Well...

So how was your weekend? Great right? No bad news you can think of?

For those of you who don't live in the US or might have missed the news; for the second time this month our government had us all watching snuff films taken from different angles of their latest murder. It's one of the most bizarre things about all of this. I was never one of those people who like those Faces of Death or The Worst Ways to Die shows. I don't even like Jackass where people are voluntarily getting hurt. I don't want to watch real people get hurt or die. It's not my thing.

And yet...

I've watched multiple angles of the Renee Good murder and now the same for the murder of Alex Pretti. And I'm not the only one. Those of us who normally turn off the TV when they want to show tragedy over and over (did we really need to see people jumping to their deaths on 9/11?) or look down when the instant replay on that leg break is about to start. I don't need to see it.

I also bitch constantly about people who need to see the video to condemn an obvious act of violence. We've short handed it in our house to "the elevator video." This is in reference to the NFL not suspending Ray Rice for beating his fiance until the video of INSIDE the elevator was released. The fact that they both walked in and he drug her unconscious body out videos weren't enough, they needed to actually see him knock her out.

I wouldn't have needed to see either of the videos to be pretty sure that what ICE was saying was bullshit. That there was no reason for either of those people to be killed. But...I also knew that there would be multiple lines of bullshit being spewed by OUR FUCKING GOVERNMENT about what happened and I wanted to see for myself what happened. So I've watched. Multiple angles and recordings. Slowed down, synched up, raw footage, highlighted footage. All of it. I watched our government kill Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

And then I watched them try to assassinate their characters after they did so.

It's shameful.

And I think they might have finally gone too far. You would think the first murder would have been enough, but see, she was a lesbian who had it coming. And yes, I bring up her sexuality because they did. Repeatedly. Like it somehow justified them. "you know how they are, those lesbians" But this guy? He was a nurse. In a VA hospital. And they tried to go after him for having a gun.

In America.

They thought that someone who had a licensed firearm, who had a concealed carry permit, actually carrying that gun was going to win them "he had it coming" justification points.

In America.

So they've had push back from some more conservative areas. From gun rights groups who are joining with the decent human beings who knew it was wrong from the start. No elevator video needed.

Why do I think they might actually realize they've gone too far? Three things I've seen today. Leavitt, the mouthpiece for the White House wouldn't say that Trump agreed with the statements that were put out about Pretti being a domestic terrorist, that he wanted to see where the facts went. With Good, Trump repeated the domestic terrorist bullshit over and over. Trump "truthed" out a statement that he and Governor Walz had a good conversation today about the situation in Minnesota. This could be the first sign of Trump claiming "victory" and pulling out his goons. And the last one was a Bari Weiss (she runs CBS now, and is a propagandist for the administration) in one of her online forums that said Noem lied. That to me means the White House has let her know that Noem will be the scapegoat for this one and to have at it.

Do I think this ends the problems? No, not at all. He'll just pull them back from Minnesota and put them someplace else. Miller will continue frothing at the mouth and (barely) reworking Nazi speeches. The only thing that fixes this is getting rid of ICE. Possibly getting rid of DHS completely. Reworking those areas. And prosecuting those who have committed crimes. Any Democrat worth their salt should have that as part of their platform for the next election.

So yeah, that all sucks. Saturday was another heavy day emotionally. It's hard to live with.

And yet, live we do.

Sunday we had a lovely day. Had breakfast with friends at a Timbers event where they broadcast the Arsenal / Manchester United match. Then we went to go see The Play that Goes Wrong and laughed for two hours. Then came home to some very put out cats that we would dare leave them alone to nap without witnesses.

That oddness is our lives right now in the US. The worst things are happening while we are all still living our lives. We have to keep fighting against the worst things that are happening while still living our lives. We cannot let the worst things become so commonplace that we stop noticing them. And yet, we have to keep living our lives.

And part of living our lives is bearing witness to the worst things.

So how was your weekend?