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Speculative but interesting.

Where by interesting I mean terrifying.

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June 28th, Mark your calendars.

While Trump hasn’t made a final decision about whether to strike Iran, he suggested that “the next week is going to be big” and said “I like to make a final decision one second before it’s due, you know, because things change.” Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters: “I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.” The U.S. military, meanwhile, sent a second carrier strike group and F-22 fighters to the region. Trump said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “keep going” and claimed Iran is “defenseless” under Israeli pressure.

He's getting off on this, I hate him so much.

My fellow elder millennials ... Do you remember when literally all of this happened already? Because I do. The protests against the war in Iraq were the LARGEST in our nation's history until the Women's March against Trump in his first term and the #NoKings rally just this past Saturday. Going to war with Iraq was overwhelmingly unpopular among the large number of people who knew it was bullshit. Didn't matter. We went to war. The newspapers lied about weapons of mass destruction to sell the war to Americans who weren't paying attention. Literally no one outside of this country was fooled. If there's another 9/11 type event this time it WILL be an inside job (and I'm no 9/11 truther). You hear that? If Iran conveniently bombs a US base in the next few weeks... no they didn't. Trump's administration did because they're a bunch of delusional warmongers trying to keep their poll numbers up, and they want an excuse to use the military to crack down on the domestic protests this war will inevitably bring on. Only 16% of the country wants to go to war with Iran. Not even Republicans want this war. That's why they will have to manufacture a fake crisis - a Trumpian speciality.

Anyway.

Some reading for you guys, because knowledge is power:

Timothy Snyder: The Next Terror Attack

Laurie Woodward: Trump's Delusion, Our Consequences

Your reps already know you don't want this, but feel free to call them anyway. Write letters to the editor of the local newspaper. Talk to your neighbors. Post anti-war things on social media. And if there's an anti-war rally in your area - show up.

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About affordability, from a former Biden admin economist.

Just your periodic reminder that while the Trump admin makes up fake cartoon problems that they can pretend to solve with fake cartoon solutions, we still have REAL problems, and those problems are not getting fixed because they're too hard. Also they only affect working people and not billionaires so Trump and cronies don't care.

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June 28th!!!

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There's this one too!

June 26th, federal courthouses and detention centers.

Just an extremely Normal thing to say

Reminder they want to increase the budget for ICE from 3.5 to 45 billion dollars.

Reminder the majority of that will be for building new detention centers.

Reminder ICE are *currently* detaining tourists who can pay for a plane ticket home and people with visa issues that were already resolved, because they have to make quota so Trump can brag about the numbers going up.

Reminder most of these people were already in the immigration system - that's why they were easy to detain.

Reminder this is all at taxpayer expense.

Reminder these are people.

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Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a libertarian who has not been afraid to buck Trump on fiscal issues, is teaming up with Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., to attempt to force a vote on a war powers resolution that would require the administration to get approval from Congress before participating in the conflict in any meaningful way.

...Massie and Khanna also co-sponsored a similar resolution during the first Trump administration seeking to limit U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen. Trump did not sign the resolution, which passed the House and Senate, but ultimately backed off efforts for the U.S. military to take an active role.

In an interview on Tuesday, Khanna predicted this issue may be the one where Trump loyalists have the resolve to break with the president.

“This is core to many in the MAGA base. It’s different,” Khanna said. “It has a different intensity than even the people who care about the deficits and are concerned about Trump’s move there, or people who don’t like his tariff policy.” That intensity is reflected in the chorus of concern reverberating throughout the MAGA political orbit. High-profile commentators like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon have warned Trump to avoid tangling the U.S. up in what they view as a conflict that could turn into another endless war. Trump responded by calling Carlson “kooky,” which led Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., one of Trump’s fiercest supporters on Capitol Hill, to rush to the former Fox News host’s defense.

Please. Please.

Anecdotally: my husband is IBEW (international brotherhood of electrical workers). Lots of the guys on his job site voted for Trump even though, being union, they should have known better.

He told me today that a lot of those guys are saying they feel bait-and-switched when it comes to Iran. They voted for Trump partially because he was promising to get us OUT of expensive wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

And I'm watching a podcast which makes the point, Bush II spent A YEAR doing propaganda before going to war in Iraq. Trump says he'll decide if we're going to war with Iran by the end of next week.

We aren't in the same place we were at during Trump 1.0, when Congress could contain the president. This Congress has largely given up their power to contain Trump. They did it willingly and they keep doing it.

Also, Congress hasn't formally declared war since WWII, and yet we've been in plenty of wars. Trump can bypass Congress entirely if there's there's an attack on US servicemen, which is why there WILL be such an attack.

So while I don't think there's much the American people can do to stay out of a war the President and high ranking Republicans clearly wish to have, I'm going to keep banging the drum. We don't want this. The people don't want this. NOT EVEN MAGA WANT THIS. If and when we enter the war, it won't be because we wanted to.

And Trump probably won't get out of it what he's hoping to get out of it, either, but that won't help all the people who'll be dead in Iran in the meantime.

While Trump hasn’t made a final decision about whether to strike Iran, he suggested that “the next week is going to be big” and said “I like to make a final decision one second before it’s due, you know, because things change.” Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters: “I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.” The U.S. military, meanwhile, sent a second carrier strike group and F-22 fighters to the region. Trump said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “keep going” and claimed Iran is “defenseless” under Israeli pressure.

He's getting off on this, I hate him so much.

My fellow elder millennials ... Do you remember when literally all of this happened already? Because I do. The protests against the war in Iraq were the LARGEST in our nation's history until the Women's March against Trump in his first term and the #NoKings rally just this past Saturday. Going to war with Iraq was overwhelmingly unpopular among the large number of people who knew it was bullshit. Didn't matter. We went to war. The newspapers lied about weapons of mass destruction to sell the war to Americans who weren't paying attention. Literally no one outside of this country was fooled. If there's another 9/11 type event this time it WILL be an inside job (and I'm no 9/11 truther). You hear that? If Iran conveniently bombs a US base in the next few weeks... no they didn't. Trump's administration did because they're a bunch of delusional warmongers trying to keep their poll numbers up, and they want an excuse to use the military to crack down on the domestic protests this war will inevitably bring on. Only 16% of the country wants to go to war with Iran. Not even Republicans want this war. That's why they will have to manufacture a fake crisis - a Trumpian speciality.

Anyway.

Some reading for you guys, because knowledge is power:

Timothy Snyder: The Next Terror Attack

Laurie Woodward: Trump's Delusion, Our Consequences

Your reps already know you don't want this, but feel free to call them anyway. Write letters to the editor of the local newspaper. Talk to your neighbors. Post anti-war things on social media. And if there's an anti-war rally in your area - show up.

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While Trump hasn’t made a final decision about whether to strike Iran, he suggested that “the next week is going to be big” and said “I like to make a final decision one second before it’s due, you know, because things change.” Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters: “I may do it, I may not do it. Nobody knows what I’m going to do.” The U.S. military, meanwhile, sent a second carrier strike group and F-22 fighters to the region. Trump said he told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “keep going” and claimed Iran is “defenseless” under Israeli pressure.

He's getting off on this, I hate him so much.

My fellow elder millennials ... Do you remember when literally all of this happened already? Because I do. The protests against the war in Iraq were the LARGEST in our nation's history until the Women's March against Trump in his first term and the #NoKings rally just this past Saturday. Going to war with Iraq was overwhelmingly unpopular among the large number of people who knew it was bullshit. Didn't matter. We went to war. The newspapers lied about weapons of mass destruction to sell the war to Americans who weren't paying attention. Literally no one outside of this country was fooled. If there's another 9/11 type event this time it WILL be an inside job (and I'm no 9/11 truther). You hear that? If Iran conveniently bombs a US base in the next few weeks... no they didn't. Trump's administration did because they're a bunch of delusional warmongers trying to keep their poll numbers up, and they want an excuse to use the military to crack down on the domestic protests this war will inevitably bring on. Only 16% of the country wants to go to war with Iran. Not even Republicans want this war. That's why they will have to manufacture a fake crisis - a Trumpian speciality.

Anyway.

Some reading for you guys, because knowledge is power:

Timothy Snyder: The Next Terror Attack

Laurie Woodward: Trump's Delusion, Our Consequences

Your reps already know you don't want this, but feel free to call them anyway. Write letters to the editor of the local newspaper. Talk to your neighbors. Post anti-war things on social media. And if there's an anti-war rally in your area - show up.

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From the No Kings folks, actions you can take to let people in Republican states know about the One Big Beautiful Bill and why they should oppose it.

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Sad you missed No Kings Day? Mark your calendars for July 17th - the next day of mass protest. Let's get in some good trouble.

Just an extremely Normal thing to say

Reminder they want to increase the budget for ICE from 3.5 to 45 billion dollars.

Reminder the majority of that will be for building new detention centers.

Reminder ICE are *currently* detaining tourists who can pay for a plane ticket home and people with visa issues that were already resolved, because they have to make quota so Trump can brag about the numbers going up.

Reminder most of these people were already in the immigration system - that's why they were easy to detain.

Reminder this is all at taxpayer expense.

Reminder these are people.

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They're doing phony math to make themselves look good in the short term while screwing over nearly everyone (but especially the bottom 30% of US Americans) in the long term.

It is the opposite of many of the bills passed during Biden's administration, where the supreme court blocked the immediate benefits while allowing the long term benefits (that would make his predecessor look good) to proceed.

This is the corrosion at the heart of the two party system. Rs won't pass anything that makes Democrats look good even if it's good for the country. And maybe vice versa.

So it's been for the last 20 years, but this time it's so egregious that even R congressmen are calling it out as irresponsible.

Anyway, knowledge is power. Bring this up next time you're talking to someone who doesn't read the news.

The good news: these actions show that Congress, at least, expects we WILL have elections in 2 and 4 years.

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Don't forget the part where they're also waiting outside the courthouse to arrest people who show up for their immigration hearings!

Stephen Miller sells lawless, racist kidnapping, and MAGA is buying it all day long.

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We are rapidly becoming a country where you need to keep your Papers on you at all times (if you look a certain way). No joke.

Trump told Republicans to kill the bipartisan Border Bill when Biden was in office so he could do this.

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Kristi Noem is insufferable and incompetent.

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Respectfully, I completely disagree with this.

If you aren't in danger of being deported, if you aren't someone who is routinely hassled, if you don't live in a place where the cops are VERY openly corrupt, LET yourself get put on a list.

A protest, especially a MASS protest, isn't a black bloc action where you might be breaking (or at least skirting) the law, and in danger of being arrested. It is a legal activity that several million normal boring centrist law-abiding people who have standing in their communities have collectively agreed is worth doing. The entire point of a mass protest is to be counted.

I'll give you an example. At the recent No Kings protests, estimates are that between 4-12 million people attended. Conservative estimates are 4-6 million, but alt national parks says it was 12 million (which obviously sounds way better and is way scarier to the Trump administration if true).

Organizers are saying the number was about 5 million people nationwide. Based on the number of people who signed up online. Here's a spreadsheet where G Elliot Morris (former 538) tries to verify the numbers.

It's very difficult to estimate how many people attended 2100 different decentralized protests across all 50 states, but one of the ways they DO come up with the numbers is by looking at the number of people who RSVPed online. That's why, of you do sign up via mobilize.us, ACLU, or another org for an event like this they will later text you to ask if you made it out.

The reason is simple. We WANT to be counted. We want the huge crowds, the overwhelming visuals that you can get with big protests in large urban areas. But just as much, we want the EVIDENCE that these protests are happening all over - not just in the cities. My local protest organizers say 500 people signed up and "up to 400" were at the protest. We want OUR numbers to be counted too.

People on this website have a major problem of sharing this "stay safe" type advice about protesting, that SOUNDS reasonable if you've never been to a protest. But the instant you go to one of these 50501/Indovisible protests you'll see that it's nonsense. The overwhelming majority of these protests are safe, legal, peaceful and non-violent and you will NOT get in ANY trouble for attending one. Not even under the Trump administration.

You don't have to hide your face. You don't have to avoid taking pictures of the protest. You might want to be sensitive to people at the protest who are at higher risk than others (of being deported for instance, or being harassed), and ask before taking their photo. But we want the pictures!!! We want the faces!!!! We want the publicity!!! We want to be counted!!!! We don't want only elderly white people who know they won't be arrested or fired at the protest!!!!!

Taking an action you are scared to take, seeing that nothing happens - if cops DID retaliate against everyone who attended these rallies it would backfire BIG TIME against the Trump admin - is liberating. I highly recommend it.

Please do not treat every protest as a black bloc action. Save the OpSec for when it is actually necessary. Thank you.

stop being silly in front of me

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Injunction Restriction In Budget Bill Revised… It’s Now Much Worse!

For those following along at home, the GOP Senate now wants to force anyone suing the Federal government to pay millions or even billions of dollars upfront if they are seeking a temporary nationwide injunction - aka the main way the Courts have been stopping this administration from doing all the blatantly unconstitutional things they want to do.

The Trump admin is losing 96% of its court cases, but that won't matter if the GOP and their rich backers can do a smash and grab while the cases wind their way through the courts. This is how Trump runs his businesses (break the law, but appeal cases endlessly until the other side runs out of money and gives up), applied to the entire US government.

Your senators already know what they're doing, but if you have republican senators, call them anyway and make sure they know that YOU know.

Source.