Shinzo Abe (likely) assassinated.

Not looking good. :/

I liked the time his wife pretended not to know English to get out of talking with Trump.

Yeah, he's dead. Who was the assasin?

Some guy with a homemade gun, who didn’t have anything political against Abe, according to some reports.

Odd, was it personal or a hit then?

BBC are saying he told police he was "dissatisfied" with Abe. Sounds political, unless the guy didn't send him an eBay order or something.

There are unconfirmed claims the shooter is/was Japanese Navy.

May justice prevail in Shinzo Abe's murder & may he rest in peace.

Curious to see the motivation. Abe was another right wing nationalist, and while he was a successful politician he held some potentially problematic views about Imperial Japan, especially it's role in WWII and denying some of it's atrocities, such as forcing Korean women en masse into prostitution for the Japanese Army.

Abe was in favor of building up Japan's military and the (alleged) assassin is reportedly a Japan naval veteran. Interesting, but....

ETA: Interesting BBC commentary/analysis

Abe's naval buildup was aimed at countering China. I'm sure the conspiracy nuts will be out on that angle.

Police now reporting the suspect claimed to have a grudge against an organisation (not named) he believed Abe was a member of.

Zaibatsu/Yakuza? I have been told that there are ties between the two, although just tenuous enough for plausible deniability. The founder of my martial arts system wrote a novel during the late 80s about a giant corporation that had a secret team of ninjas that dated back to Japan's "Warring States Period" in the 11th or 12th centuries. At the time I dismissed it as an interesting invention, but change the word "ninja" to "yakuza" and it's enough to make you wonder.

With Japan's 99 percent conviction rate, he ain't going anywhere anytime soon.

Pardon my ignorance ... was he a right-wing nationalist by American and European standards, or was he the type that American pundits would consider a centrist and American nutjobs would consider a RINO socialist?

He was a right wing nationalist who was part of a nearly cultish political group, Nippon Kaigi, that sought to restore Japan to its Imperialist glory days before WWII, and denied Japanese war crimes, like when the Japanese army used kidnapped Korean women, in government approved brothels, as "comfort women" where Japanese soldiers could rape them.

So when @Demiurge says he was a right wing nationalist, he is correct. Abe was a right wing nationalist in the true sense of the word.

The type that publicly talked about how WW2 sex slaves were actually voluntary brothel workers.

Apparently, the assassin was a member of the Moonies, and some kind of disagreement between the religious cult that Abe was tied to and the Moonies is what motivated the shooting.

PMs dropping like flies this week.

How about Trudeau next? Fuck his pretty face.

Hopefully no-one will be listening in and construe that as a death threat.

Anyway, looks like Sri Lanka beat Canada - PM not dead but forced to resign after an angry mob stormed the Presidential Palace (President forced to flee). The nation had run out of foreign currency and basic goods were in short supply.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-asia-62105967

My business partner did a Mormon Mission in Japan and still has some friends there. One thing to remember is that the "Liberal Democratic Party" is none of the above. It's a conglomteration of (I think) four different factions. It calls to mind David McCullough's biography of Harry S Truman about how the Democrats identified as "Rabbits" or "Goats" depending on which party boss they were aligned with. Just trying to add some context... Anyway, one impression I've gotten is that when Abe left office it was "understood" that he was out for good. Instead, he decided to flaunt the "understanding" and was angling to get back in the game. Given his popularity (my business partner posits) he was pretty much a shoo-in to be re-elected PM. This would have threatened the people who are currently in power and so they took him out. Does that remind anyone of the Jimmy Hoffa affair? Something like that seems more plausible to me than a religious dispute between religious groups, but then, there's no reason why it couldn't be a combination. Of course, I don't see any way of ruling out a "lone nut" scenario either

that'd be the worst election in ages.
Skippy or Murphy Brownshirt for the cons vs. I don't know who the Libs could run in his place vs Jagmeet one last time.

On that note...

And the police chief has resigned over this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-to-resign-after-fatal-shooting-of-shinzo-abe

LOL!

(Dark Humor FYI)

https://twitter.com/psychocutness/status/1566117138980544513?s=21&t=2ui7RBqru8NZavjbnDOFKA

I'd vote for Paul Bernardo before I'd vote for Pierre Poilievre. And Jagmeet is everything I hate about Justin, taken up to 11. (Holy fuck, what if Jagmeet is Justin in another one of his disguises?)

I'd believe it... that part of JS being JT...

although it blends badly with the usual sock puppet imagery.

heh