Posts posted by TwiceHorn
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The real story on his prior charges, not filtered through ICE or right-wing Twitter.
https://www.ffxnow.com/2025/12/19/man-charged-with-murder-for-fatal-reston-shooting/
According to online court records, Morales-Ortez had previously been charged with six different crimes, though the charges were later dropped in each case.
Among other cases, he was arrested in June 2020 as a 17-year-old for the June 23, 2019 murder of Jose Lorenzo Guillen Mejia, a 24-year-old Reston resident whose body was found on the footpath behind Hunters Wood Plaza.
After more than a year in jail, Morales-Ortez was ultimately released from custody and the charges against him were dropped in 2021 when “it became clear that he was ultimately not the perpetrator,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office spokesperson Laura Birnbaum says.
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Most recently, Morales-Ortez was arrested on Sept. 14 on charges of malicious wounding and brandishing for an incident that occurred two days earlier, online court records show. The charges were dropped on Dec. 15 — the day before this week’s fatal shooting — because prosecutors had “insufficient evidence to move forward” with the case, according to Birnbaum.
“The victim told police that they had moved out of the country and would not be coming to court to cooperate in proceedings, regardless of timing,” she told FFXnow. “Sadly, without the victim’s necessary testimony, we could not move forward.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told WJLA that it had sought to detain Morales-Ortez prior to the incident, claiming that he’s a native of El Salvador illegally residing in the United States.
A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office told FFXnow that, without a court-issued warrant, the jail had no grounds to keep him in custody, but ICE could’ve picked Morales-Ortez up upon his release.
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Edited by TwiceHorn
4 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:Is there anything more obsolete in modern warfare than a battleship?
Yeah, the need for anything bigger than a DDG is highly questionable. The Ticonderoga class CG, now obsolescent, was originally considered a DDG and is to be replaced by more Burkes.
Cruiser-class replacements have been canceled twice.
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Edited by TwiceHorn
On 12/18/2025 at 5:15 PM, 956 Worldwide said:The logical response to that is “refusing to charge people for crimes and then letting them go do more” is a basic failure of governance.
Well, that tweet doesn't mention the guy's immigration status. If he has no status, he can be deported on that basis alone. No criminal charges or convictions necessary.
If he has some status, depending on what it is, he can only be deported upon conviction of a crime.
"He's been charged for seven crimes since 2020" . . , ok, where are the convictions?
Now, I suppose you could argue that already deportable immigrants should be prioritized once they've racked up a few criminal charges, but as far as I know, charges alone are not the basis for deportation.
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8 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:
Nah--this won't get to SCOTUS anytime soon. By the time it gets to the, it'll be the Newsom Administration's problem.
If it did, it would be a helluva thing.
Takings have been a big Bundy-wing conservative shibboleth for a while. The cognitive dissonance on the court would be audible from here. Not that that would stop them from ruling in Trump's favor.
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Didn't see it posted anywhere, but the Milwaukee judge, Dugan, was convicted on one felony count of obstructing federal agents. She was acquitted on the misdemeanor count.
Appeal incoming.
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8 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:
This is just dumb. It is nowhere close to 9B the assertion is absurd on its face. That number was picked, and placed as it was in the CBS headline the way it was, and posted here by GRU, to fan anti Somali hatred and resentment. Don’t fall for the banana in the tailpipe
Yep, it's like a lot of things Trump. Somewhere buried in all the bullshit, there's a nugget of truth.
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The point is not that the fraud announced in this particular release is de minimis or that fraud doesn't exist.
The point is, the United States Department of Justice used this relatively small fraud involving a small number of people to take shots at political enemies in the form of the State of Minnesota, Tim Walz, Somalians and so on, without any evidentiary basis to do so.
That's not DOJ standard operating procedure.
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Edited by TwiceHorn
No one's denying that fraud occurs, even on a massive scale.
But they're alleging $9B in fraud, without evidence (as media likes to say), and slandering Somalis in the process.
There may be a pony in there somewhere, but this is a load of shit.
Also, look at how legitimate DOJ press releases that allege massive fraud work in the past: they cite indictments and actual loss numbers, even if those may be subject to proof and "optimistic" or overstated.
Rarely do you see a $2.1M indictment, not against Somalian defendants, that leads to an unsupported speculation of $9B in losses attributable to Somalis.
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1 hour ago, washparkhorn said:
If "the medium is the message,” an opinion piece in Compact magazine about the problems that younger white males face forces one to think about what it means to publish that piece in this specific media.
Compact is not a neutral place. Its main point as a medium is:- The Liberal Consensus is no longer effective. The goal is to dismantle the dominant liberal worldview, which encompasses both progressive and neoliberal viewpoints.
- Combining leftist economic ideas with rightist social and cultural concerns is okay.
- It gives intellectual and political legitimacy to ideas that mainstream conservative (National Review) and leftist (Jacobin) outlets think are wrong.
The medium (Compact) has a big effect on how this specific grievance is understood. It changes the meaning of "grievance" from a personal one to a systemic one. In right-wing circles, the same issue could be called "liberal wokeness is attacking white men," which is about cultural victimhood. In Compact, the message of the medium changes it to:
1. The situation is a sign of bigger problems with liberalism and late capitalism. The assertion is that young white men are not only victims of anti-white rhetoric but also suffer from economic dispossession, the disintegration of community institutions, and an isolating culture fostered by elite liberalism. The enemy is not "Black Lives Matter" itself, but the neoliberal system that uses identity politics to keep working-class people from working together.
2. It shows that a political realignment is both possible and needed. The message from the medium is that the far right is now getting these white men who are worried about money and don't fit in with their culture. But they should really be part of a new, illiberal populist group. The piece is a way to get people to join that group and support it. It says, "Your complaints are valid, but the answer from the right isn't good enough." We can give you what you want: economic populism and a critique of the power of the elite.
3. It says that a topic that was once off-limits is now important enough to talk about. Most major media either thinks that "white male grievance" is only important to far-right extremists or that it should be ignored or made fun of. It says “This is a serious demographic and political analysis, not just white bigotry.”
4. It shows what "reactionary left" or "left conservatism" is like in real life. It says: "We have broken the old political categories." This doesn't make sense with your old left/right map.
The Meta-Message is about political strategy and worries about demographics on a bigger scale. It knows that the traditional base of leftist politics (a united working class) is falling apart. It wants to win back some people who feel left out by the left by addressing their cultural fears on non-liberal grounds and promising economic salvation. The main point is a cold political calculation: to build a successful populist alliance against the liberal elite, you need to meet the needs of the largest, most politically active group of people right now, even if it makes cosmopolitan libs uncomfortable.
If "the medium is the message," then this piece says, "The pain of young white men is the best proof that capitalism has failed in every way: economically, culturally, and spiritually." It's not a right-wing problem. If we want to build a new, strong political coalition that goes beyond the dead left-right divide and gets rid of the crooked elite, we need to talk about it seriously and without liberal taboos.”The play is about forming coalitions and making political triangulations. The medium gives it an ideological context that turns a complaint that could be seen as conservative into what can be called a “revolutionary critique.”
Yeah, as noted on the thread where this first came up, this is a "common good" site.
They're the more intelligent and polite variant of MAGA. The common-gooders do analyze problems pretty well, but their solutions are too moralistic for and probably most of us.
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18 minutes ago, aggie08 said:
I qualify as a millennial (about to cross 40), and I'm pretty comfortable admitting that some of my career advancements have come, in part, to me being a tall, relatively handsome, socially competent white dude. Mechanical Engineer FWIW.
If we're throwing around isolated anecdotes.
Yeah, white engineers are typically male and kinda have it made, even to this day.
Make it a little more rarified and slap a law degree on there and it's still white dude heaven.
In firms, we always highly prized women and POC applicants because they were pretty rare. And, as brisket notes, in a field where academics are prioritized, women are highly likely to have beat all the male asses.
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Edited by TwiceHorn
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29 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:There is going to be real fraud. There always is with programs this size. I've been involved in bringing civil cases for Medicare and Medicaid fraud. But it isn't going to be billions or 50% of the Medicaid program. It'll be a very small fraction. And the fraud they appear to actually have evidence of here is a couple million.
Yep.
Rat chere in Texas. https://www.fox4news.com/news/48-texans-charged-nationwide-14-6-billion-healthcare-fraud-takedown
Biggest takedown supposedly in US history. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/national-health-care-fraud-takedown-results-324-defendants-charged-connection-over-146 But here, the numbers actually add up. Also, funny, not a single one in the D. Minn.
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14 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:
In this case, he's another expired US Attorney appointment from Trump, so a complete Trump hack.
Probably pretty important to note that "expired US Attorney appointment" pretty much means the appointee is unconfirmable by the Senate. And the Senate confirmed Judge Janine.
So, we're talking assclowns like Ed Martin, Alina Habba, and Lindsey Halligan. Add Joe Thompson, the commenter here.
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53 minutes ago, CTC2 said:
They are governing like the next elections will be rigged.
Probably.
But a lot of the people behind Trump, like P2025, Thiel and the weirdos, are the kind of Republicans that could never get elected.
Trump gave them a free pass
43 minutes ago, C-Man said:From the comments:
Thanks for helping us understand how folks end up voting for Trump.
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Just now, Nueces River Rat said:
It’s just Nike shit that gets priced hire for the Jordon logo. Just looks strange for football stuff.
It's still Nike shit yes, but it is a separate entity for licensing purposes.
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Papers, please. Surly thread of deportation cruelty dominance
in Daily Texan
Immigration holds, by their very terms, are only supposed to last 48 hours.
Not at all clear that this would have prevented it. Seems like he went home and shot a family member.
A lot like second-guessing bail decisions.
An interesting note not reported in that article, there apparently was a mental-health warrant issued for his arrest shortly after his release, but apparently last only eight hours.