Lawrence Shields

Rubio says that US-led peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine "were not fruitful." Not fruitful? ​Let’s look at the facts: your negotiators visited Russia seven times, and Ukraine zero times. You demanded concessions from Ukraine before negotiations even began, and throughout the entire process. You pressured Ukraine by cutting off weapons support entirely, constantly badmouthing us, and showing up at our doorstep waving Russian "peace plan" you demanded we sign immediately. ​And now, after Ukraine stands more firmly on its feet without your support, you realize you can't pressure us anymore. So your excuse is that you are tired and leaving? ​How about, for once, you actually support the victim, which is Ukraine instead of terrorist Russian regime? Send your team to Kyiv, support our fight, and apply real pressure on aggressor. Sanction Russia and seize their shadow fleet instead of handing out sanction waivers. Do that, and maybe negotiations will magically become "fruitful."

@attackdogX These prayer rugs were placed by the New York City Fire Department Islamic Society to memorialize their Muslim Firefighter Brothers who lost their lives on 9/11.

This is one of the most disrespectful things I’ve ever seen. Muslim prayer rugs laying over the 9/11 Memorial. This is an act of dominance and aggression.

On September 11, 1974, a ten-year-old boy named Stephen Colbert lost his father and two of his closest brothers, Paul and Peter, when Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 crashed into a cornfield hillside just three miles from the Charlotte, North Carolina airport. Only 13 of the 82 people on board survived. In a single afternoon, the youngest of eleven children in a warm, intellectually curious Catholic household went from a boy surrounded by laughter and big family energy to a kid sitting in a suddenly very quiet, very dark home with only his grieving mother for company. The two leaned on each other in a way that most people never experience. Lorna Colbert held herself together not out of bitterness, but out of a fierce, quiet love, and Stephen watched that and absorbed it into his bones. He later said his mother was never bitter, just broken, and that her example became the blueprint he carried for the rest of his life. For years, though, the real weight of the loss stayed buried. He floated through prep school detached, unbothered by the things other kids cared about, because nothing felt quite real anymore. It wasn't until he went off to Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia that the grief finally cracked through, and it hit him hard. He dropped from 185 pounds down to 135 during his freshman year, barely eating, barely functioning, consumed by a sadness he had held at bay for nearly a decade. But something remarkable happened on the other side of that collapse. He found theater. He found improvisation. He found that making people laugh was actually a way to connect with human suffering rather than run from it. He transferred to Northwestern University, stumbled into the world of Second City, and slowly built himself into one of the most empathetic, genuinely funny voices in American media. He later reflected that losing his father and brothers gave him an awareness of other people's pain that allowed him to love more deeply and connect more honestly with what it means to be human. That is not a small thing. That is everything. Via Chronicles Through Lenses

@amgregg907 Congratulations, sir.

Ten years ago I went to prison after a decade of struggling with addiction and its consequences. I spent five years inside Oregon prisons focused on being a better person and finding opportunities to help others by working as a GED tutor, a wildland firefighter, and a legal clerk. After my release, I uncovered misconduct that proved my sentence was the result of a wrongful conviction, leading to my charges being vacated and dismissed. That happened because I actively participated in my recovery and became deeply dedicated to understanding our legal system. On Saturday, I graduated magna cum laude from Lewis & Clark Law School, in the top 5% of my class. After the bar exam, I will begin a clerkship at the Oregon Court of Appeals. The life I have today is the result of pursuing what felt like an impossible dream ten years ago. Second chances have the power to transform lives. Today, I believe it is my duty to bring light to dark places and to try to encourage others to believe in themselves. The future is brighter than I could have ever imagined and I cannot wait to face what comes next.

@Microinteracti1 @gbragger The Republican MAGA movement is built completely on culture wars not the policy and vision that has previously propelled our national dialogue.

Abraham Lincoln got shot in the head and still managed to keep the country together. Franklin Roosevelt ran the entire Second World War from a wheelchair. Eisenhower defeated Hitler and then, just to stay busy, built 48,000 miles of motorway. Kennedy looked at the moon, said “we’ll have that,” and inside a decade they did. Reagan stared down the Soviet Union until it simply gave up and went home. Two hundred and fifty years. Forty-six men. Men who stormed beaches, split atoms, faced down nuclear annihilation over breakfast and then filed sensible paperwork about it afterward. And then, after all of that, the entire accumulated weight of American history, the most consequential democratic experiment the world has ever seen, produced this. A television review. No Mars landing. No cure for cancer. No Soviet empire dissolved before lunch. Just a man in the White House, in the year 2026, informing the internet that a CBS chat show host had no talent. That is what 250 years of American greatness built. America should be deeply, permanently ashamed of itself. If you like what you read, follow Gandalv on Substack: open.substack.com/pub/gandalv

@Pat_Stedman You were a traitor to your Country on January 6th, and you remain a scumbag traitor today

On January 6th I followed the crowd into the Capitol and shouted. Police stood by the whole time, hanging out with us and sometimes directing us places. At one point near the House Chambers I was walking downstairs when a trio of some special section, secret service looking men started pointing guns in my direction. Confused and annoyed, I walked the other way and when I saw a normal police officer asked him why they were doing that. He informed me a protestor (Ashli Babbit) had been killed, and advised me to leave the building. I walked towards the exit and after a short rest on the bench I left. I harmed nobody and damaged no property that day and complied with all police orders. What I received for that was a pre-dawn raid at my parents house, where my 1 month post-partum wife and I were staying, on Biden's first day in office. His DOJ had signed the order to arrest me 3 hours after his inauguration. In the subsequent weeks I received death threats online and harassing phone calls, something that would be ongoing for the next few years. I was banned from Meta and Paypal. My wife and I were both debanked by PNC and banned from Airbnb. My wife was detained at the airport for hours with our newborn daughter. I was charged with 4 misdemeanors and the 1512 unconstitutional felony. The government offered to drop the misdemeanors if I pled to the felony. The felony was a lie, so I refused and went to trial. At trial the prosecution for 2 days straight was allowed to show footage to the jury of things that occurred around the Capitol I wasn't present for "for context." When we asked to put forward footage that contradicted the prosecution's "context" we were not allowed. They could show what they wanted, we could not. Police officers were then put on the stand for the next 2 days who cried about their experiences. I had no idea who they were. They admitted they never saw me or interacted with me. Nevertheless like every other J6er, I lost, and was sentenced to 4 years and $22k in fines and restitution. Yet even after the Supreme Court overturned the felony, the judge would not let me out until my misdemeanor sentences of a year were maxed out. Because she can't count she actually kept me in longer - to the extent she intervened at the last minute to make the prison release me on a Sunday, something that is against BOP rules. My family sat outside the prison gates the Friday before practically the whole day waiting in vain because of this pettiness. But the government wasn't satisfied with their pound of flesh: after my release they took me back in for resentencing, to attempt to have me resentenced after the fact to my misdemeanors consecutively, so I'd be taken from my family again and have another 1.5 years behind bars. This time I won, as they had no legal precedent and it skirted on violating double jeopardy since I had served my full prison time. Even still, it cast a cloud over the holidays and cost me another 20k my family couldn't afford. People ask whether prison was bad, and yeah of course prison sucked. It was a hard and violent place. I was present for a stabbing, and was lucky to avoid two fights and a race war. But dealing with Biden's DOJ and the DC Judiciary was the real trauma - they would grind down your spirit by weaponizing the legal system and use the endless procedure to bankrupt you. I had nightmares for months after release that I had somehow been hit with new charges. By the time I was pardoned by President Trump, I had spent literally every single day of Biden's presidency either in prison or under some form of supervision. I had incurred over $300k in legal fees and over $1 million in lost business. It was a reign of terror, and yet it was a mere foreshadowing of what they had planned for anyone else who opposed them under Kamala. The country should never forget it.

@TheRedScorpian @SpencerAlthouse You assholes are just fucking insufferable pieces of shit.

yeah, because nothing says “defending democracy” like a late night host throwing a petty tantrum on his way out by deliberately screwing over the network that paid him millions. colbert spent years turning comedy into partisan propaganda and now he’s bitter his show got canceled for being unfunny and preachy. instead of taking the L gracefully, he decides to cost cbs more money out of spite. this is the level of maturity we get from the “resistance” crowd when they lose relevance. sad, but predictable. the era of smug, one sided late night “comedy” is dying, and good riddance.

this was so sweet. Stephen Colbert just ended his final episode of The Late Show while singing "Hello, Goodbye" with Paul McCartney. his family and the show's crew then joined them on stage before Paul turned off the lights to the Ed Sullivan Theater

No nation, no society, and no international order can call itself just and humane if it measures its success solely by power or prosperity while neglecting those who live at the margins. Indeed, Christ’s love for the least and the forgotten compels us to reject every form of selfishness that leaves the poor and the vulnerable invisible.

@RightWingWatch Betcha there's some high priced escorts that could tell stories about lots of MAGA Christian Nationaists.

Ken Paxton has been indicted, impeached, and repeatedly accused of adultery but Christian nationalist MAGA cultist Lance Wallnau claims that Paxton has "learned from his wicked way" and therefore Christians must vote for him because he's "a fighter" and "the real deal": "That's just the way it is."

@Christo12919382 @SarahHuckabee There are only three precepts that fill MAGAs minds: Hate, Racism, and Stupidity.

@SarahHuckabee STFU!

I could write the autopsy for you really quick: Joe Biden was the worst President America has had in decades, surpassed in incompetence only by their next nominee, Kamala Harris.

@nekaishi @TonyMeadows He was a drunk who tried to beat the shit out of an immigrant.

@TonyMeadows Because he’s white and the murderer is an immigrant

George Floyd dies: “I can’t breathe”. The Western world in uproar. Henry Nowak dies: “I can’t breathe”. Loud silence. Why?

Mitt Romney text to McConnell, January 2nd

@TrumpDailyPosts Israel has become the biggest threat to our form of Government, and it pains me to write this as I feel betrayed by what I believed of Israel for many years.

What is the biggest enemy of America?

The demonstrators are chanting “Go home, USA” outside the consulate. May 21, 2026

@atrupar And if you can pony up $1 million or more to give to one of the Trump ventures, we can do a forgiveness run to a pardon, and you get to keep your ill gotten gains.

Dr Oz: "If you're a fraudster, do not walk away from the press conference -- run. We are coming after you and we have lots of weapons."

@LongTimeHistory Test run for actions ICE is planning for the midterms. Testing local LEO compliance. Local LEO should have arrested the ICE agents.

ICE detains man at Texas polling place during voting hours—now voters worried for midterms. "It's intimidation against the voters," said witness. "Are we now going to have to carry passports to be safe when we vote?" At least 9 agents swarmed the parking lot where voting was taking place inside the library. ICE does not accuse the man of trying to vote illegally—saying it was just an arrest that just so happened to be at a polling place. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar later arrived on the scene and told any federal agents to leave the polling area. "Our officer left after realizing the marked unit might be an 'aggravating factor' for voters," he said. "But I want to try and assure the general public that we want you to go out and vote." Incident occurred at the Las Palmas Branch Library in San Antonio, Texas.

@johnrockshomes You’re treasonous scum.

I am a J6er. I protested a stolen election. Walked right past the police through an open door, and the police let me in. My father's step son turned me into the FBI. My house was raided. They branded me a traitor, and insurrectionist, slapped me on a terrorist watchlist. I plead guilty to illegal picketing, a Class B petty offense misdemeanor with the same sentencing guidelines as walking your dog off leash on a National Park . They swore no prison time. They lied. Judge Hogan sentenced me to 30 days for “not being remorseful enough” and three years’ probation to tie me up through elections. An unconstitutional "split" sentence. My Judge, Judge Hogan called J6 worse than the war of 1812. All I did was chant "Stop the Steal!" inside the Capitol and wear the wrong Tshirt. God Bless the J6ers!

@1200bce @RepMikeLevin How many were in on the planning? Mereck Garland was the appointed that may have doomed our Democracy.

@RepMikeLevin How many in the GOP knew the assault was coming? They enabled it. And now they want to get paid for it?

🚨Last night in House Appropriations, all Republicans present voted to allow THEMSELVES to get settlements from the January 6th Slush Fund. I am not making this up.

@RossKneeDeep And I’d bet you’d find that at least 50% of MAGAs will rationalize the actions of this bigoted racist.

Once upon a time. There was a guy who caĺled himself, Chud the Builder (Dalton Eatherly 28). This guy decided to make it his life's mission to walk around with a concealed weapon, calling black people n*gg**s and chimps. All in hopes that he could entice them into attacking him, so he could shoot them. His favorite thing to do was to attack them with racial slurs, then pull out his selfie stick and capture their anger. While accusing them of "chimping out." Well, that finally happened. He shot a black man outside of a Tennessee courthouse. His bond was set at $1.25 million. He's being tried for attempted murder. If convicted, he could serve a 15 to 60 year prison sentence. My question is why how does such racism manifest?

@TheRealThelmaJ1 Can I vote for all three?

Joe Chaplik is a Republican running for Congress in Arizona CD1. Which one of his tattoos do you think is the worst? Nickelback, Fred Durst or Sheriff Joe?