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Nothing you said ties the violence in the US to Nigeria. Where is the evidence that Nigerian terrorists and partisans are following an "American" example. The whole chain of responses started with Pooh claiming that the Nigerian violence was somehow tied to American violence, which it is definitely not. I wouldn't count terrorists supported by international groups as "private citizens." This is particularly true when you take into account that Boko Haram actually controls territory within Nigeria. When you launch an organized war against the citizens and government of a country and take control of territory, does that still fall under the umbrella of a regular "private citizen," especially when you take into account ties to other international terrorism groups?

This statement really doesn't have much to do with the situation in Nigeria or many other places. These aren't private citizens with guns, these are organized militants waging a civil war. Their arms aren't single weapons bought at gun stores, they buy them in bulk from international suppliers or seize government caches at police stations or overwhelmed military complexes. The gun law discussion doesn't apply because this situation exists outside of everyday citizenry and is instead between two regions that want to eliminate the other. North and South Nigeria are essentially two different countries fighting for control of the best land that's between them. The official state Nigerian military itself is behind many of the massacres that taken place. Bringing the Nigerian thing in is like pitching a football at a baseball game.

So, where are they claiming there's a connection to the US? They aren't because this is part in a wider scale conflict in which similar attacks targeting houses of worship, schools and businesses have been going on for decades, escalating when the Boko Haram conflict began. Nigeria is constantly ranked one of the top 10 countries for terrorism in the Global Terrorism Index and it's not unusual for dozens of people to die in a single attack: Global Terrorism Index | Countries most impacted by terrorism (visionofhumanity.org) Terrorist attack these places because they inspire fear and offer a lot of victims.

Attacks like the one on the church using guns in Nigeria go back more than 20 years, so either the person who made the "never" comment is incorrect or you misinterpreted what they were saying. Houses of worship have been common targets in the ongoing conflict between Christians and Muslims over the last 25 years in Nigeria. It's a conflict with dozens of massacres that have left thousands of people dead, usually through the use of gunmen attacking schools, churches and other gathering places ... which has always been the strategy of terrorists. There's no evidence that the attackers were even aware of school shootings in the US, and why would they be?

Not sure this is relevant to American shooters. Nigeria is in the grip of a low scale civil war between militant groups fighting each other over religion and ethnic resentments. It's been going on for decades and terrorism for political purposes has been one of the common practices. Plus, there's not been anything about their guns being American in origin. Russia, China and Europe as well as the US have pretty much kept the area awash in guns.

I'm at a point right now where I'm wondering if there's any chance for peace as long as the Rus Federation continues to exist in its current form. Even with Putin gone, it's still got a population indoctrinated with nationalism and dreams of recapturing its former territorial glory. We're kind of looking at a combination of Nazi Germany's early days, which was fueled by resentment of imagined enemies at home and abroad, and later day Rome, which was desperate to hold on to its former glory.

The "replacement theory" is one of Tucker Carlson's favorite boogey men if I remember correctly. I doubt he'll get in any sort of trouble aside from one of the Murdochs saying "hey Tucker, would you mind not saying that for a few weeks until people forget about this like they usually do?"

Trump is just going to say what he thinks is advantageous to him at the time. Trump seems to have a superhuman power when it comes to constantly contradicting himself and people seemingly not even noticing. Trump's not left or right wing or even moderate, he's just this big fat vulture that flies around landing wherever he thinks he is going to get the biggest scraps with the least effort. If Trump thought it would be to his advantage, he'd disregard everything he's said about religion for the last five years and praise Satan.

Would this count? It's leather, but it didn't require an animal to be killed: Lab-Grown Leather | VitroLabs Inc

Trump out there stumpin' for the guy whose dong he want to suck. I think he might be mimicking Don Jr. said something similar the other night. Trump criticizes spending for Ukraine | The Hill

Sweden is home to a lot of Kurdish refugees, many of whom support the creation of a Kurdish homeland cut out of the current territory of Iraq, Turkey and Syria. So, of course, a lot of the organizations that try to make that happen have some sort of base there for recruitment and donations. Whether they're terrorists or not depends on what you consider terrorists.

Erdogan bitching is nothing new. He's been pulling Turkey away from the west ever since he was first elected. He's been doing the MAGA thing before Trump even thought of Twitter, with his paranoid nationalism. He's the one in a hard place though — he can be an annoying, if mostly equal partner, with the west, or a subordinate partner to Putin/Xi. Erdogan says Turkey not supportive of Finland, Sweden joining NATO | Reuters

He thanked British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, for his support to increase assistance for Kyiv, as well as the leadership of American partners including his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin. Ukraine’s goal is to “restore our sovereignty and territorial integrity within the internationally recognised borders”, he said. Reznikov added that he was “focusing on the need to provide for one million people who will be facing the enemy”. He warned that “extremely tough weeks are ahead” and that Ukraine needed “unity, cohesion, will and patience” during this extremely difficult period. Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskiy ‘ready to speak to Putin’; Russia to cut electricity supply to Finland after Nato decision – live (theguardian.com)

Putin isn't really acting like someone suffering from dementia or mental illness. In the Russian world, trying to rebuild their former glory seemed like a rational and desirable thing. They've been like that for centuries. I'm sure Putin's advisors are also telling him what he wants to hear. With its weakness exposed, it's hard to see how Russia would handle firing off nukes and then rolling over Europe with its crappy military. Not only would it be hit by nukes itself, but western troops would roll over Russian troops in what's likely a matter of days before entering Moscow. For Putin, a loss in Ukraine might be bad, but being the guy who caused Russia's demise would be worse. Unfortunately, Russia is probably going to aspire to regain its former empire after Putin is gone. Your everyday Russian seems to think that all their former Republics belong to them.

Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskiy ‘ready to speak to Putin’; Russia to cut electricity supply to Finland after Nato decision – live (theguardian.com)

Being in Arkansas, I'm not totally surprised. I saw us transition from Democrats like this to a bunch of GOP bots that went from spouting Fox News talking points to full-on trying to out sycophant each other for Trump's attention. Now we're pretty much the lowest voting state with a bunch of people without any political or managerial skills who seem to have just run to have "office holder" on their resume holding most of the local offices. This year it seems the theme is to see who can out-crazy the competition, I'm kind of scared what next year is going to be because I'm not sure what can be lower aside from "look at me, I can drink anti-freeze and it won't do shit to me" vs. "fuck you, I can down Draino and not even get the shits!"

Kherson’s military administrators to call for Russian annexation | Ukraine | The Guardian When this is over, the Ukraine is going to be stuck with a lot of Russian collaborators, both among politicians and private citizens who supported them.

Judge strikes down Florida governor’s ‘unconstitutional’ election map | Florida | The Guardian I'm pretty sure DeSantis is going to be the Republican candidate for President in 2024. He's pretty symbolic of what the GOP is all about now, which is power for power's sake without much regard for how it's gotten. The party doesn't have a platform and it's leaders are it's entertainment wing (Fox News, Steve Bannon, etc.) and the base that turns out for the primary (i.e. lunatics, idiots and assholes). DeSantis, like Trump, isn't a leader as much of a follower of what's hot for the real powers of the party. DeSantis is like Trump, except he's less likely to just ramble off on what pops into his head and is more deliberate when it comes to long-range planning and himself. I don't think Trump is going to run because he's selling his D.C. hotel, dropped that little tidbit about "health" concerns could prevent a run and he seems to be content holding his king's court in Florida.

Here's a bit more to make it more rounded: Forgotten Founders: Gouverneur Morris | The National Constitution Center Apparently, the dude wasn't fond of slavery.

There was a pretty mundane reason he did it. He was trying to clear urinary blockage and back in those days, sticking bones in your peehole to serve as catheters was one of the methods. People were making catheters since at least 3000 B.C. with them being made out of stuff like straw, rolled up palm leaves, hollow tops of onions, as well as, gold, silver, copper, brass, and lead. None of them sound too pleasant as far as peehole insertion.

I'm of the school of thought a new constitution is needed at this point. The current one left us a system of government that's on the verge of non-functional in the current age and not at all very representative. Look at the Senate, electoral college and the supreme court as things that do not hold up very well when it comes to representative democracy.

Biden and the Democrats made an unforced error with BBB. They overpromised and underdelivered, acting as though they had a mega-majority instead of the razor-thin one they had. Plus, you can't give people the gist of it on a bumper sticker. When it was clear that BBB wasn't going to happen, which was Nov. 2020, Dems should've just looked at the most popular parts and focused on those. Sure, they got the infrastructure bill, which is great, but it's not going to cause people to turn out in November. Plus, Democratic leadership in the House, Senate and Executive don't seem to care much about keeping voters or helping incumbents in swing states that lean moderate-to-center-right that barely went Democratic in 2022. Schumer has been horrible as majority leader, Pelosi might be able to wrangle votes but her priorities don't resonate outside Democrat +25 districts and Biden seems unable to give up the dream of being the next FDR ... not a winning combo for the party, which I much prefer over the very dangerous alternative. They just need to be pragmatic and really examine the spot they're in and that's just not happening.

Not much is in Biden or the Democrats' control. Two-thirds sounds like they should have win after win, but the reality is that if you don't have 60-plus senators, you're at the mercy of the minority if they decide to filibuster. Democrats only have a thin majority in the House, which is still at the mercy of the senate when it comes to actually passing laws. There's not a lot Biden can do about the court unless two justices die over the next three years. The constitution is largely to blame. At the time of its creation, it had a deliberately slow process because there was not really a general American identity at that point and the fear of states separating and creating an opening for a Eruopean imperial power was still pretty real. Not so much anymore, but we're kind of stuck with it until you can get three-fifths of states to agree to amendments or people finally decide it's time for a new one.

I wouldn't insult intellectually disabled people like that. For them, it's not a choice and usually, they are better company than probably 50% of people because the whole theater of being "good" is not a thing to them. Most of them just are. Stupidity on the other hand can be interpreted a moral failing that is from intentional decisions, often from wanting to fit into a certain crowd or a warped vision of what a person thinks they should be. Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity - YouTube

The "ignore" feature helps when it comes to those who continuously post in bad faith and barf up strawmen. It's kind of like removing the obnoxious billboards so you can see the scenery when you go on a drive. It's not about "oh, they have opinions that offend me" it's more like "their posts don't add anything to the conversation hand," if there is one, of course.