Turns out that despite what I and most people I know thought, TFG could have decided to pay TSA at any point in this clusterfuck. Apparently moving money around within a cabinet agency in an emergency is within his remit. But then he wouldn’t have had the TSA Agents to use as leverage. I would have thought budget categories would be set by appropriators, and in normal circumstances that’s true, but the money was always there thanks to the OBuBBA bill, and they’ll pull the funding from the $10B slush fund DHS got in 2025 labeled “meh, whatever”.
The followers of a fascist movement “must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies." - and yet its the billionaires on the right funding this shit
Let's take a quick look at how Shambles inverts history. While the Nazis had an actual slurry pit of an economy with which to rally the population, the MAGA were "living like Bismarck " -- even in their basements and trailers -- under Biden. Until Shambles took over, thereby allowing Shambles to create a New Economic Slurry Pit, thus uniting the population against MAGA!
My local Sunday newspaper(under the Chicago Trib family of papers) had an article about how Pritzker wants to be king and something about the Holi Festival. Not one thing about the No Kings event. Nothing... Talk about failed media. Scares the living crap out of me. Glad there's all the writers at Wonkette!
That’s spraying nice juice on everyone. Then they’re shocked when Kamala Harris loses every swing state and Trump wins the popular vote.
Just as the rightwing internet trolls are a small subset of people and the progressive onliners they so longingly seek to annoy are as well, these No Kingers are an anecdotal subset of people. They’re mostly confined to cities or the non-USA. Some of them won’t show up to vote. Some will show up to vote communist or libertarian or whatever the fuck Robert Kennedy Jr. is.
And 10 people waving flags and anti-Trump signs in Emporia, Kansas, or Bismarck, North Dakota or Ocala, Florida is “cute.” It’s not a movement. Democrats have to slam away at gas prices, inflation, food prices, stagnant wages, and awful job growth.
I'm skeptical that switching one bring (Rs) for the other one (Ds) in, itself, changes a damn thing. Sure, some policies regarding this or that (and for the better, to be sure), but at bottom, the same old oligarchial class that's been controlling the rest of us for the last 175 years at least.
i don't say just new political parties (if political parties are a necessary thing) so much as new ways of looking at the world. I don't see that the US can survive (or that any of the rest of us can) with 4% of the human race sucking up the resources of the other 96% of us, and relying on militarism and exploitation even it does benefit that 375,000,000 with so degree of equality.
Oh my GOD, thank you for saying this. I know things look dark but I'm done with reflexive nihilism and that condescending "It's cute that you think this solves anything" whenever anything good happens. I'm done with people who have oceans of time to shit all over the work other people are doing and yet somehow have no time to help. Channel that energy into getting some work done, however small you might think it is. I try to do that in my very small corner of the world and I wish I could do more.
The right wing WANTS us to surrender to despair and nihilism. Resist that if you can. They can do a lot of damage but they can't have my mind. I just absolutely refuse to lie down and take this. If that seems cringe, too bad. I'm doing it anyway.
This reminds me of Igor - the engineer who had a cube next me when we both worked at - well, I can't say the name guess - just say it was a company in Texas that made instruments. He grew up in St Petersberg - he like to show me photos of the palaces. Then he fled the crumbling USSR and found himself in Midland. Midland, TX. Now he is in Dalals. We lived through the Shrub years as a mutual support group. He felt that Amerticans were too dum to be trusted to vote wisely. He felt that a group - an insider group - a Duma, if you will - was ever the best way. He was profoundly cynical about politicians and politcal processes. I realized after a while - listenint to him - that an absolutist regime has to has a despirited and hopeless citizenry.
Anyway, he shared these views with me, a gay man who had just seen marriage made equal in this country. A big deal for me. Something that only a few years perviously me and all my gay friends did not think was possible to acchieve. That has been a guiding light for me, in a way, to not succumb to nihilism.
Speaking of bad faith, here's a graf from Thomas Fuller's "analysis" in the NYT about the protest:
In Oxford, Miss., Cass Rutledge, a first-year law student at the University of Mississippi, walked through the No Kings protest and around the town square on Saturday and questioned why people thought Mr. Trump was acting like a king.
Turns out old Cass isn't just some random dude, as Tom would have you believe:
Here's my email to him:
"Hi Tom,
Will you be updating your story to let the readers know that your “random skeptic”, Cass Rutledge, just happens to be the President of the Ole Miss College Republicans? That seems like a pertinent piece of information that you must have just “accidentally” overlooked.
The motherfucker added the phrase, "and chairman of the Ole Miss College Republicans", but didn't bother to alert readers to the change to the article. Fucking piece of shit.
It is not cringe! Cringe is something to be ashamed of. There’s no shame in caring for others and doing what’s good and right.
What’s so funny about peace, love, and understanding? And why not be earnest?
Ta, Denny. I'll have to read the Eco essay.
Turns out that despite what I and most people I know thought, TFG could have decided to pay TSA at any point in this clusterfuck. Apparently moving money around within a cabinet agency in an emergency is within his remit. But then he wouldn’t have had the TSA Agents to use as leverage. I would have thought budget categories would be set by appropriators, and in normal circumstances that’s true, but the money was always there thanks to the OBuBBA bill, and they’ll pull the funding from the $10B slush fund DHS got in 2025 labeled “meh, whatever”.
The followers of a fascist movement “must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies." - and yet its the billionaires on the right funding this shit
There's a long climb back to political acumen.
Let's take a quick look at how Shambles inverts history. While the Nazis had an actual slurry pit of an economy with which to rally the population, the MAGA were "living like Bismarck " -- even in their basements and trailers -- under Biden. Until Shambles took over, thereby allowing Shambles to create a New Economic Slurry Pit, thus uniting the population against MAGA!
Can't call that WINNING.
My local Sunday newspaper(under the Chicago Trib family of papers) had an article about how Pritzker wants to be king and something about the Holi Festival. Not one thing about the No Kings event. Nothing... Talk about failed media. Scares the living crap out of me. Glad there's all the writers at Wonkette!
And yet and yet reality somehow continues to exist!
That’s spraying nice juice on everyone. Then they’re shocked when Kamala Harris loses every swing state and Trump wins the popular vote.
Just as the rightwing internet trolls are a small subset of people and the progressive onliners they so longingly seek to annoy are as well, these No Kingers are an anecdotal subset of people. They’re mostly confined to cities or the non-USA. Some of them won’t show up to vote. Some will show up to vote communist or libertarian or whatever the fuck Robert Kennedy Jr. is.
And 10 people waving flags and anti-Trump signs in Emporia, Kansas, or Bismarck, North Dakota or Ocala, Florida is “cute.” It’s not a movement. Democrats have to slam away at gas prices, inflation, food prices, stagnant wages, and awful job growth.
Bread.
And.
Butter.
I'm skeptical that switching one bring (Rs) for the other one (Ds) in, itself, changes a damn thing. Sure, some policies regarding this or that (and for the better, to be sure), but at bottom, the same old oligarchial class that's been controlling the rest of us for the last 175 years at least.
i don't say just new political parties (if political parties are a necessary thing) so much as new ways of looking at the world. I don't see that the US can survive (or that any of the rest of us can) with 4% of the human race sucking up the resources of the other 96% of us, and relying on militarism and exploitation even it does benefit that 375,000,000 with so degree of equality.
💯🎯
Oh my GOD, thank you for saying this. I know things look dark but I'm done with reflexive nihilism and that condescending "It's cute that you think this solves anything" whenever anything good happens. I'm done with people who have oceans of time to shit all over the work other people are doing and yet somehow have no time to help. Channel that energy into getting some work done, however small you might think it is. I try to do that in my very small corner of the world and I wish I could do more.
The right wing WANTS us to surrender to despair and nihilism. Resist that if you can. They can do a lot of damage but they can't have my mind. I just absolutely refuse to lie down and take this. If that seems cringe, too bad. I'm doing it anyway.
"Poor but sober Italians"? Interesting take.
Trump literally posed sending ICE into airports as a threat. Media that didn’t communicate the point certainly weren’t serving the people.
This reminds me of Igor - the engineer who had a cube next me when we both worked at - well, I can't say the name guess - just say it was a company in Texas that made instruments. He grew up in St Petersberg - he like to show me photos of the palaces. Then he fled the crumbling USSR and found himself in Midland. Midland, TX. Now he is in Dalals. We lived through the Shrub years as a mutual support group. He felt that Amerticans were too dum to be trusted to vote wisely. He felt that a group - an insider group - a Duma, if you will - was ever the best way. He was profoundly cynical about politicians and politcal processes. I realized after a while - listenint to him - that an absolutist regime has to has a despirited and hopeless citizenry.
Anyway, he shared these views with me, a gay man who had just seen marriage made equal in this country. A big deal for me. Something that only a few years perviously me and all my gay friends did not think was possible to acchieve. That has been a guiding light for me, in a way, to not succumb to nihilism.
Well, he wouldn’t stress this, but there is an importance
I'll say it again. Nearly half of America though this a better idea than having a woman who doesn't pass the "one drop rule" as POTUS.
Speaking of bad faith, here's a graf from Thomas Fuller's "analysis" in the NYT about the protest:
In Oxford, Miss., Cass Rutledge, a first-year law student at the University of Mississippi, walked through the No Kings protest and around the town square on Saturday and questioned why people thought Mr. Trump was acting like a king.
Turns out old Cass isn't just some random dude, as Tom would have you believe:
Here's my email to him:
"Hi Tom,
Will you be updating your story to let the readers know that your “random skeptic”, Cass Rutledge, just happens to be the President of the Ole Miss College Republicans? That seems like a pertinent piece of information that you must have just “accidentally” overlooked.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/28/us/no-kings-trump-iran-immigration-minnesota.html"
The motherfucker added the phrase, "and chairman of the Ole Miss College Republicans", but didn't bother to alert readers to the change to the article. Fucking piece of shit.
"questioned why people thought Mr. Trump was acting like a king."
The constant constitutional violations are a bit of a clue...
Don't muddy the social media fluff with thought.
How many people know what Ole Miss College Republicans are. Sounds harmless enough.
Future Plantation Owners of America ? . . .