#Murder Ronald Reagan

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

People on Facebook and tiktok are so quick to point out that you can't post hole on tumblr anymore then turn around and say "we should go back in time and redact Ronald Reagan."

Bitch, I'm gonna murder him.

[deanaferal]

WHY IS SOUP 7 DOLLARS ITS 8 GODDAMN FUCKING OUNCES OF BROCCOLI AND CHEESE WHY THE FUCK IS IT THE PRICE OF A SANDWICH AND WHY IS THE HALF OF A SANDWICH FOURTEEN DAGGUM DOLLARS I AM CRYING IN THE DELI YALL

[mx-defying]

If you loved the Netflix doc series The Octopus Murders🐙 you’ll be intrigued by its Hollywood tentacle! I met Danny Casolaro at the center of the Octopus. The Octopus never went away… it just became the Squid 🦑!

NEW ON SUBSTACK:

MCA: The Octopus’ Tentacle That Wraps Around The World, by @Mx_Defying

[lelliefant]

Every time I hear about a shooting in Texas I suffer a moment of fear for all of my family members down there.

Over the last two weekends there have been two mass murders in Texas.

Which city was it this time? What town? How far is that from my family in Austin, Dallas, and Houston?

Could my sister be out shopping at that mall? Could the gunman at large be hiding in my other sister’s neighborhood?

Every time I hear about another mass shooting, I have to immediately Google the location to figure out how close my family members are. With my heart choking my throat, I text and call to be sure they’re okay. My family in Texas must be sick of getting my frantic messages by now.

Not all mass murders are committed in Texas. Just more than any other state, and—shocker—their gun laws are debatably the most lax of any state.

And yet my family in Texas all continue to vote for the corrupt politicians, owned by the NRA, who support the proliferation of guns in Texas and throughout our country.

God forbid my sisters and other Texan relatives vote for a Democrat—because a liberal might not share all of their beliefs. My family members down there would never vote for the “other team,” even though their lives—and the lives of their children—are put at risk by voting for the jackals they think are on “their side.” Party loyalty has become more important than getting fair and moderate legislation accomplished.

Part of it is denial. My family members refuse to believe there is any correlation between the way they vote and the increasing threat of being randomly murdered where they live. They’ll claim that they’re safer in Texas (with their guns to protect them), than I am, where I live up north. They might even find some warped statistics drawn from misapplied data to back up their claims—this is how they rationalize against the obvious.

My family somehow believes the worst Republican in office is better than the best Democrat. To them, the corrupt Republican is still the lesser of two evils. It’s a compromise, you see. Yes, they want their Republican leaders to vote for reasonable gun laws—but they know that’s unlikely. Too bad. You just can’t trust any politicians.

That’s another part of the mythology that keeps this insanity going. Rather than switching their vote (a prospect too disloyal to even consider!), my family members assure themselves that the other side is just as bad, so there’s no point—even though the voting record in Texas and throughout the country plainly shows that if you vote enough Democrats into office, you will get reasonable gun laws, and the worldwide data overwhelmingly shows that more guns = more mass murders.

So, they keep voting for the old white men who proudly wear a pin shaped like an automatic rifle on the floor of the U.S. House and Senate, representing their support of the NRA and gun “freedom,” while those exact weapons are used to slaughter Americans.

Pro tip: Not all Republicans are corrupt and not all Democrats are good. It’s really hard to trust, or to know the difference. But you couldn’t ask for a bigger red flag than those disgusting automatic rifle pins.

My family members are not stupid. They’re not ignorant either, except in that they only listen to the “news” organizations that are selling hateful and biased propaganda. Those are the mainstream “news” providers in Texas. My family members are not extremists. Some own guns, others don’t. But they’re all buying into the mythology that gun violence just can’t be helped.

This is the core of the problem. Normal, decent folks down there believe the garbage they’re being told by the biased and untruthful politicians and so-called “conservative” media who are profiting from gun proliferation. I say so-called “conservative” because it is not, in fact, conservative to block the return of the more reasonable gun laws that we had 20-30 years ago.

Ronal Reagan himself, the icon of modern conservatives, promoted reasonable gun restrictions such as the Brady Law. (You can read Reagan’s 1991 op-ed in the New York Times at the link below.) Those gun laws have been quietly gutted and torn down over the last twenty-odd years—during the same period in which the rate of gun violence has escalated in the U.S.

As long as reasonable, intelligent people continue to passively accept the increasing number of mass murders, as if they are inevitable, we are all at risk.

As long as we place our tribalistic loyalty to political parties above a return to sensible legislation, things will not get better.

As long as we deny the real statistics that irrefutably show the correlation between gun violence and gun proliferation in America, innocent people will die for it.

As long as we pretend it won’t happen to us or to those we love, we are risking their lives.

I can see why this is happening. I see how the propaganda machine of the rich and powerful works with undue influence on the average person to make them passively accept the unacceptable as if it is unavoidable. I can see how the human brain is triggered by fear to give power to the biggest bullies in their tribe, rather than allowing the enemy tribe to take control. Oh, I can see all that and more of what complicates this problem because I have a front-row seat.

Yet, I don’t see how to overcome this. I can’t convince my own family members to change their minds. Believe me, I’ve tried.

But I’ll keep trying.

[eulersfeverdream]

Loving that my knee-jerk reaction was, "Where the fuck are Ron and Nancy?!" and immediately realized that, yep, the internet beat me to it again.

You are granted a time machine and the ability to prevent one birth (or commit a murder up to you), don't worry about the butterfly effect, we want the butterfly effect that's part of the point. Your actions will prevent them from ever rising to prominence. No he's not here, because it'd be too much of a sweep, pick your second choice if you're wondering where he is

[sanct1f1ed]

favorite stan twins characterization is that they're both equally insane. stanley just gets more air time to show it off. loosely inspired by a post i read earlier but here's some absolutely insane things both of them have done

stanley:

drugged a person and turned them into an exhibit in the mystery shack

had a vegas wedding to a prospector-themed novelty dispenser

gave mabel a grappling hook

failed to steal an animatronic badger

chewed his way out of the trunk of a car

punched at least three bald eagles

is multiply divorced, possibly even with the novelty dispenser

committed premeditated murder on a llama

faked a heart attack to get on Wheel of Fortune

took his clothes off in front of a live studio audience on Wheel of Fortune

has a rivalry with a fifth grader, a grandmother, and a man who exclusively dresses like a corn cob

stanford:

pulled a gun on a bus driver when he wouldn't let a pig on board

directly assisted in mind-controlling ronald reagan during his election in 1980

gave mabel a crossbow

got bitten by a vampire bat and subsequently began sampling human blood

owns contraband outlawed in 9000 dimensions; keeps it in an extremely flimsy plastic case

"accidentally" set a hawk on fire

has exes ranging from as normal as his old college buddy to as weird as a triangle and an alien with 7 eyes who put a metal plate in his head

wears turtlenecks because he's hiding multiple tattoos he regrets, including one themed around "all star" by smash mouth

is an Extremely wanted criminal across hundreds of dimensions; was completely kicked out of one for card counting

is, bizarrely, super into the band Eurythmics

can see shrimp colors

[memingursa]

The funny thing to me about American Liberal, specifically the Democratic party, fearmongering about China in 2024 is that we have so much more immediate issues to deal with. Like objectively.

We have Climate Change and mass failing infrastructure to deal with (A Green new deal could of addressed it, the Democratic party scared of Republican attacks buried it)

We have cops who will murder you or your dog, cry about it on the news and get a promotion and months of paid vacation (Defunding the police could of addressed it, the Democratic party scared of Republican attacks buried it)

We have massive wealth inequality and class disparity that Nazi Collaborator Elon Musk was able to buy his way into Power (Taxing the Rich at levels Pre Ronald Reagan could address it, the Democratic party scared of Republican attacks buried it. Also Obama basically enabled this with his response to the 2008 financial crisis but that’s a longer discussion)

We have student debt and medical debt crippling young people in this country (Getting Rid of it could have addressed it, the Democratic party scared of Republican attacks buried it after several half measures by Biden)

There’s also the fascism at home and the imperial expansion and genocide draining resources and so much more but you get the point. China ain’t going to destroy Us, we are already past halfway there. Leftist policies actually could have addressed this issue but Liberals wanted to be bffs with the American Fascist movement.

[mariacallous]

Some prominent conservative lawmakers and commentators are advocating for ending no-fault divorce, laws that exist in all 50 US states and allow a person to end a marriage without having to prove a spouse did something wrong, like commit adultery or domestic violence.

The socially conservative, and often religious, rightwing opponents of such divorce laws are arguing that the practice deprives people – mostly men – of due process and hurt families, and by extension, society. Republican lawmakers in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas have discussed eliminating or increasing restrictions on no-fault marriage laws.

Defenders of the laws, which states started passing a half-century ago, see legislation and arguments to repeal them as the latest effort to restrict women’s rights – following the overturning of Roe v Wade and passage of abortion bans around the country – and say that without such protections, the country would return to an earlier era when women were often trapped in abusive marriages.

“No-fault divorce is critical to the ability, particularly the ability of women, to be able to exercise autonomy in their own relationships, in their own lives,” said Denise Lieberman, an adjunct professor at the Washington University School of Law in St Louis, who has a specialty in policies concerning gender, sexuality and sexual violence.

Before 1969, when then California Republican governor Ronald Reagan, who had been divorced, approved the country’s first no-fault divorce law, women, who are more likely to experience violence from an intimate partner, were often forced to stay in marriages. If they could not prove that their husband had been abusive or persuade him to grant a divorce, they would not be able to take any assets from the marriage or remarry, according to a study in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

States around America gradually followed suit and passed similar laws allowing unilateral divorce until 2010, when New York became the last state to approve the practice.

Between 1976 and 1985, states that passed the laws saw their domestic violence rates against men and women fall by about 30%; the number of women murdered by an intimate partner declined by 10%; and female suicide rates declined by 8 to 16%.

Without such laws, “it’s hard to prove anything in court relating to a family because you don’t have any witnesses”, said Kimberly Wehle, professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law. “It’s very difficult to get evidence to show abuse of children. How do you do it? Do you put your kids on the stand?”

Conservative commentators such as Matt Walsh, Steven Crowder and lawmakers such as the Republican senator JD Vance of Ohio have argued that the laws are unfair to men and hurt society because they lead to more divorces.

The divorce rate in the United States increased significantly from 1960, when it was 9.2 per 1,000 married women, to 22.6 in 1980. But by 2022, the rate had fallen to 14.5.

On the increase in divorces, Vance said in 2021: “One of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace” is the idea that “these marriages were fundamentally, you know, they were maybe even violent, but certainly they were unhappy, and so getting rid of them and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear, that’s going to make people happier in the long term”.

Beverly Willett, a writer and attorney, argues that unilateral no-fault divorce is also unconstitutional because it violates a person’s 14th amendment right to due process.

The defendant “has absolutely no recourse to say, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t want to be divorced, and I don’t think that there are grounds for divorce. I would like to be heard. I would like to call witnesses,’” said Willett, who experienced a divorce she didn’t want because she thought her marriage could be saved. “I believed in my vows” and “didn’t want to give up”.

But Willett’s argument relies on the idea that “women are either property or that somehow men’s liberty is restrained by not allowing them to stay in a marriage with someone who does not want to be married”, said Wehle, who also wrote about it in the Atlantic. “I disagree with the idea that women are somehow property interests of their husbands. That is an arcane relic of law that has no place in modern society.”

Willett responded to Wehle’s critique by writing that “nobody has suggested a return to antiquated laws of the 18th and 19th century. Considerable reform that protects women and ensures their equality in family court has been enacted since then.”

On the argument that no-fault divorce reduces domestic violence, Willett points to data that most domestic violence occurs between unmarried couples and says regardless, with “any contract, any lawsuit, you still have to follow the constitution”.

But without such laws, victims of domestic violence would then have to navigate a court system that can be time-consuming, “very adversarial and very costly” because the plaintiff often must then pay for child care and transportation, said Marium Durrani, vice-president of policy for the National Domestic Violence Hotline.

“Any sort of additional barrier that we add to the ease of legal proceeding is, frankly, a nightmare and an enormous burden for survivors,” said Durrani. “I’m not trying to be an alarmist, but it can increase death [if] a survivor of domestic violence has to prove that they are being abused in a divorce proceeding.”

Still, Lieberman does not think Republicans will succeed in their efforts to make it more difficult for people to get divorced.

“I do believe that that train has left the station. I mean, we have had no-fault divorce now for 50 years,” Lieberman said. But “I didn’t think the supreme court would overturn Roe v Wade, which we had for 50 years, so I suppose we will see.”

[lady-harkkonnen]

Just know that for all the shit all of these rich parasitic assholes have done. It wouldn't be nearly this bad if Regan hadn't opened the door first. We could have delayed the last few recessions if he hadn't killed the Overton window by defanging great portions of the government. If his business can do everything better hadn't caught on the US might actually be as great of a country as it claims to be... or at least we wouldn't be nearly as bad as we are today.

choose who to

[mx-defying]

[posttexasstressdisorder]

They killed our Jesus: A Lament for Generation Jones

Two things happened in 1980 that would ensure the iron grip of the fascist state would (first slowly, then quickly), tighten on the entirety of the nation's populace from that moment forward: Ronald fucking Reagan was installed as president, and a CIA-psyop'd Christian Nationalist shot and killed John Lennon.

Those two things are connected.

First let's look at exactly who "Generation Jones" encompasses, and specific moments in the generational timeline that defined our future. The wiki page is actually quite good. Here's an excerpt that really hits it on the head:

"The name "Generation Jones" has several connotations, including a large anonymous generation, a "keeping up with the Joneses" competitiveness and the slang word "jones" or "jonesing", meaning a yearning or craving.[17][18][19] Pontell suggests that Jonesers inherited an optimistic outlook as children in the 1960s, but were then confronted with a different reality as they entered the workforce during Reaganomics and the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, which ushered in a long period of mass unemployment. Mortgage interest rates increased to above 12 percent in the mid-eighties,[20] making it virtually impossible to buy a house on a single income. De-industrialization arrived in full force in the mid-late 1970s and 1980s; wages would be stagnant for decades, and 401Ks replaced pensions, leaving them with a certain abiding "jonesing" quality for the more prosperous days of the past.

Generation Jones is noted for coming of age after a huge swath of their older brothers and sisters in the earlier portion of the Baby Boomer population had; thus, many note that there was a paucity of resources and privileges available to them that were seemingly abundant to older Boomers. Therefore, there is a certain level of bitterness and "jonesing" for the level of doting and affluence granted to older Boomers but denied to them.[21]"

That sets the stage, for the most part. I was four when JFK was shot on TV. I was a wide-eyed, open-eared five year old when The Beatles were on Ed Sullivan and The Supremes were on the radio. I was ten when we landed on the moon, and I wanted to be a hippie at Woodstock at eleven. "Basketball Jones" came out when I was 12...I jonesed for a telescope because SPACE and got one from that great maker of fine telescopes, KMart.

Generationally, we jonesed to be ten years older, so we could have had all the cool shit THEY had. They had The Beatles, and we had the solo Beatles, they had Hendrix, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, and we had the fucking BeeGees and disco. It's like we, as a generation, were fated to live The K-Mart Knockoff of Life, instead of the bright, shiny Brand Name One all our older brothers and sisters got.

MUSIC and SCIENCE were EVERYTHING to us as kids/teens...the Eshittification Of Music truly began in 1973, and proceeded through SynthPop Hell in the '80s. Rock and Roll heroes became hairdos with guitars. The rock heroes of the '60s were getting married and having kids and baking bread. AM Radio ceased to be something you listened to for music...it began to replace music with strident, screaming hate voices that would eventually engulf all of AM Radio 24/7/365.

We were continually thwarted most of the way from our young adulthood on, blatantly from the moments in 1980 that the vile Ronald Reagan and the core operatives of evil for the next 50 years took over, and then the moment of what I call "Our Generational Wounding", the murder of John Lennon.

Back in '66, John had inflamed all the grandpas of todays magats by saying (truthfully) that with teens, The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. Beatle hate became a Very Big Thing in Bumfuck South Texas. Record burnings, merchandise burnings, book burnings, all were commonplace. A very palpable, and very specifically "Anti-Beatle" hate got instilled in a lot of kids/teens at that point, so anything to do with the Beatles was taboo for "good people" (read Southern Baptists) to like.

That, of course, made me love them that much more, and to follow their paths from their breakup forward with 'bated breath, buying every 45 they put out, trying to save pennies up to buy their albums.

John was the radical hippie, the one who wanted peace, the one with the weirdo wife, the one who held a "Bed-In" for peace. In a very fundamental-to-our-generation way, John Lennon was OUR "Jesus".

Richard Nixon (president from '68 to '74) HATED him.

In 1971, there was a true mass consciousness that incorporated us along with our older siblings, a musical mass consciousness. I became aware of many things in 1969, specifically fall of '69, so I was experiencing all this in real-time, as it happened. When the news that The Beatles officially broke up came across the AM radiowaves in May of '70, it was A. Very. Big. Deal. Everyone watched everything they did from that point on with GREAT interest.

George put out "My Sweet Lord" and "What Is Life" (first record I ever bought), John put out "Instant Karma", "Mother", then "Power To The People", then "Imagine". Ringo put out "It Don't Come Easy", and Paul & Linda had "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey". EVERYBODY was a "post-breakup Beatle critic", panning Paul's very first solo 45 "Another Day", "Uncle Albert" was the followup. This band called Badfinger that sounded suspiciously like The Beatles appeared on American radio, and would make 1972 one of the final "Golden Years" of AM Rock Radio.

In 1970 we heard about this Elton John guy, by the end of '72, I was playing as many of his songs on the piano as I could figure out. My favorite album was (still is) "Madman Across The Water". When "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" came out in '73, a very noticeable shift was occuring.

Pop became much less political. It softened. It mellowed. It grew its hair long and lived in the country, learned how to grow potatoes and play the mandolin, making Country Rock the one lasting "legacy" of our sad sub-generation. By the time I graduated HS in May of '77, it was all there was on the radio, besides....disco. Oof.

One of my first TV memories was JFK getting shot. That was the Generational Wounding of our older brothers and sisters. When Mark Chapman (a Christian nationalist who changed the words of "Imagine" to "Imagine there's no John Lennon") shot John in December of 1980, it was the 2 in the 1-2 PUNCH done to our OUR generation. The first, of course, being the installing of Reagan and the evil Evangelical influence beginning in earnest.

It also began the buildup of the "Holy War" radical right, and an utter denial and clampdown of "hippie", of "counterculture" in general began, ensuring that John's vision of world peace would never come true, at least not on their watch. They had, effectively, killed OUR Jesus, along with our chances of the kind of security our older sibs got in spades. It also marked the unholy marriage of the evangelicals and the republican apparatus.

When Reagan got elected by virtue of the vile Newt Gingrich's 'Southern Strategy', a clampdown in earnest on the very SPIRITUAL EXISTENCE of our generation's incredible want and need, our collective JONESING for world peace began. Richard Nixon had planted the seeds. Nixon hated John Lennon with a passion. After Reagan was elected, I firmly believe Chapman was "activated" and they killed John as a Christmas present to Nixon.

It was after that, when the dream of a scientific future began to die, as well. When we were in high school, SCIENCE WAS EVERYTHING, so we wanted to be some kind of scientist "when we grew up".

I dealt with four years of college, majored in Biology, and in early 1981 realized my dream of being a Forest Ranger in Yosemite or some other national park somewhere, living in a cabin, giving talks to visitors about the biology aspects of the park....all that went POOF, almost instantaneously. My degree would get me nowhere, so I left before the end of that year and started working in record stores.

I was effectively the Cusack character in the movie about record stores, but it led to a dead end. Record stores weren't all that glamorous, and yes, the pay was dogshit. I tried working in record stores for the love of the music, while trying to BE a musician in a town FILLED OVER FLOWING with musicians, but that was quickly shat on by the beginning shrieks of late-stage capitalism.

It was like working in the record stores was my trying to keep holding onto the dream, our generation's dream...John's dream of world peace (along with my dream of being a working musician) died a pitiful death by the end of 1986.

What followed was nothing but a series of Jobs I Hated, and the beginnings of the true Jonesing for the life we'd been promised, because we didn't get the raises, the pensions, the house, the car, boat and camper, none of that shit for us. A life of being a low-paid, no-insurance drub, destined to be a life-long renter, unless a financial miracle happens.

So when people ask why we (as a generation) hate Ronald Reagan so much, let's just say I'm with Bugs on this one.

[super-sootica]

FINE, you get another go at the time machine and the ability to prevent one birth (or commit a murder up to you), don't worry about the butterfly effect, we want the butterfly effect that's part of the point. Your actions will prevent them from ever rising to prominence. Original poll here There may be a face off poll at the end. Hitler still isn't an option because we'd all chose to kill him.

Am gonna go Pontius Pilate and say my hands are cleaned of this one. All of the below are nominees.

[hussyknee]

Unrolled twitter thread by Progressive International (@ProgIntl)

30 Sept 24 • 4 minute read • Read on X

On 30 September 1965, the Indonesian military, working closely with the US government, initiated a coup that would depose President Sukarno and install the brutal, 30-year dictatorship of General Suharto.

In the dark years that followed, the dictatorship massacred over a million Indonesian communists, with the CIA and US diplomats drawing up “kill lists” for the Indonesian military. The operation would become a template for the US’s regime change operations for decades to come.

Major-General Suharto with Indonesian Army in 1966

In 1945, President Sukarno led Indonesia to independence from Dutch colonial rule. He championed the Non-Aligned Movement and hosted the historic Bandung Conference, a meeting of Afro-Asian states, in 1955.

First President of Indonesia Sukarno making a speech circa 1945

Opening the conference and forecasting what was to come, Sukarno said: “We are often told ‘Colonialism is dead’. Let us not be deceived or even soothed by that… Colonialism also has its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical control by a small, but alien community within a nation.”

Leaders attending the Bandung Conference 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia. From left: Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Ghanian Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah, Egyptian Prime Minister Gamal Abdel Nasser, President Sukarno, and Yugoslavian Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito.

By 1965, Indonesia possessed one of the world's largest communist parties, the PKI. The PKI had a mass membership and mobilized vast numbers of people in the battle against Indonesia’s ruling class.

Campaign of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) in September 1955.

Terrified by the strength and organization of Indonesia’s people, the Indonesian military’s 30th September Movement began to purge the PKI.

Men suspected of being IPK members being transported under guard by an armed Indonesian soldier

In the early hours of 1 October, a group of military conscripts murdered six high-ranking generals. Blaming the deaths on the PKI, Suharto used the attacks as a pretext to seize power. CIA communications equipment allowed him to spread false reports around the country and begin a long campaign of anti-communist propaganda.

The US had tried to overthrow Sukarno for years; in 1958, the CIA backed armed regional rebellions against the central government. In 1965, they did all they could to aid Suharto’s murderous power grab.

The campaign soon became genocidal. On islands like Bali, up to 10% of the population was massacred — and luxury hotels soon began to appear over the killing fields.

One US embassy staffer told the US press that Suharto’s military “probably killed a lot of people, and I probably have a lot of blood on my hands, but that's not all bad.”

Time Magazine referred to the killings as “the West’s best news for years in Asia”.

A cable from the US embassy’s first secretary, Mary Vance Trent, to the State Department referred to events in Indonesia as a “fantastic switch which has occurred over 10 short weeks”. It also included an estimate that 100,000 people had been slaughtered.

Cementing his power, Suharto became president in 1967. His ‘New Order’ policy allowed Western capitalism to exploit Indonesia’s cheap labour and plunder its natural resources. Civil rights and dissent were suppressed.

In one of the world’s most populous countries, any possibility for the emergence of a new, democratic political project was eliminated. Richard Nixon described Indonesia as “the greatest prize in Southeast Asia”. Suharto would not leave office until 1998.

U.S. President Ronald Reagan stands with Indonesian President Suharto in the White House South Lawn at the arrival ceremony for Suharto's State Visit. Oct 12, 1982

CIA officers described Suharto’s rise to power and anti-communist purge as the “model operation” and “Jakarta” soon became the codeword for anti-communist extermination programs in Latin America, where hundreds of thousands were massacred in regime change efforts engineered by Washington.

[daughter-of-sapph0]

imagine you're in Vietnam in the 50s and you find out that the kid you bullied in school just had his family murdered. and you sorta feel bad, but then you find out that he's actually alive, and he joined the Viet Cong and singlehandedly blew up the us military's biggest battleship ever that's the size of an island. and then you learn that he's a magical wizard with precognition and telekinesis. and then he comes back to town, kills the local crime lord, leaves without saying hi to any of his old friend, and then murders Ronald Reagan and blows up a second massive battleship the size of an island.

that's what Luke Skywalker is to the people of tatooine

[deadpresidents]

Everyone knows about Lincoln and Garfield and McKinley and Kennedy, the quartet of America Presidents who fell victim to assassination. Even the most casual observers of Presidential history can probably name the four Presidents who were murdered while in office, and many even know the names of the four assassins responsible for their deaths: Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz, and Oswald.

There have also been quite a few (in)famous unsuccessful assassination attempts, where Presidents barely escaped with their lives, that many Americans are familiar with, including (but not limited to):

•Richard Lawrence's miraculously unlucky double misfire on the steps of the U.S. Capitol in 1835 which left Andrew Jackson unharmed but resulted in Lawrence -- who would be found not guilty by reason of insanity -- getting viciously pummeled by the cane-wielding President Jackson until Davy Crockett intervened to save the would-be assassin from the 67-year-old President. •The shooting of former President Theodore Roosevelt in Milwaukee as he sought another term in the White House during the 1912 Presidential election. Despite being shot in the chest, Roosevelt decided to go ahead and deliver his campaign speech before being taken to the hospital where doctors discovered that the bullet lodged inside of TR had first passed through a case for his eyeglasses and the thick pages of his speech in his jacket's pocket, lessening the damage from the gunshot. •The attempted assassination of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in Miami in February 1933, just seventeen days in before FDR's Inauguration, which wounded four people and killed Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak. •The ill-fated 1950 attempt by Puerto Rican nationalists to storm Blair House (the temporary Presidential residence during the renovation of the White House) and kill President Harry S. Truman as he was napping. Truman was not hurt, but a White House Police Officer and one of the two assassins were killed during the wild shootout. •President Gerald Ford's trouble with two California women who separately tried to kill him in Sacramento and then San Francisco just two weeks apart in September 1975. •The shocking shooting of President Ronald Reagan in broad daylight from just a few yards away as he exited the Washington Hilton following a speech in March 1981, which left four people wounded and very nearly killed the 70-year-old Reagan just two months into his Presidency.

But what is amazing is that, in this age of instant information and the constant regurgitation of media coverage via the 24-hour news cycle, very few Americans know that there is a man sitting in prison in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia for attempting to assassinate President George W. Bush. What even less Americans realize is how close Vladimir Arutyunian actually came to accomplishing his task.

On May 10, 2005, President Bush spoke to a large crowd at an outdoor rally in Tbilisi, Georgia. In one of the photos at the top of this post, Bush is seen speaking from the stage in Tbilisi. The other photo is of Arutyunian holding a plaid handkerchief close to his chest. Wrapped in that handkerchief was a live hand grenade.

As President Bush spoke, nearby sat his wife, Laura, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, and the Dutch-born First Lady of Georgia, Sandra Roelofs. They had no idea that, during the speech, Arutyunian tossed his handkerchief-wrapped grenade towards the stage. The grenade landed just 61 feet away from President Bush, well within range of causing serious injury, if not death.

Of course, the grenade did not explode. At first, it was thought to be a dud, but upon closer inspection it was discovered that the only reason the grenade didn't explode was because Arutyunian's handkerchief -- used to conceal the explosive as he stood in the crowd -- was wrapped too tightly around the grenade, preventing the firing pin from deploying. A Georgian security official noticed the grenade, grabbed it quickly and disposed of it as Arutyunian disappeared into the massive crowd and President Bush continued speaking.

After Bush's speech was over and once it was recognized that the President had only narrowly escaped a legitimate attempted assassination, Georgian police worked closely with the United States Secret Service, the FBI, and the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the assassination attempt and find the would-be assassin who seemingly melted into Tbilisi after his brazen, albeit unsuccessful attempt on Bush's life. Using DNA evidence and tips from informants, the Georgian police ultimately tracked down Arutyunian two months later. When they went to arrest Arutyunian, a gunfight broke out and Arutyunian killed Zurab Kvlividze, a top counterterrorism official with Georgia's Interior Ministry. Arutyunian was wounded before finally being captured with the assistance of Georgian Special Forces.

The Georgians tried Arutyunian on the murder of the police officer, as well as the attempted assassinations of President Bush and President Saakshvili. Arutyunian was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. A federal grand jury in the United States also indicted Arutyunian on the federal charge of the attempted assassination of the President of the United States, which is a felony. The U.S., however, has not attempted nor has any potential plans to extradite the failed assassin from Georgia, and Arutyunian will almost certainly spend the rest of his life in a Georgian prison.

[iocaisaint]

Random ACOTAR takes

cw*: my unsolicited opinions

I agree with #that woman that canon Lucien and Nesta (and I mean pre-ACOSF) would've been terrible for each other sorry

As of right now Nesta is the only Archeron sister with direct connection to the Dusk Court, like her and her alone 🤷🏾‍♀️

Out of the love square (?) Lucien is lowkey the only one with a storyline that isn't made out of paper mache and hope. There's so many angles you could go: Beron, Eris, LOA, The Autumn Court or Spring Court, Tamlin, or Day Court, Helion, being an heir, or helping Vassa with Koschei + his overall friendship with Jurian + Vassa + humans as a whole and that's without touching on the mating bond even once. Real set-up wished she'd done that with everyone else

That being said, I disagree with a bunch of Lucien's stans when it comes to his characters, y'all have a power fantasy for him that's in direct contradiction to how he's actually written (I mean I get it the books treat him like trash)

If Nesta is pregnant I'll have a crash out to end all crash outs.

Everybody in this fandom bar maybe Feysands are shipping fanon, the scenes that y'all talk about and the ones that exist on page are either not the same or straight up don't exist.

I hate the HK/HQ plot even for Nesta, like is blatant colonialism.

Everybody here is a hypocrite when it comes to their faves we'd all be happier admitting then bending over backwards.

I do not care for Elain, simply because fanon Elain is so far removed from what's on page, that most her pro arguments simply don't make sense to me.

There's no reason for Helion to give up his Pegasi but I know HOFAS was a mess but when the place was revitalised after the Asteri were murdered they came back, my guess is that place and the prison are mirror worlds so the same will happen once the Prison is liberated

Azriel isn't boring but he also isn't extremely interesting. If he was a girl no one would gaf about him, but there are enough concepts of an idea where I could see his book not being awful.

Neither the pro or the anti side gives a fuck about Emerie, double points if you're engaging in that ship war. No I won't expand on this, I'm right.

Nessian sucks, that's all.

Actually no I'm expanding on that point, the fact that people defend no "I love you" from the MMC is crazy, that fact that people defend Nesta being threatened without Cass stepping in even worse, the fact that Rhys knows he can berate Nesta in Cassian's presence....like they had an 800+ page book and I'm still having to hear about how they need to "grow as characters" y'all aren't serious people

I've become more neutral-positive to Feyre because some of the arguments against her are just crazy but on that note she'd be deeply more entertaining if the narrative wrote her refusal for self reflection as a flaw

Gwyn cannot be a evil light singer and irrelevant at the same time please pick one.

Also I don't hate the light singer theory, sorry. Monsters not actually being monsters is this series's bread and butter. It'd be great if a woman finally got that treatment

I can already tell Eris is about to be retconned to hell because SJM hates a character not being vindicated by the narrative to redeem them (she already started by implying Eris wants his father dead for #feminism). Let it be known I like/d him as is

I don't get into arguments about Rhys cause I find him boring. Y'all are fighting day in day out about faerie Ronald Reagan

Nesta should've been bi, how tf did we get stuck with Mor

I have more but that's it for now.