SwampYankee

Yeah, my dad is from there originally and moved back with my mom when they retired. A 15 point gap in the governor’s race is crazy. Democrats really expanded their map in the southeast around Norfolk and the lower peninsula. Some of those areas are rapidly developing, so I wonder how much it has to do with demographic shifts. Judging by the huge swings, I can’t see how Republican insanity isn’t driving some significant portion of this.

I’ve always had the sense that MTG is sincere, but incredibly stupid.

Centre Street in Boston. Amusingly enough, this video starts a stone’s throw away from a major transit hub connecting three commuter rail lines to the T.

And worth noting, it looks like this backup is almost entirely caused by the reduction to one lane at the Allandale Street intersection due to construction.

Those are pee pads it’s laying on and its pupils are super dilated. Probably coming down from anesthesia or something, could have been as simple as a teeth cleaning.

It’s also not irony.

Fair enough. I only made the comment about calling the texts fake because some people seem to be making that claim, usually alongside the idea that a 20-something wouldn’t text like that - the “my love” in particular. Your typical 20-something also wouldn’t do an assassination, so it’s a spurious line of reasoning.

We have text messages between the shooter and the roommate. If you want to call those fake, that’s your right, but that’s going to be a major piece of evidence in the trial.

In the texts from the indictment, the shooter says:

I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.

The shooter also calls the roommate “my love”. There are some friends, neighbors, acquaintances corroborating that they were in a relationship.

The roommate’s gender identity isn’t 100% clear. There seems to be some evidence from social media accounts that they’re trans.

I don’t think you can call this shooter “far right”. Not clear that he’s a groyper in my opinion. The Discord messages are pretty milquetoast. I certainly wouldn’t call him a leftist either. Seems he was (more than) okay with LGBTQ folks, but that doesn’t tell you much about his broader views.

Acosta was the US DA for Florida, where Epstein committed the crimes he was accused of, notably these were federal charges. Pam Bondi was AG of Florida starting in 2011 and could have pursued state charges against Epstein after Acosta’s sweetheart deal on the federal charges. She didn’t, and now she is Trump’s AG.

Trump’s AG during his first term was Bill Barr, whose father (former OSS [pre-CIA US intelligence] operative) was headmaster of a boarding school that Epstein worked at before becoming a billionaire sex trafficker. Bill Barr also worked at the law firm that represented Epstein when the Acosta deal happened.

Alan Dershowitz, who represented Trump in his impeachment trial, is a known associate of Epstein and has been accused of sexual abuse in connection with Epstein.

RFK Jr. flew on Epstein’s plane at least twice, his wife was associated with Ghislane Maxwell, and he attended an event at Maxwell’s home in 2014, well after it was well known that she and Epstein were partners in a child sex trafficking operation.

… By which time the kid may have been gone, or at least far enough away that he would have been hard to hit.

Or, you know, this violent, impulsive sack of shit may have had 10 extra seconds to think about what he was doing and be like “oh yeah, I don’t want to go to prison”.

7/10 of the most violent cities (>100k population) in the country are in red states. Chicago and Boston, Trump’s next stated targets, are 92/200 and 71/200, respectively. Houston, The US’s fourth largest city behind Chicago, has a violent crime rate more than double Chicago’s, placing it at #16 most dangerous. Nashville, comparable in population to Boston, has a violent crime rate almost double Boston’s, placing it at #18.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_crime_rate

Small person or huge cat?

It didn’t even get the rhyme right…

You know, I thought I had seen enough on the internet that nothing would surprise me…

Take that, American companies that import Indian goods!

The Big Dig in Boston began planning phases in 1982, and was estimated at $2.8 billion in 1985. It was scheduled to be completed in 1998, but was actually completed in 2007 at a cost of $21.5 billion. From original conception to completion, that’s 25 years and a 768% cost increase (289% adjusted for inflation).

That seems eggregious until you realize the economic impact eclipses the original costs by an order of magnitude via development of the Seaport, North Station, Cambridge Crossing, Assembly Square, Fenway, and Allston, not to mention the health impact of replacing a traffic-snarled viaduct in the heart of the city with 30 acres of parks.

As a disclaimer, I also realize that the Big Dig was almost exclusively a highway capacity project. I’m not saying that it was an ideal project in that respect. I’m also not saying that we should ignore the corruption, safety issues, and cost & time overruns, but if we can all agree that these projects are worth doing even if it’s an ugly process, maybe we get fewer overruns and the process is a little less ugly. The cynicism and pessimism that we approach mega projects with is, IMO, part of the problem.

The national intelligence director said she was referring Obama administration officials, including ex-FBI director James Comey, to the Justice Department for prosecution over allegations they had “manufactured” intelligence to substantiate the idea that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump beat Obama’s former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

James Comey, huh? The guy who dropped the email scandal in October 2015 and handed the election to Trump? That James Comey?

Chinese organized crime is huge in illegal grow operations, but obviously that doesn’t make it right to point to people’s race as a determining factor in the decision to investigate “unusual” electricity usage.

Vladimir, STOP! :'(

NJ drivers have a penchant for left lane camping, but I generally agree with your assessment. I do want to point out, as a Masshole myself, that Massachusetts has a lower fatal accident rate per capita AND per vehicle mile traveled (by VMT, we’re actually the lowest) than New Jersey does. I don’t think we deserve the bad rap we get.

Hmmm… maybe time for the left to appropriate the 30 to 50 feral hogs meme.