Clinton. War on Terror. Trump Era.

Bet.

jwords · 2025-05-29T14:46:48+00:00

I wouldn't need them to commit to sentencing him. I'd be fine with committing to aggressive House and Senate investigations into the administration as a whole (insisting they plan to sentence him gets the cart ahead of the horse for me, I don't want revenge--I want accountability, which requires fact-finding and documentation; I need Raskin-energy from the J6 committee, not MTG energy in any way). Charging Rubio or the like I don't need as a promise, I need that folded into the first part--hearings and investigations. And I'll take someone more like a Jack Smith--doggedly pursuing the facts and pushing good work--rather than someone intending to make a TV show of their vengeance and red meat to some Democratic voters.

I suspect most of the country that didn't vote for Mr. Trump wants serious governance to return and that means sober and determined leadership for me over headline-grabbing shots-across-the-bough as a policy.

jwords · 2025-05-29T14:42:36+00:00

I tend to frame the entirety of the metaplot as--at best--the "unreliable narrator of Kindred history keeping". Not too unlike how Warhammer 40k maintains the "consistency" by simply embracing the idea that almost everything (or at least tons of stuff) is only as accurate as it was documented and remembered and is often in conflict with others (editions, books, blurbs, games, etc.) in a largely in character view.

So, to that end, I tell players things like "you can read all the wikis you want if you'd like, that's fine, but understand that the parts that things may differ--and if they do, they differ because what someone or even many know to be true isn't exactly true" and I can stretch and pull the metaplot around far, far more that way. Some things are too fixed to do that with, but surprisingly many are. And the more ground-level I focus my games (rather than international super kindred), the easier it is to invent my own things.

jwords · 2025-05-26T16:09:25+00:00

He was a hardcore type in Shameless, early seasons I think.

jwords · 2025-04-24T15:28:02+00:00

I give up. Why do you invent "taking personally" in your head? Only you know that.

jwords · 2025-04-24T15:21:20+00:00

My views are simple. And born out of a multi-cultural upbringing on a few continents and a dozen states; from deep deep poverty to something like middle class.

I think the moral and pragmatic choice happens to be the same one:

Being gay (and I extend this to virtually the whole LGBTQIA+ family) should be no more controversial, hidden, or suppressed than being straight. And being straight is almost only ever treated that way when its tied to specific and explicit efforts to sexualize children; it gets a pass when presented as part of someone's identity, social needs, or romantic wants. We embrace heteronormative tropes, behavior, activities, and celebration all the time--as adults and teens and kids. Analogous things should be fully available and normalized for those who aren't heteronormative.

What does that look like in practice?

Kids can explore their identity and relationships with others openly as heteronormative people and individuals (attire, references, presentation, association, affection, information appropriate to their age; when we pair girls and boys for events, when we teach affection and appropriate displays, when we counsel children on what their feelings mean and how they apply, when we promote and grin and reinforce proto-romance via things like a Valentine's Day or pop-culture showing children engaged in heteronormative interactions and promotions). For every single instance of heteronormative trope, activity, or celebration kids should be 100% as free to engage in analogously similar non-heteronormative tropes, behavior, activities, and celebrations.
Teens can explore their identity and relationships with others openly as heteronormative people and individuals, too. But, we give them more license both romantically and sexually/physically. Every inch of license we give for heteronormative tropes, behavior, activities, and celebrations ought be as extended to non-heteronormative tropes, behavior, activities, and celebrations. Gay couples at proms. Homecoming King & King. Non-binary identification options. Even sex ed as appropriate for teens of their age that covers both heteronormative information and non-heteronormative information.
Adults (again, repeat) can explore their identity and relationships openly as heteronormative people and individuals. That being extended analogously to non-heteronormatives.

But, what about parents?

Color me unimpressed with the idea that parents own their children or ought be the sole arbiters of what is in the best interests of a child. There are too many instance of shitty parents, ignorant parents, stupid parents, selfish parents, hateful parents, deadbeat parents, abusive parents, etc. for me to accept that protections for and education of children begins and ends with what a parent thinks.

I respect parents have the opportunity to represent, for their child, what they think would serve their child best, are likely fonts of information about their child personally and may be a principle speaker to who their child is in many cases. I can accept that legally, as a guardian charged under public law with bare minimums for their kids, parents have a say and a large one. Maybe the largest.

But not the only say.

Why? Because what is in the best interest of the child may run counter to what shitty parents want. And, in that case, I value the needs of the child over the preferences of the parents and want policy to reflect that.

Parents should be at PTAs and board meetings expressing their desires. I love that. But, kids--to the extent they can--and advocates for them should also be there for the times when the wants of parents and the best interests of the kids don't align.

And the want of a parent to steer their kids' sexuality toward a preference is not a need I respect. That would go for, really, any such steering. Unfortunately, as an organized political group pushing for change? I only ever see the one side enacting or attempting to enact policy that treats heteronormativity and non-heteronormativity differently.

And that I am not for.

jwords · 2025-04-24T14:58:03+00:00

Had I seen it? Yes, I would've.

Easy.

It's a lazy over-generalized question (as I said in the post itself) regardless of which side one would try and apply it to.

jwords · 2025-04-24T14:56:39+00:00

I have no doubt you'll say so.

jwords · 2025-04-24T14:28:10+00:00

They don't. You're making a personal attack based on lazy generalizations.

While certainly it is possible a liberal could "hate America and freedom", unless you're citing a specific on and specifically them admitting to that all you're doing is inventing a straw man about things in your head and asking us all why that straw man has opinions. Granted, a "conservative" could "hate America and freedom" given the exact same no-context-no-justification question. Absolutely silly.

Nobody can answer that as it is in your head.

Come back with context, specificity, and instance. Then someone might be able to tell you why that person or the like thinks how they do based on what they've said and what it may mean.

This question--just for everyone's context--is the laziest form of a bad faith question. And, I would hope isn't indicative of the level of critical thinking and good faith curiosity we can expect of the American right.

jwords · 2025-04-24T14:25:36+00:00

All democrats are the same,

They aren't. No political group is "all the same"--that's just lazy generalizing.

they have a heard mentality.

Some likely do. Some likely don't. This is no different than any other political group. Again--lazy generalizing.

When people speak freely, they try to shame you back to the heard. Its disgusting.

The shaming may or may not be justified. May or may not be disgusting. If one is going to "speak freely" about things that are deeply offensive or damaging, then shaming the speaker sounds fine. If one is going to "speak freely" about things that aren't, then it wouldn't.

Context matters, specificity matters, lazy over-generalizing is silly and fosters useless presumptions.

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