It wouldn’t change anything, might even make it worse because then he could shit talk about “see? I survived!” Folks like this by default see themselves as the exception rather than the rule.

let me be clear that I say this with absolutely no foreshadowing, this will never come back to haunt me in particular

-the conservative justices

but of course.

It’s not all their fault, but by God it’d be nice to see them fight the republicans at least as hard as they fight the leftists in their own party.

We’re a looooong way from perfect, I’m asking for the bare minimum to achieve meaningful success.

Well, it’s especially difficult to organize if you don’t try organizing. I’ve got a mind to start doing so myself if I don’t see anyone organizing at the next one.

Sure, maybe, probably, but even if that is 100% true, I don’t think it’s the whole story. I think that the interests of the Russian Federation and the interests of our ultra-wealthy sort of accidentally aligned insofar as they both believe they’d be better off with the US federal government deligitimized and destroyed. Whether it works out the way they’d hoped, well, we’ll see. History is kind of a funny thing.

Unbelievable. It’s so jarring to me to have been raised on the western mythos of the arc of history bending towards justice, only to see right wing assholes the world over, at every level, having their moment in the sun, literally murdering poor people for laughs.

“He’s giving a message to criminals where our federal officers are,” Bondi said. “…we are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that’s not a protected speech. That is threatening the lives of our law enforcement officers throughout this country.”’

Actually, I believe it is protected speech. There are apps that let people know where speed traps are. You mean it’s not constitutionally protected to say to someone “hey, did you see the cop down on the corner?” Ridiculous. Of course, what she means to say is that the constitution doesn’t matter and laws are made up now, and they’re just going to do whatever the fuck they want. They’re just not quuuuuite ready to go through the trouble of literally setting the constitution on fire yet.

I mean, yeah. I’m glad he’s suing, this is bullshit and never should have happened at all; this would be grounds for impeachment and worse in a sane world. That said, we all kind of knew this, right? Donald even bragged about it at one point; the cruelty is the whole point.

Boomers in about six months:

“But why would Obama do this?”

50501 needs to start getting people organized. I went to No King’s Day; it was great, really, genuinely great, except that there was absolutely zero organizing to try and get people to push towards achievable goals. It was literally just “hey, let’s all stand around with signs, that’ll show Donald”. If we want to make a difference, we need to get organized so we can start directing people and their resources and energy towards attainable goals and start demonstrating that we can get shit done.

I never ever want to hear another conservative whine at me about the budget as long as I live. FiScAl ReSpOnSiBiLiTy my ass.

TBH, I’m increasingly convinced that this is yet another in a series of moves overtly intended to destroy the federal government’s legitimacy.

I don’t remember biblical antichrist being stopped by courts, I seem to remember that he ultimately gets yeeted into hell.

I mean, let’s just drop allllll the pretenses here and call a spade a spade. We’re speedrunning both imperial decline and final act of the death of the republic. That means that what’s happening now isn’t so much the end of things taking shape; that dye was cast arguably as far back as neoconservatism and the death of the Soviet Union. No, what’s being shaped now is what comes next, and so far, it’s looking like a freak hybrid between neo-feudalism and neo-mercantilism, leaning more towards mercantilism imo, with a whole new nobility class formed purely off the basis of who holds the money and the assets right now. I mean, this should and would never be allowable under the republic, but the republic is dead and they’re just doing a little puppeteering with the corpse at the moment, while it’s handy to do so.

Let me be totally unambiguous here: the republic is dead, there is no going back. Even if we have elections again (lol, lmao) and even if they swing super hard left and even if we get a bunch of Democrats who are serious and result-oriented, and even if those Democrats actually do want to surrender the tools of fascism (unlike their predecessors), it’s going to take decades to walk back the damage. Before anyone will be able to feel the results of the course reversal, people are just going to get pissed and vote the next batch of right wing assholes in who’ll finish the job. The wounds are too deep, too grievous, and our political establishment is too captured and lacking in vision and intestinal fortitude. The republic is already gone in all but name, and what’s coming next will ensure that the people who sponsored it death are enshrined at the center.

If that’s not the world you want to live in, then you need to start networking at a local level, working with likeminded people across your local and state, and probably start working on secession movements. We’re going to have a very narrow window between the death of the empire and the birth of the monarchy to determine what kind of world our children inherit, don’t let it slip past. Get out there, go to city council and county supervisor meetings, join secession initiatives, get active and start seeking people out and networking. If we work together, we can at least forge a better tomorrow than what Zuck and Bezos have planned for us.

I don’t see how they could have mistaken this for AI. It just doesn’t have the vibe, there’s too much roughness and it’s not just totally overloaded with details.

Polaris is pretty easy to find, and it shouldn’t really change its position in the sky much. Basically, find the big dipper, find the forward two stars of the cup, and then follow the line they make away from the bottom of the cup. In about two outstretched fists, more or less, you’ll arrive at a fairly unremarkable star that’s more or less on its own (you’ll see fewer or more companions depending on your light pollution). If you’re asking yourself “is that particular star right there Polaris?” the answer is likely yes. If you’re asking “which one of these is Polaris?” and you’re not in an especially light pollution free area, you probably messed up and you should try again.

At this point, I think it’s pretty safe to call MAGA a religion, specifically an offshot of American Evangelism. I don’t think you can call its faithful Christians anymore, because while they’re happy to borrow all the trappings and symbols of Christianity, every place where Christ and Trump conflict, Trump wins, including who gets to be Godhead. I’m really not exaggerating, I think a lot of people have walked into an entirely new faith without yet realizing it. If you’re looking for a modern anti-christ, it’s hard to do better than Trump.

Well, I dunno if I’d agree that it’s booming just yet.

I think you’re right. He’s been conditioned to keep the faith and look past the cult’s obvious failure to keep its promise of protecting him and his; if he only keeps the faith, everything will surely come right. He still believes that surely dear leader would never hurt him. I think his wife getting flown out to Serbia without a trial miiiight just be the wakeup call.