#fuck hillary clinton

[hussyknee]

Lmao.

[infamousbrad]

It's the 30th anniversary of the end of the Branch Davidian siege at Waco, and the news coverage hasn't gotten any better since.

I have a weirdly privileged view of those events, not unique, but pretty unusual. I had recently bought a house that came with a Big Ugly Dish, one of those old-fashioned 10-foot diameter aimable satellite antennae. Back then, the way that stations like NBC or CNN covered unfolding events in remote areas was to send a camera crew and a satellite uplink, and stream the footage in real time back to the studio in New York for editing. And back then the raw feeds were entirely unencrypted. So if you had a big ugly dish, you could watch the unfiltered live stream of any major news event.

I was glued to this story from the day it started. From the first day of the siege, I was expecting the worst, because unlike most Americans, I knew something about the Clinton administration's Attorney General, Janet Reno, namely how she got the job. During the transition team, Hillary Clinton was assigned by her husband to expand the pool of qualified female candidates for cabinet-level positions, and Hillary seized on Janet Reno because, like Hillary, she was "committed to protecting children."

The reason that Janet Reno was considered "committed to protecting children" was that she was an early adopter and enthusiastic promoter of the Satanic Ritual Abuse conspiracy theory, the one we now know as Q-Anon.

Over the first couple of days of the siege, it came out that the Branch Davidian raid had started out as an international child-custody dispute. A group of three Australian ex-spouses of Branch Davidians had filed for sole custody in their home country on the grounds that the children were being brainwashed into a cult, and got it, but the US Justice Department always reflexively sides with the American parent and declined to honor the Australian court order. So when the Australian spouses came to Washington to lobby for themselves, Reno didn't even agree to meet with them, not at first. Then, and only then, did they start circulating the "David Koresh rapes children as part of cult rituals" story.

That caught Janet Reno's attention, all right.

In planning the arrests and the search of the compound, the Justice Department turned up the fact that David Koresh was popular with local law enforcement, so that ruled out ordering the local sheriffs to carry out the arrest and search. They also found out that one of the residents was a federally licensed machine-gun dealer who stored machine guns on the premises, so that ruled out sending the Marshals or the FBI, because they weren't willing to send their agents up against someone with machine guns, so it fell to the ATF. Also, any attempt to arrest Koresh in town was ruled out, or even to knock and announce, because Reno wanted to make sure that any evidence of cult-ritual child-rape was preserved.

As the ATF were storming the compound, a shot rang out, an ATF agent was shot in the leg, and the rest of the ATF agents lit the place up, and the Davidians returned fire.

I forget how long it was after that, not much more than a couple of days, before someone inside the compound got ahold of CNN by phone. (Land-line. Cellphones were still pretty rare then.) They said that they saw the ATF coming and were prepared for a siege, but that they knew for a fact that none of their people had fired the first shot, that the first shot was friendly fire, probably accidental. (There's some evidence supporting this theory, I won't go into it because this is already too long.)

When the reporter told them that cops had been shot in the exchange of fire, the Davidians said that they were afraid to surrender, now -- that as accused cop-killers, they were afraid that an excuse would be made to shoot them as soon as they came out the door or let the FBI (who had taken over the scene by then) in. So they asked CNN to send in one reporter to come out with them, figuring that the FBI might be willing to murder "cultists" but wouldn't have the guts to murder a reporter on-air.

Reno ordered the FBI to keep reporters out, claiming she believed they would be used as hostages. She also ordered the phone line cut.

You know most of the rest. I watched it live. The FBI used specially designed tanks to gas them out. The gas in question is frequently lethal to children and the FBI knew that the Davidians had no child-sized gas masks, but justified the gas on the grounds that the parents would know this and that would make them rush the children to safety. But they were still afraid of getting shot as suspected cop-killers, so almost nobody fled.

The tanks set the compound on fire, almost certainly accidentally, probably by knocking over kerosene lanterns inside as they punched holes in the walls and igniting the hay bales the Davidians had piled up as bullet-catchers. Almost nobody escaped alive.

Janet Reno kept her job, because all the right people concluded that she was right to want to Save the Children and No Reasonable Person Could Have Foreseen This Outcome. And the dominoes keep falling, are still falling to this day.

[cyarsk52-20]

I'll keep saying it because it's true: the goal of the Roberts Court is to eradicate equal rights and delegitimize the courts. Expand/ change/ get rid of the corrupt judges of the supreme courts

[fdelopera]

ok that's it. tomorrow i'm gonna publish my longer piece on why the modern day Arab Palestinians are NOT the same as the Ancient Greek Philistines (who all died out around 604 BCE when the Babylonians sieged Jerusalem).

Edit: Click here to read the longer version, with links!

but the tl;dr version is this:

we know that the Philistines are Ancient Greeks based on DNA-testing that's been done on their skeletons, and based on their pottery and artifacts, which are Ancient Mycenaean Greek. (the Torah is consistent with this -- it records them as being from Crete, which at that time was under Mycenaean Greek control)

also, being Greeks, the Philistines were not indigenous to the Levant. they were interlopers. the native Israelites fought with the Philistines over and over. the story of David and Goliath is likely a cultural memory of this conflict.

in Hebrew, the Philistines are called Peleshet, and they are likely the same as the Peleset tribe -- one of the tribes of "Sea Peoples" who tried (and failed) to conquer Egypt at the end of the Bronze Age.

and like, duh. obviously the Arab Palestinians and the Greek Philistines are not the same people.

but there are some really bad actors (both in the conspiracy sense, and in the literal "drama" sense) on Tiktok who are trying to erase Jewish history by spreading conspiracy theories that somehow Philistines and Palestinians are "the same". (omg the people who believe this shit are so dumb!!)

they're doing it so they can claim that "Jesus was a Palestinian".

ugh, it gives me a headache even to write something as stupid as that.

no, ya dumb-dumbs. Jesus was a Judaean Jew. he was from Bethlehem. in Judaea.

you know, Judaea. the place where the Jews are from.

deep sigh.

and like, clearly these people have not read a Bible ... ever ... because being associated with the Philistines was NOT a good thing!! they were literally the worst!

the Philistines were Ancient Mycenaean Greeks from Crete.

and the Palestinians are modern day Arabs.

and there is zero connection between them.

the only "connection" is that after the Romans tried to murder all the Jews in the Levant, following the Jewish Bar Kochba revolt in 135 AD, the Romans renamed Judaea, and gave it the name "Syria-Palaestina". they did this to try to wipe the cultural memory of Jews "off the map". they literally went through the Torah, found the name of one of the Judaeans' historical enemies (the Philistines), and renamed the region using that name.

so by claiming that "Jesus was a Palestinian", not only are you calling him a Philistine (ew), you're also giving him the name that the ROMANS WHO CRUCIFIED HIM renamed Judaea after trying to murder LOTS OF OTHER JEWS.

G-d these people are so dumb!!!

[mrfree2go]

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[nando161mando]

At Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs building, where Hillary teaches

[qqueenofhades]

"The opinion of the court is, quite literally, a notice that reads: 'Some services may be denied to same-sex couples."

You fucking go off on them, Ms Sotomayor. One single sane opinion on a board of lunatics

I mean technically, Kagan and KBJ are equally outraged, but 6 is more than 3 every time, so there's not a lot they can do about it other than write scathing dissents....? Ugh.

Also, I don't think we're really grasping the sheer magnitude of the bullshit assfuckery of this case, in that it was completely fabricated. The guy who allegedly wanted the homophobic cake decorator to make him a gay wedding cake says he never filed the lawsuit and never worked with her (not to mention, HE IS STRAIGHT AND MARRIED TO A WOMAN). So basically, it's looking like the homophobes literally made this all the fuck up, sued with the express intent of getting the case in front of the Trump-stacked SCOTUS, and SCOTUS duly took the case (and ruled in favor of the bigot cake designer who again, I repeat, made the whole thing up) as a convenient legal pretext to gut LGBTQ rights, just like the anti-abortionites teed up Dobbs to be the case that would destroy Roe.

I just. I can't. They do this shit in fucking plain sight, and yet, Her Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemails!

[alwaysbewoke]

[freaven]

Hillary Clinton has always been the candidate of Republicans pretending to be Democrats.

[cyarsk5230]

Fuck you. If Democrats don't win, Republicans wins, and that's a negative for everyone. So fuck you, I'm voting Democrat til I can't anymore.

[cyarskj52]

Right? She hasn't been wrong once

[cyarskj1899]

SCOTUS majority Republican goal is to roll America back to a time when there was No Equal Rights, No Voting Rights, No Women’s Rights, and no Gay Rights. A time where only WHITE MEN had the rights, and you dumb MFQUERS who voted Trump who are minorities, gave them the power! You sluted out and you’re paying the price. Choke please!

[cyarsk52-20]

Six years ago, some of y'all f..ked around and didn't vote for Hillary, and Roe v. Wade was overturned, and now affirmative action has ended. So stop f..king around with "Biden is too old," or "I am not going to vote unless..." before this sh.t turns into The Handmaid's Tale.

[o-kurwa]

[daenystheedreamer]

omg the one ask about your modern au reminded me of your keeping up with the baratheons thing i loved it so much!!!! do you have any other ideas/hcs for it???

AHHH KUWTB i missed them... ok so i love the idea of like real housewives of king's landing existing and cersei being on a season of it and thats how she starts being famous for being famous yknow.

RHOKL cersei season: cersei, taena merryweather, tanda stokeworth, falyse stokeworth, lysa arryn, selyse florent, alerie tyrell. they're not KL technically but i would also add genna lannister, ellaria sand and sybell spicer.

i think this lineup would cause some astronomical levels of cunt and slay, but cersei is definitely the breakout star. marge and olenna show up as side characters. lysa exits the show dramatically. selyse falls for MLM scams and is forced to leave when she tries hawking them on facebook. the real actual cops get called when cersei and ellaria grab wine glasses and turn them into shanks and start trying to stab each other. there's soooo many cocaine and drunk driving arrests.

KUWTB is a RHOKL (jesus christ ive got asoiaf acronym brain) spinoff because cersei was so fucking insane and the ratings were so good everytime she like caused a physical fight. taena is the ONLY person from RHOKL that cersei doesnt have personal violent beef with (ellaria and cersei have restraining orders) and she shows up o KUWTB.

also i like the crack theory that taena's son is a robert bastard and i think it would be VERY funny for that scandal to play out.

myrcella likes RHOKL she thinks its funny and she liked wearing pretty dresses when she shows up on the show. joffrey fucking hates it so much he's like everyone at school thinks im GAY cos of this. tommen is just excited cos 'mummy's on tv!' robert does not give a fuck

also taena and cersei go on a season of westerosi celebrity big brother and have implied lesbian sex in an episode