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Zyxomma's avatar

Ta, Erik. This Union maid approves.

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Michael Bowen's avatar

Always good to learn some new history. Thanks, Prof. Loomis!

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Ellie Alive In 25's avatar

Some state senators pointed to Perkins's not taking her husband's name as a sign that she was a radical. At least she wouldn't have to worry about SS paperwork, these days.

More people should know about Francis Perkins....but she wasn't glamorous enough, I guess, to get the attention.

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Pexas Teat's avatar

The Biden administration created a new National Monument to honor Perkins in Edgecomb, Maine. I'm looking forward to visiting this summer when they open for tours again.

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Ellie Alive In 25's avatar

I didn't know that!! Thank you! I have a friend in Bangor, who often visits that part of Maine. I'm going to write to her and ask her if she's seen it. I have often said (some people say TOO often) that there should be a statue to her in every City across the country.

Happy news for me to learn. Hope the vulgarian doesn't find out and tear it down for being DEI.

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Pexas Teat's avatar

I certainly don't know enough about Perkins, especially given her immense contributions to our modern society. I'm really looking forward to seeing her homestead and the new exhibits.

Maine has so little public land that even a 57 acre monument makes a difference!

Oh and I was wrong: it's in Newcastle not Edgecomb.

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Ellie Alive In 25's avatar

Thank you.

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Herr Snackmeier's avatar

This Hague fellow seems the classic "impotent autocrat," a figure with all the power but continually finds himself unable to use it effectively.

All autocrats are ultimately impotent because their only goal is the preservation of their place in the hierarchy. But the way of this universe, and human society, is change. Autocrats see threats everywhere -- of people, institutions and ideas rising to challenge them.

But, the autocrat has already closed off the two possible avenues of action -- joining partnership with the people or by currying the elite. Partner with the people, and they'll expect excellent schools and hospitals, access to good roads and prestigious universities (the people are so annoying because they only seem to think about the *future* and their future of their fucking kids, nieces/nephews and neighbor kids.)

But give a kid clean municipal water, a few doctor visits and a sound basic education and you've just created an upwardly-mobile striver whose not interested in recreating a fictional "glorious past."

Similarly, go all in your fellow oligarchs and you run into the same trouble. Sure, you keep the cogs of your political machine well-fed with bribe money, no-bid contracts, no-look licenses, etc. But if you've got to engage with the elite broadly, you've just empowered the country-club neighborhood to think that they might just be a better boss than you.

So, you do as historian of fascism Timothy Snyder labels "sadopopulism." Government by its nature is coercive. The law commands. Taxation is involuntary. As long as that government gets consent from the governed through free and fair elections, and as long as that government does its business in the open with ample public access, and as long as the branches of government are distinct, and those who feel wronged by it can appeal to one of the branches to use its powers to check another branch's excesses, you'll be living in a constitutional democracy, even a republic.

But, if you're system has fallen to the autocrat stage. And the autocrat begins to feel his impotence (which, again, is self-inflicted because the autocrat has closed off avenues of adaptive change because they don't want anything to change, well then that autocrat is just going to use the coercive power of government to hurt people. Even their own supporters.

Why? Fuck you, is why.

Justice is the central concept. It is the application of coercive force to redress wrongs. Felons (used to be) jailed. Stolen property, following due process, was from thieves and returned to victims. We've all seen Law & Order -- totally guilty people, real evil shit, whine and complain that the government is wronging them when they are rightfully punished. It's human nature for evil people -- it's like they can't help themselves thinking that if they keep saying it someone will finally let them off the hook.

When the same tools of civil order-restoration are aimed at innocent people. The innocent people, at first, use the same words and appear to express the same emotions in their claim of injustice. The autocrat uses this to label the victims as just more guilty people failing to take their medicine.

And so it goes. Intrusive regulation -- keeping people from speaking on street corners, because you're afraid that if people believe them, this will lead to a process where workers have leverage in the employer-employee relationship. Then, with bargaining (like the employer does with everybody else it does business with, except their employees) the workers fare better -- kids wear shoes, they get their teeth fixed. Folks who never saw dime now have a dollar.

That scenario has always scared the shit out of autocrats. Why, fuck, taken to its logical conclusion, elections might be won on merit! They might lead an intelligent person, who might be Black or a Woman, to assume the awesome powers of the presidency. That scares the everyliving shit out of them.

Because it brings the Human Future forward -- you know the one they've been talking about forever, but in our Western tradition especially since around, oh AD 35, a vision where all people are equal, where it is the duty of each person to love their enemies, to prioritize peace, to admit wrongs, and to give and accept forgiveness in a spirit of universal sibling-hood?

That shit just scares the bejesus out of the autocratic elite. Why, they'd feel compelled to publicly torture and then murder a person who challenged the social order with such ideas, just to let people know they are to stop thinking about justice, equality, etc etc.

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Sandra Hardie's avatar

Nice bit of history and, even almost 100 years earlier, the Supreme Court still had room for assholes. Wonder if they were as corrupt as the current occupants.

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Land Shark 🇺🇦 🏳️‍⚧️'s avatar

"had more registered voters than there were people living in the city"

America at its best!

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weejee's avatar

The elder Mayor Daley on line two.

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Land Shark 🇺🇦 🏳️‍⚧️'s avatar

Boss Tweed rises from his crypt.

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Ambiance Chaser's avatar

Maybe Leon will get so ungrateful he will release the forged election tallies he organized . . .

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Raccoon of Vengeance's avatar

https://theonion.com/rift-widens-between-elon-musk-anyone-who-ever-met-him/

"The source added that while the acrimony between Musk and everyone he had ever met was likely irreversible, the falling out had only strengthened his relationship with ketamine."

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Assigned Cute at Birth's avatar

K is always there for him.

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Dudley Didwrong's avatar

Ketamine, be the death of me,

Ketamine, it's my wife and it's my life...

And thank your God that I'm not aware,

And thank God that I just don't care.

(Apologies to Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground)

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Lawyers, Guns 'n' Money's avatar

She don't lie.

No, wait, that's cocaine.

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Ambiance Chaser's avatar

K is special . . .

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Elviouslyqueer's avatar

K is the new Pee.

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gallbladder's avatar

It never talks back.

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Our_Man_In_Redneckistan's avatar

It’s funny because it’s true.

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Nemo's avatar

There were two dissents in Hague v. CIO: McReynolds and Butler. McReynolds was the nastiest piece of shit to sit his stupid ass on the court until Clarence Thomas weaseled his way onto it. Fuck that old pervert George Herbert Wanker Bush.

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paul's avatar
Jun 5Edited

OT- It looks like the gloves are off.

Said Musk- "Without me, trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the house, and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude."

Wait until FOTUS sees that.

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Linoleum von Curmudgeon, Esq.'s avatar

Next time, Elon, get a dog. They love you even when you're an asshole.

Snakes, scorpions, wasps and Republicans always bite the hand that feeds them.

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Richard S's avatar

I doubt you could find a dog that desperate.

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Elviouslyqueer's avatar

CATFIGHT!

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WannabeWonk's avatar

Who else thinks Elmo's fortune will suddenly start disappearing because he's unworthy of it?

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Land Shark 🇺🇦 🏳️‍⚧️'s avatar

SLAP FIGHT! (And admissible evidence in court. Watch Orangini have Elno arrested for election interference)

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SkeptiKC's avatar

"MrrrooOOoow!"

"FssssSSSsssst!!"

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BillEGoatSmile's avatar

*rubs hands together gleefully*

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gallbladder's avatar

[passes adult beverage]

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Satanic Pancake's avatar

The ketchup is going to hit the fan. Er, wall.

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TootsStansbury 🇺🇦's avatar

He didn’t say “thank you” enough? Hahahahaha! How’s his cards? He’s got the cards? Plus is twee admitting to election tampering?

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gallbladder's avatar

[goes long on melted butter futures]

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Bill Door's avatar

[corners popcorn market]

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Martin Shobe's avatar

[cackles evilly over my ownership of salt production]

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gallbladder's avatar

We're gonna make out like bandits!

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Bill Door's avatar

WHERE THE HELL IS BEEKS?!

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Gern Blansten's avatar

Stay away from the windows Elmo— or don’t I don’t give a fuck.

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tek's avatar

Keep talkin' Elon..

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Daniel's avatar

OT tomortow in history

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lqupq2vswf2h

Trump thinks the Germans feel bad about D Day.

All he sees is that they lost.

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Gammarae's avatar

and his hair looks even stupider than ever, if that's even possible

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TootsStansbury 🇺🇦's avatar

Can you imagine if Joe Biden had done - oh fuck, never mind.

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BillEGoatSmile's avatar

I rarely do, but I watched some of that presser today (with the German Chancellor).

Hoo boy, people like Aaron and Ron Filipkowski are spoiled for riches to choose between the stupid and the lies.

Eggs are down 400%; 2 million 'illegals' came over the border in a month under Biden; AutoPen use by Biden should be investigated; and then never mind the gobsmacking idiocy with foreign policy questions....

It was something to behold.

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Ambiance Chaser's avatar

Did JD give the Chancellor a wedgie ? . . .

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Tasner Hasenpfeffer's avatar

PS. Some people should be worried that if the victorious allies liberate us USAmericans and kick the Republicans into the shit can of history, a majority of us would be celebrating in the streets.

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Satanic Pancake's avatar

If you took wild stupidity, distilled it down to pure stupidity, and then put it in an AI, it would still be orders of magnitude more intelligent and more informed and more eloquent than Donald Fucking Trump.

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Tasner Hasenpfeffer's avatar

"After 1945, there is nothing the fuck wrong with us."

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Nemo's avatar

per Fran Leibowitz: You don't know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don't.

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Gern Blansten's avatar

“Like my good friend the dear Hannibal Lecter once told me while we were sharing some finger food he said ‘Don, you’re so dumb if I tried eating your brain I’d starve to death.’

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tek's avatar

Is there ANYthing he understands?

(I think not)

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MorganX's avatar

OT, fud:

Question, possibly foolish. Is it okay or a terrible waste to make fajitas out of strip steaks?

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

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Garbageman's avatar

As a single guy, I'm in favor of anything that makes food easier to eat! 😋

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Our_Man_In_Redneckistan's avatar

Absolutely not. Making peasant food fancy is a big part of my kitchen aesthetic.

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gallbladder's avatar

Also demonstrates resourcefulness.

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Lund-O-Matic's avatar

And deliciousness.

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Our_Man_In_Redneckistan's avatar

Example A: chili, which was invented to use up spoiling beef.

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TootsStansbury 🇺🇦's avatar

My humble opinion, from someone who occasionally misses steak, is; the better the ingredient, the better the dish will be, so no!

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MRK's avatar

OT: A line from the review of a TV show I am never going to watch: "After making profits by selling cheap tires at cost,"

I am unclear if the review writer horribly misunderstands profits, or if the show's writers made that mistake.

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Rhand Holm's avatar

Ah, a graduate of the Milo Minderbinder school of busines.

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Hannah's avatar

We all have a share!

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Georgiaburning's avatar

Wait until you see what they charge for “mounting and balancing”

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Mighty Little Dog's avatar

Left out “filled with cocaine “

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Zeitgeist's avatar

How do we do it? Volume!

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Sandra Hardie's avatar

My favorite line from college cost accounting class: "Don't sell a product for less than cost and expect to make it up in volume." Stuck in my head for 50 years. Finally got to use it!!

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gallbladder's avatar

I think they misunderstood tires.

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Gern Blansten's avatar

Big Balls Makes Bank

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SkeptiKC's avatar

I'm inclined to believe that the current reprobate regime is going to demonstrate an increasing aversion to 1st Amendment rights. The man has never been capable of gracefully accepting criticism and will go out of his way to silence any and all assertions that might hurt his fee-fees.

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jltympanum's avatar

Which is precisely why we should all make a point of constantly trying to hurt his feelings. The first one to make him cry wins a prize!

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Nemo's avatar

Or apoplexy. I'm actually expecting him to stroke out looking at old photos of Melania, from back when she pretended to like him.

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