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Bonus Post: The McMansionization of the White House, or: Regional Car Dealership Rococo, a treatise

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If you are using undocumented immigrants' tax records to find and kidnap them, then it was never about them paying taxes.

If you are showing up at their place of employment, then it was never about them not working.

If you are showing up at courthouses, then it was never about getting them to "do it the right way".

If you are kidnapping women and children, then it was never about criminals.

If you're refusing to give them due process, then it was never about the Constitution.

If you are building concentration camps in Florida to keep them here in cages, then it was never about the border.

If you're spending billions to do this, then it was never about the economy.

And if you're doing all this in the name of a 34 time convicted felon, then it was never about following the law.

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NO KINGS!

The USA was founded in rebellion from and in opposition to monarchy. The Constitution's framers made our head of state an elected position of limited and checked authority. When George Washington was first elected President, someone asked if he should be addressed as "Your Majesty" (in the style of European monarchs); Washington replied certainly not, he should be addressed simply as "Mister President".

For reasons such as these, critics, satirists, and cartoonists have long known that one of the greatest insults they can throw at a US President is to compare him to a king. Depicting them with a crown on their head concisely conveys that they are abusing their power, are unfit for office, have delusions of grandeur, and are inherently un-American.

A few historic examples of US Presidents caricatured as kings:

1833 caricature of Andrew Jackson as a king; artist unidentified.

1868 caricature of Andrew Johnson as King Richard III, by Thomas Nast.

1896 caricature of William McKinley crowning himself, by Louis Dalrymple.

1972 caricature of Richard Nixon as King Canute, by Paul Francis Conrad.

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No Kings Nationwide Protest, June 14th!

“On June 14th, Donald Trump wants tanks in the strreet and a made-for-TV display of dominance for his birthday. A soectacle meant to look like strength. But real power isn’t staged in Washington. It rises up everywhere else.”

📍Key West: Bayview Park, 11am-12pm

🔎 Not in Key West? Find your local protest spot at nokings.org

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One of our fabric sales reps came in for an appointment yesterday and we ended up talking about the long term impacts of the pandemic. The home quilting market is predominantly a conservative customer base, so when COVID precautions were politicized, those ladies followed along and didn't get vaccinated, didn't wear masks, etc. Now many of them are dead. Most of the fabric stores in the conservative regions that our reps call on have lost twenty percent of their customers. The ladies the shop knew by name because they could be counted on for annual trade-in upgrades of $9000 sewing machines? Dead. Viking is laying off half of its staff. It's taken two years for the impact to become obvious, but the home sewing industry in the US is in shambles. A lot of experience, knowledge and artistry was lost and when the independent shops have to close, we'll lose even more.

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Caption From @ essenceofblackculture on instagram:

Kristi Williams

@kristi_williams_black_history, a Black woman whose aunt survived the Tulsa Massacre, saw Oklahoma trying to silence Black history-and answered with action. She started "Black History Saturdays," free community classes to teach what the schools won't.

Now the room is full, the lessons are real, and the legacy lives on. end caption

____________

This is a heroic feat that shouldn’t be needed. But because it is, a hero emerged.

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Mr. Musk’s drug consumption went well beyond occasional use. He told people he was taking so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that it was affecting his bladder, a known effect of chronic use. 

He took Ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms. And he traveled with a daily medication box that held about 20 pills, including ones with the markings of the stimulant Adderall, according to a photo of the box and people who have seen it.

lovely people in the racist white power world…

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Elon Musk creates poisoned wasteland

A smart friend notes:

For over a year Elon Musk's XAI data center in South Memphis has been running 33 methane generators 24/7 without any kind of pollution control, poisoning the air of the surrounding (largely poor & Black) communities . Since Tennessee is currently being run by White Nationalists, he has received no push backs from the state & because DOGE has effectively destroyed the EPA and Trump has placed a climate change denier in charge of the bureau, the Federal government is complicit if not an active partner in what he's doing. If you still don't understand how Musk is a Bond villain IRL, this video will make it clear.

YouTube video: We went to the town Elon Musk is poisoning

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"Happy ___ Day including the SCUM"

A smart friend writes:

is it just me or is "Happy ___ Day including the SCUM" wall-of-text his standard holiday tweet? he sure gets a lot of us riled up when he does that. such retweet, much engagement!

next time you see something like this, instead of spreading it all over social media, I got an idea, for you extroverts out there. if you ever have the urge to repost one of these tweets, then instead, call up your closest Trump-supporting relative or friend, and ask them to read the whole thing aloud from beginning to end. Do not interrupt them, and try not to let them divert or stop.

The important and difficult part will be, of course, don't call out the text on any point, no matter how disgusting or false. That approach has been failing for ten years. Instead, just ask your companion how much of it they actually believe, and whether it makes a good Memorial Day post. And if they confirm, then surely they won't mind reading through a second time, as you watch, and accept that this what they have become.

I admit, this would be painful for me to attempt. Just imagining those words coming out of the faces of people I once respected just makes the whole world feel like dust. and I'd spend the whole time hoping for them to break with the text and call it out themselves... indeed, if a glimmer of decency rose to the surface, I'd be afraid of accidentally snuffing it out by responding the wrong way.

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Yet again, more proof that capitalism was never about "freedom" or "small government".

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Project Esther Is a McCarthy-Era Blueprint for Crushing the American Left