#Facts over MAGA Bullshit

[thym0ckingb1rd]

That is all, You’re MAGAtards or Redneck Koneheads. Fuck the GOP and everyone who still Orochu suck their peanut Dick.

There ya go, All you Red Hat wearing Communist and Kanye West Wannabes can be triggered or offended all you want. I’m getting Joe Biden or his party re-elected in 2024. To make alt-right Rednecks drink Clorox Again!

[socialjusticeinamerica]

I’ve told you this before but I’ll repeat it. George “Dubya” Bush began the practice of paying Evangelical pastors to preach against Democrats and in favor of Republicans.

After coming out of rehab for coke addiction “Dubya” became a born again evangelical. As dumb as he is he quickly realized that southern and rural evangelicals were poorly educated and completely uniformed bible thumpers that could easily be bought off and used as a political propaganda props.

“Dubya”, who had deserted the Texas Air National Guard and had many scrapes with the law, had his record expunged by his father who had been director of the CIA. Papa Bush helped Nixon open China to Republikkkan corporations and then as VP assisted Reagan in his war on the American middle class and poor. When “wimpy” dad ran for President, Jr fell in with evil brain bug Karl Rove who put the coke addict in charge of buying evangelical clergy. A fairly easy task because evangelical churches are independent, for profit businesses with no hierarchy to answer to like the mainstream Protestants churches or the Catholics. The effort brought in so many new Republican recruits that it continues to this day.

During the Obama years the Justice Department investigated and revoked the non-profit status of evangelical and Baptist churches that were preaching Republican culture war bullshit. This infuriated them and was largely responsible for the massive backlash against Obama and the Dems. Although this was highly underreported it was a very sore point for the GOP thieves. Even today most Dems think the overreaction by Republicans to Obama was purely racism (and let’s face it they are racist bastards) when in fact it was partly that Barry Obama had cut deeply into their lucrative propaganda/fundraising in the south and rural areas. Although it’s not entirely clear that Obama led this effort to undermine the fascist GOP it shook them to the core. They need the pastors to tell the MAGAts how to vote and who to donate to.

Today the evangelical fake Christians of the old Confederacy are the backbone of the MAGA cult and they have been groomed to accept Trump as a “mercenary” for their bastardization of religion. They are willing to overlook his embodiment of the seven deadly sins because he pushes their agenda, not because he believes in it but because he needs their money and votes. It’s a match made in the bowels of Fox News Hell. They’re aware he’s the biggest sinner in the country but he’s their last best chance to set up a Christo-fascist state. Something that wasn’t even on their radar until the Bush dynasty, Karl Rove, and the RNC came knocking on their doors. They think they’re driving the car but they’re just the limo drivers for the oligarchs and their GOP puppets.

It should be noted that there are some cracks in the armor as many college age evangelicals have been speaking up against the tidal wave of cruelty and evil coming from Trump and the GOP. Somebody must have introduced them to the New Testament and Socialist Jesus. For the most part however the old guard televangelist figureheads have been silencing dissent. The young on both sides, while very vocal, haven’t exactly turned out in the massive numbers we keep hoping for.

Republicans still rely on a coalition of evangelical bible thumpers, far-right Nazis, southern/rural gun nuts, the wealthy, and Deep South Americanized Hispanics. The Dems are still largely a coalition of adult African-Americans, Northeast/West coast progressives, the over educated, urban dwellers, and union members (except for police unions). Thanks for reading and following.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Walter Einenkel at Daily Kos:

Anti-immigrant lies and rhetoric spewed by Donald Trump and his party have caused real and terrifying results. On Thursday, several city, county, and school buildings in Springfield, Ohio, were targeted by a bomb threat. On Friday, a Springfield middle school was closed and two elementary schools were evacuated. ABC News originally reported that there was no direct connection made between the threats and the GOP's repeated racist lies about Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets. Additionally, ABC reported it was not “immediately clear if Friday's evacuations were from a new threat or linked to bomb threats sent via email Thursday morning.” But in an interview with The Washington Post, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said that Thursday’s bomb threat “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”

During Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Trump erroneously claimed, “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating—they're eating the pets of the people that live there.” This lie has also been pushed by his running mate Sen. JD Vance a number of times. And Trump continued to perpetuate the lie, adding geese this time, in a campaign rally Thursday in Arizona.

The Haitian Times reported that some of Springfield’s Haitian community has felt so threatened during this barrage of right-wing hate-propaganda that they chose to keep their children home from school following the debate. “We’re all victims this morning,” one woman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, told the outlet. “They’re attacking us in every way.”  The same kind of racist rhetoric has also besieged Venezuelan immigrants in Colorado. Trump has repeatedly pushed bullshit crime numbers (which he did once again during the debate), targeting Venezuelan communities in the Centennial State as filled with “gangs,” and saying they were “taking over” Colorado cities. 

[...] This is sadly par for the course during a time of fascistic and hateful rhetoric. We saw it with Asian hate crimes rising during COVID-19 pandemic, when Trump and others would frequently use derogatory terms for the coronavirus such as “Kung Flu,” and the “Chinese Virus.” We've seen it in the rise of antisemitism connected to the rise of MAGA extremist rhetoric and conspiracy theory as well as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. The consequences of the Republican Party’s need to target, isolate, and divide various groups of people, are that innocent, hardworking people suffer. At the same time, without any meaningful policies, the fear and economic uncertainty that the GOP repeats remains the same.  Trump said Tuesday during the debate that the Haitian immigrants in Springfield were “destroying” the residents’ “entire way of life.” That divisiveness, despite the fact that these Haitian Americans are part of that community, is the Trump way. And in a country made up almost entirely of immigrants, there’s always someone to blame.

Aurora, CO and Springfield, OH are two communities in the news recently as a result of right-wing hate mobs targeting the cities to push their anti-immigrant BS.

[ralfmaximus]

When Project 2025 was released, a number of progressives expressed surprise that Donald Trump's army of authoritarian schemers would boldly publish their plan to destroy American government as we know it. The over 900-page document, commissioned by the people expected to run another Trump White House, is a laundry list of the far-right's most politically toxic ideas, from banning abortion nationwide to mass firing federal officials who believe in protecting public health and safety. One would think that Trump and his allies would try to keep their sinister plans out of public view. Instead, Team Trump published their fascistic blueprint on a website for anyone to read.

FINALLY. Project 2025 has broken cover and regular news outlets are paying attention.

So why did MAGA strategists think they could get away with hiding this shit in plain sight?

I often liken it to a guy who pinches a woman's butt in a bar, and when she protests, laughs and insists she's just a crazy lady making it all up. We saw this strategy with the Supreme Court's recent presidential "immunity" decision. It's factually correct that it gives Trump a license to kill, but anyone who speaks this fact is accused of "Trump derangement syndrome" and "madness" by Republicans.   The strategy largely works, because less politically engaged Americans assume that "both sides" engage in hyperbole. Low information people are ready to believe the false accusations that liberals are "deranged" when they warn of Trump's plans to be a dictator. Project 2025 seemed to be rolled out with this assumption that "normies" would never hear of it, and that the few who did hear would dismiss the fears as overheated nonsense.

Well there ya go. They were planning to claim everybody was imagining things, and to be fair, that strategy worked for more than a year. But now we know.

Today Trump panicked and denied he'd ever heard of Project 2025. Which is bullshit since it was assembled by his people and he hammers Project 2025 talking points over & over at his campaign rallies. It's a transparent lie, easily disproved.

Expect the story to change over the next few news cycles, the same way his lies about Stormy Daniels mutated:

I never heard of her

I met her once

I never had sex with her

I never paid for sex with her

it's not a crime to pay for sex

ANYWAY. The Salon article is an important read. Learn about the plan MAGA has to hijack the United States on January 20, 2025.

[hippiegoth97]

Let Me Make Some Shit Clear

Hey, everybody. I never thought I would have to make a post like this, but here we go. Today I was tagged in a post by the lovely @violetpixiedust (please check out their post about this as well they cover it extremely well) and found out I was mentioned in a 'call-out' post for my Gator Tillman one-shot. The OP of the call-out post didn't have the balls to tag me, and instead listed me with many others and blocked me unprovoked. Here's screenshots of that post. I'll go into my feelings on that in a second. But, take a moment to read through all that.

So, let's set the record straight so nobody misunderstands me.

I do not in any way support MAGA bullshit, or any conservative ideology of any kind. I am a bisexual, leftist, atheist woman who believes in equality, respect, and rights for all.

I do not condone the awful actions of Gator Tillman, or his shit father. My story was very clear on that as well, he's extremely flawed and I thought I made that obvious. I really tried to drive home the fact that he's a product of abuse.

I was rooting for Dorothy Lyon the whole fucking season, because she is a badass woman who has been through too much for one lifetime. I myself am a victim of child abuse which has carried on into my adulthood. I know her. I am her. But I also know, and am, Gator. The OP also completely glazes over the fact that Gator was extremely abused. We see how Roy treats his 'property'. I do not think Gator would have been able to leave the ranch either, unless he got married off. If he left, he would be hunted down too.

Also, Gator knows he did bad things, he was ready to go to jail to pay for them as long as his awful father was kept away from him. Because he FEARED HIM. He was literally a child stuck in a grown man's body, and that is how we sympathize with him. And he killed that poor old woman on accident, I'm sure he took no pleasure in that. And the man in the skirt paid him back triple.

And another thing, it's fanfiction. And for those of you who have been in the trenches as long as I have would know that all kinds of stories get told in this community of ours. Is it always ethical? no. Is it always 100% morally sound? No. Does it explore many taboo subjects through artistic expression? Hell yes. There is a ton of stuff out there that I find repulsive and would never read. I will not say what because it is not my place to censor or judge others, or tell them how to express themselves. I simply focus on the works I do like, and read those. And this is something new fandom culture has seemed to have forgotten. Over and over I see people wringing their hands at smut, or subjects they find triggering, or things society says are wrong. But you're really opening a fucking can of worms when you're calling for the reporting, banning, and censorship of those who think differently than you. That's how you get laws like KOSA that directly target POC and LGBTQ+ content because some think it's 'pervasive' to children. That's how you get laws prohibiting teaching real history and removing diverse books from libraries.

Lastly, I will NEVER, EVER censor myself to please others. I will write whatever the fuck I want. You don't have to like it. That's fine. I learned a long time ago that I'm not to everyone's taste. And I've long since stopped giving a rat's ass about it. I am an artist, and I will continue to create the art that I am passionate about until my last dying breath.

[tomorrowusa]

What's a MAGA zombie to do when the economy is not just good but is even improving beyond good?

The Department of Labor's stats for January, released on Friday, showed greater US job growth than expected AND a rise in hourly wages. The US economy added 353,000 jobs in January, almost twice as many as forecast, in “stunning” figures that led investors to slash expectations for interest rate cut in March. Economists had expected a 180,000 jobs increase for last month, according to an LSEG survey. Tom Simons, US economist at Jefferies, described the figures as “stunning numbers” that left him “near speechless”.

Not only were the January figures strong, but the November and December figures were revised upward based on data still being analyzed.

Friday’s jobs report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics also showed that US workers’ average hourly wages grew 0.6 per cent to $34.55 — up 4.5 per cent over the past 12 months. Revised figures in the report indicated that the US had added 333,000 jobs in December, up from a first estimate of 216,000. The figure for November was also upgraded, by a more moderate 9,000 to 182,000.

Donald Trump once claimed that he created "the greatest economy in the history of the world." Typical Trumpian bullshit from the guy who told over 30,000 documented lies during his term.

Trump was the first president since Herbert "Great Depression" Hoover to leave office with a net loss in the number of American jobs,

In terms of percentage of jobs, Trump looks yet worse. Even G.W. Bush had a tiny increase – being saved by the fact that he left office before most of the effects of his Great Recession kicked in.

This Washington Post chart was published in January 2021.

Some people bizarrely think Republicans are better for the economy - but stats simply don't support that. The Republican economy is probably better for billionaires who got enormous tax breaks from Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump.

A second Biden term would probably place him in the same territory as LBJ, Truman, and Bill Clinton for job growth.

[missszena]

I haven't been able to stop thinking about this since last night. I need to say something about it.

Last evening, at the time of writing this, I was almost killed in a high speed collision on the highway because of my mom's Trump stickers.

I'm unfortunately stuck living in a conservative household due to the fact I'm too broke to afford my own place. I'm a college student surviving off of cheap fast food and forced to hide most of my true beliefs and play along because if I don't then I'll be out on the streets. The one time I voiced my pro-palestine support I was cornered by my mom in my room who wouldn't leave me alone, shaming me and basically implying my jewish ancestors who fled from Poland to the US during the holocaust would be ashamed of me, and when I literally had to shove her out of my room to get her to leave me alone I overheard my grandmother downstairs implying I should be thrown out.

If I don't keep my head down and pretend I'm at least neutral on their conservative ideals I will lose my housing. I won't be able to afford my guinea pig's food and bedding or have a place to keep him. I won't be able to finish college since I wouldn't have steady internet.

Last night, two people followed my mother's car from the city on our drive home from a traveling museum exhibit while making various gestures and yelling their disapproval of Trump (though I couldn't hear it through the car windows I could see it). At first they were just being mildly irritating, preventing my mom from changing lanes by trapping her behind a slower car, and I was about to convince her to leave them alone since they weren't doing any harm.

That was until they attempted to run her off the highway.

They sped ahead of us right into the middle of the road then slammed on the breaks, giving her either the split second window to also hit the breaks or either swerve off the highway/into the slower driver, or collide with them if she wasn't fast enough. Thank every fucking god in the universe she was quick enough to hit the breaks and just barely miss running right into them at over 70 miles an hour.

I could have fucking died because these two people assumed I was also a Trump supporter.

I, a queer person unable to leave a conservative household, could have fucking DIED because I can't get away from my Trumpie family members and they're my only housing (my dad spends most his time out of state).

Please for the love of fucking gods do NOT assume someone's beliefs based on the people they're with. You don't know if that kid with the parent wearing a MAGA hat is someone genuinely being brainwashed into conservative ideals or is stuck in a household they can't get out of. You don't know if that teenager being dragged along to evangelical churches or brought to Trump rallies is there of their own free will or if they just have no choice in going. You don't know if that young adult in the car covered in republican stickers actually supports those ideals or if they're struggling to afford to survive and have no other choice but to put up with conservative bullshit to not end up homeless.

If something goes wrong, like it almost did that day, you could have very well hurt a closeted queer kid, a struggling ally, or turned a potential ally away from you by threatening their life and safety which gives their conservative friends or family "evidence" to point at and say LOOK AREN'T THE LEFT SO AWFUL??? AREN'T THESE PEOPLE THE WORST??? THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO US!!!

This is in no way me saying I support conservatives. I don't. But I support people who can't get away from them either due to their age or the fact its fucking impossible to buy your own house these days even if you aren't also trying to get through college.

Please don't make those assumptions. Please don't let them motivate you to almost seriously harm or nearly kill someone. You don't know who's in the passenger seat.

[randomnameless]

Regarding to the negative character development in Nopes. How do you consider Supreme leader's route to be worse than the original route? I wanna know your thoughts on her character and the route itself.

You mean on Supreme Bullshit?

I prefer her in CF - even if we have the "lel professor Supreme Leader was mourning you for 5 years while you were absent (and no one conveniently thought to explore that damn ravine where you fell to see if maybe you were still alive) but now that you've returned we can maybe stop being in a stalemate against Faerghus and finally roll over Derdriu!" pandering shit, because even if it came with wonderful Supreme One Liners and Replies, in CF, Supreme Leader kills her enemies herself!

Sure it comes at the cost of the most badass Shonen Explosion I've ever seen in the FE Series, and yet, for her, that explosion meant her role was ultimately reduced to the role of a mosquito : sure it's annoying and you want to smash it, but when you look around to find someone/something to smash it, you happen on an agressive venomous snake, who cares about the mosquito now?

We know how fandom is about Supreme Leader and her actions and her uwu agency - in Supreme Bullshit, we're left in the vague about what her MAGA plans entails because she doesn't finish her quest - Nopes ends before the epilogue - and it's almost as if the Nopes!devs didn't want her to deal final blows herself, or have her hands be "as clean" as possible as the ones who are erased are either peons or secondary/tertiary characters : Supreme Leader isn't the one who splits Rhea's head open in this route, Rhea and Thales take each other out, heck, she doesn't want to liberate Fodlan from inhuman monsters anymore, it's Claude who parrots to whoever wants to listen that Rhea has to die (and yet, Supreme Leader still wants to make Garreg Mach Rhea's tomb... maybe it's a considerate gesture on her part, to have her reunite with her family?) Speaking of him if conditions are reunited, he "forces her" to kill him, because he betrays her first :'(

In CF, Supreme Leader - when she finally has the means (aka Billy!) to do so - attacks all of her enemies, even turning against the Agarthans (rip cornelia?) and it's only because the plot is held by duct tape and chewing-gum that she somehow avoids retaliation because Uncle is too stupid and wasted his nukes on Arianrhod instead of nuking Firdhiad when both Supreme Leader and Rhea would be there !

However, the facts still stand : Supreme Leader dealt a blow at the Agarthans, ended the Nabatean presence in Fodlan, personally erased Faerghus' line of Kings and conquered the Alliance.

Sure she tells Balthus she will crush everyone who doesn't side with her, but when it comes to Lords/Main antagonists... when CF had her swing Aymr - even against defeated characters who fell on their knees and aren't fighting anymore - SB brings out convoluted circumstances to either has her fight because she is attacked and thus on the defensive (which is rich when she's supposed to be the invader!) by an ally whose motivation never made sense but who is now suddenly betraying her and all of his former allies who joined with her (GG Clout) or... Rhea gets her Big Damn Hero moment, fulfilling the initial promise/oath she swore on that route (help humans to get rid of Agarthans) and supposedly dies in the process, while Supreme Leader - the oathbreaker - pulls out her best impression of Tuxedo Mask "my job here is done - but you didn't do a thing" ending on a High Five.

Imo it's very telling that the only main character who can be alive at the end of SB is Dimitri - because he is the character Supreme Leader wants dead at all costs, and if the Nopes!Devs wrote Zarhofl as they did, I wonder how they could and might have justified a metting between the two that doesn't end up in Supreme Leader Aymr'ing him (maybe Cornelia would have conviently warped there and stabbed him to death, so her hands would still be "clean" ?).

In short, I prefer CF!Supreme Leader (or her FE16 version sans the pandering) because she is determinate and wants to achieve her goals, even if she has to be ruthless to do so - and we see that ruthlessness (even if it's poorly executed) in CF, Supreme Leader kills named and main characters to MAGA (and to free humanity from those vile subhumans).

In SB, she is always... put in situations where she "has to" protect herself from either backstabbing allies, or, when push comes to shove, her enemies are conveniently at the same place at the same time and take each other out : FFS, it's Rhea who takes out the leader of the Agarthans, and it's Thales who removes Nabateans from Fodlan. What is all that determination good for if, in the end, she's not the one solving the issues?

Oh, and because I'm petty like that : why the fuck the sailor fuku, seriously - sure her red dress (the one from her legendary version!) isn't as, uh, battle compatible as, say, Queen Elincia's battle outfit, and yet there's something really disturbing about the Sailor Fuku. Supreme Leader is regal, commanding, even with the red dress. Her final outfit (Willy's armor retrofitted with boobplates?) is, well, a full suit of armor, Supreme Leader is a warrior and leading her troops to victory, she will battle and fight herself even in melee.

The Sailor Fuku is... just some generic Anime design, I know she has a plate but come on, comparing this to her Emperor battlesuit, it's almost as if we're not in the same genre anymore - it's war phase now, Supreme Leader is dead serious about her plans and her ambition, she's not the "school girl who will also go to war!" - compare the three outfits, which one doesn't scream "Emperor" to you?

So yeah, short (short) story : while I like SB for Shonen explosions and more exposition about Adrestia, imo, this route is worse for Supreme Leader's agency than any other route in FE16 (AG takes the cake in its last part though!) because while she has it, in the end, she doesn't do a thing with it :

MAGA? Dimitri cannot be killed in the game, she leaves the task to Clout who doesn't do it and worse, who can betray her :( so she has to kill him :(

Frre Humanity from the sekrit nabatean illuminati and the agarthan terrorists? She just kicks them from their homes (Agarthans managed to infiltrate Adrestia, she kicks them out of her land) and they managed to take each other out.

Sure, she knows how to highfive at the end of this route, but was it really worth all those sacrifices, aka, to get rid of conqueror and determinate!Supreme Leader to have instead sailor fuku!Supreme Leader who knows how to highfive?

I know they're not meant to be compared because different circumstances and all, but can you imagine a second, a Jugdral spin-off AU much like Nopes is, where Arvis wears a high school uniform but Siggy, Manfroy and Travant accidently kill each other so he gets the continent on a silver platter without having to do any fighting or planning himself?

That's Supreme Bullshit for Supreme Leader, and that's why I think this route doesn't paint her in the best light, especially compared to her FE16 version.

[stealth-liberal]

Someone was murdered today in France. Nowhere is safe. Are they okay? I can't stand those who support Hamas, especially those who believe the vitriol lately.

We all came out of yesterday intact. All four of us plus the 2 pets are well.

It's a study in hypocrisy:

When Saudi Arabia does something the rest of the world doesn't agree with, the left doesn't join in on calls to bring violence to the world's Muslim population, and in fact, they decry it strenuously. And to be clear, they should, EVERYONE should. That's basic human decency.

Where is that nuance when it's Israel? They hold Jews around the world, regardless of whether they are Israeli or not, to standards they hold NO ONE else to. If the Israeli government does something they don't like, they find it perfectly acceptable to kill a diaspora Jew in Finland or in Morroco who's never set foot in Israel. Then they justify it with reasoning that boils down to that they should be able to kill every Jew on the planet because 1 government did something they don't like.

When people do this to Muslims, they scream that it's islamaphobia, and it is. When people do this to Jews, they scream that it's good praxis. They scream for murder and for blood and then think that they're still good people.

I'm liberal and politically involved, and I stay the hell away from leftist circles. I avoid them for the same exact reasons I avoid MAGA's/Republicans and other conservatives. That reason? Those 4 groups are EXACTLY the same, rotten to the core with violent antisemitism. It practically oozes out of their pores, and I don't associate with people who want me dead. I don't associate with people who would sell me out to the nazis if a 4th Reich happened. I don't associate with people who are EXACTLY the same as the people who hunted down Jews and turned over Jews in hiding to the Gestapo.

These people are cheering on the abduction, rape and killing of innocent civilians, the elderly, children, and babies. They should take the masks off. They're the new nazis. The fact that they say every report and picture and video of what Hamas did and is doing is fake, and the fact that the news is showing it proves that it's all fake is so Qanon. It's so Alex Jones and his false flag bullshit about the Sandy Hook and Parkland shootings. They sound identical to these people. They are not immune to propaganda, and it's blindingly and embarrassingly obvious.

Except they aren't embarrassed. They're proud.

[shadowmaat]

Llama roundup

Just some short highlights of wild crap being flung about recently.

NY Mag financial journalist scammed out of $50K.

I will start off by saying that it's a lot easier than you think to fall for scams. HOWEVER. If someone claiming to be a CIA agent tells you to put $50K in cash into a goddamn shoebox for an in-person handoff or you'll be arrested for crimes, you should maybe question the validity of that.

Air Canada is, in fact, responsible for the actions of its lying liar of a chatbot.

C'mon, guys. If you're determined to make "AI" a thing then you have to accept responsibility for any bullshit the "AI" produces. If nothing else, maybe have some sympathy for the guy grieving over the death of his grandmother who believed your bot (with your name on it) when it said he could file for a bereavement discount retroactively.

RE/MAX? More like RE/MAGA

A racist sack of shit real estate agent took umbrage with Imani Gandy (aka angryblackwoman) and tried to sic the MAGA horde on her by flooding the CO Bar Association with complaints to get her disbarred. Except Imani isn't licensed there. Or anywhere. And when Imani complained to the RE agency that the racist works for they got just as angry and defensive as the racist herself. "We don't hire racists!" Yeah? Have you seen her twitter feed? Oh, right, she put it on lockdown after everything blew up. Too late to avoid screencaps though.

There is also new drama about the Depp/Heard case with Elaine Bredehoft taking to Vice TV to blame Depp fans for her/Amber's loss. This is being treated exactly as you'd expect.

Also some Twitcher called Vaush is facing heat for his intimate interests. The P-word is being used a lot, as it always is these days. Opinions are varying widely on whether or not anime/loli counts. There's also the matter of the horse-fucking fantasy.

Anyway, that's the roundup so far.

[chipotle]

Conservatives are the real snowflakes

There’s been plenty of words written already explaining why calling Trump, J. D. Vance, and the rest of the MAGA branch of the Republican Party—which is to say, the Republican Party—weirdos seems so effective. These conservatives have spent years, so the thought goes, asserting their worldview is the standard, the default, the normal worldview, and everything that deviates from it is wrong, deviant, and yes, weird. Calling them weird flips that on its head. While that’s undoubtedly true, I think the real reason it’s effective is that conservatives are—and have been for years—snowflakes. This isn’t new to the MAGA wing; it was the real animating factor of the Tea Party, not economics. (It’s never really been about economics; if it was, we’d be having some real engagement over why, if Republicans are better at running the economy, the economy has, for the last seventy years or so, consistently done better under Democratic administrations.) “But,” someone might say, “surely liberals are the real snowflakes, the ones who want their feelings to be protected from facts?” To which I say: no, imagined interlocutor, that’s transparent bullshit. I mean, come on. Is it liberals and leftists who’ve been screaming for years that merely seeing queer people in television shows and movies more often now is literal warfare? No, it is not. Have you met anyone truly offended by seeing Christmas decorations or having a cashier say “Merry Christmas?” No, but you’ve met dozens who claim to get the vapors when a cashier, in a store full of Christmas decor, says “Happy Holidays”. I had a conservative (ex-)friend strenuously argue that yes, in fact, a state giving gay people the right to marry somehow devalued his good conservative Christian marriage. His arguments were terrible, because all the arguments for that position are terrible. No matter what kind of intellectual varnish one tries to give it, the heart is the same as every other culture war argument: No one should be allowed to make my family and I aware of things I don’t personally approve of. Books show queer people in a positive light? Get ’em out of the libraries, because kids might read ’em, and the mere knowledge that gay, lesbian, and transgender people exist is corrupting. (Everyone knows there were no gay or trans people before Bill Clinton was elected.) Boycott stores that put up rainbow flags, or hire women and blacks. (Sure, you’re not against hiring minorities, you’re just against visibly making an effort to do so. Gotcha.) Don’t teach our children history that could conceivably show their ancestors in a bad light—that might make them slightly uncomfortable. What kind of monster makes children engage with difficult topics? The anti-MAGA narrative has always had an undercurrent of these people would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous. But the “weird” argument sticks because it acknowledges one can be both dangerous and laughable. Any guy irresponsibly blasting away with an assault rifle is dangerous. One irresponsibly blasting away with an assault rifle at cases of Bud Light because he was made aware that the beer company sells to trans people, too? I mean, come on. How do you get more snowflake than that? Actually, forget I asked that. Based on MAGA reactions to the Harris campaign so far, we’re gonna have some real blizzards. Buckle up. (originally published at Coyote Tracks)

[johnnyrobish]

Judge Jeanine Pirro Confused About Why People Voted for Women’s Rights and Democracy

In her post-mid-term election analysis on the big “Red Wave” that never was, Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro complained “What is most disturbing - is that 75% of the people think we’re headed in the wrong direction, yet so many people voted on issues that weren’t the issues we thought they were voting on.  We thought it was about the economy, inflation, and crime, but it was a lot about abortion and the threat to democracy.”

Gee, so sorry, Judge!  I suppose that’s what can happen when you live and proselytize - exclusively in a MAGA cult bubble.  Of course, translated - what she really said was, “all our fear-mongering about inflation, Critical Race Theory, transgender athletes, the border, and black crime, didn’t really scare folks as much as it was supposed to.”  Then, Judge Jeanine accidentally said the “quiet part” out loud, when she basically implied “people voted for Democrats to save democracy.”  Oops! 

Why it’s just a shame none of those savvy Fox News analysts, ever considered the fact that maybe that “75% of the population” who thought “the country was going in the wrong direction,” thought so BECAUSE of things such as those “threats to our democracy and women’s rights.”  I mean, who could have imagined a party that offers voters nothing but “fear, grievance, revenge, finger-pointing, and zero solutions to anything,” might wear a wee bit thin with the voting public after a while.  Who knew women might want autonomy over their own bodies and privacy at their doctor’s office?

Hell, Republicans took special care to hit all the key issues their MAGA base love, such as taking away both voting and women’s rights, killing Medicare and Social Security, complaining about the economy, while having no real strategy to actually fight inflation or improve employment, other than giving more huge tax breaks to rich people.  What the hell could have gone wrong?  “What else do these ingrates want from us?”  Judge Pirro will be the first to tell you, that “Its really frustrating so many voters don’t really care about tax cuts for the wealthy.”

So, it doesn’t take a genius to understand why Judge Pirro is so pissed.  First of all, poor Jeanine was only one martini into her morning when she got the disappointing news about the midterms.  She was like “We told them exactly what they were supposed to think, and the ungrateful bastards just didn’t listen!”  Why it’s almost like there arre consequences for trying to overthrow the government, or taking away women's rights.  Hell, it’s enough to send poor Judge Pirro on a three-day bender.  I mean, what kind of country are we to have, if people start voting on real issues, rather than the fear-mongering bullshit outlets like Fox News shoves down people's throats every day?

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[socialjusticeinamerica]

There are hundreds of millions of southern European white people with an olive (tan) complexion. It’s what happens when white folk live in warm sunny climates. Same is true in South America where tens of millions more of white/white identifying people have been living for generations. Being Hispanic or having a Spanish name doesn’t mean you automatically aren’t white or capable of being a racist.

Fascism held sway in Spain and to a lesser extent next door in Portugal for a good part of the 20th century. Fascism, usually hand in hand with racism, also has a history in South and Central America. Even if someone doesn’t identify as white doesn’t mean they can’t be racist, or xenophobic, etc. Bigotry exists outside the box that young Americans want to fit it in. Only a small percentage of Europeans are pale, blonde/red, and blue-eyed. The overwhelming majority have dark hair and brown eyes, and many more are olive. This simplistic bullshit that someone can’t be a white supremacist because they have an ethnic sounding name is ridiculous MAGA talking points that’s being bought into by Dems. Republikkkan talking points have become so pervasive and so persistent that a majority of progressives buy into them without question or even being aware of it. We’re wasting time debating the perceived identity of a killer that was radicalized for the sole purpose of murdering and intimidating us.

In point of fact the press using the term white supremacist to describe the Allen, Texas shooter is in itself fallacious. He was a staunch xenophobe (and repeated “Great Replacement Theory” tropes learned from Tucker Carlson) and billions world wide don’t like immigrants, it isn’t limited to Caucasian Americans. I’ve said this before, Republikkkans can not generate enough angry white guys so they have been recruiting heavily among “Hispanics” to bolster their numbers. 1/3 of of Hispanics are registered Republikkkans. They have also been recruiting from other groups with much less success. Stop putting people from South America into boxes, that methodical behavior is an Anglo-Saxon characteristic that was transplanted here. Decades of radicalization are bearing fruit for the far-right while we quibble over whether or not the Republikkkans are actually attacking us.

People from South America identify by national origin just like everyone else. They’re Colombians, Peruvians, etc. Terms like Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, etc are inventions of American immigration officials trying to fit people into boxes. Why are we (our media) so obsessed with this when Republikkkans are launching their decades long planned assault on our basic human rights.

MAGAts, white supremacists, Nazis, xenophobe, Aryan Brotherhood, Atom-Waffen, III%’ers, etc can and do find kindred spirits beyond national origin and outdated stereo-types based on appearances. Our enemies are evolving and branching out. We must be aware of their present and historical attempts to spin what they want us to believe. Further you need to know historical context. American racist groups admire fascist dictatorships from South and Central America and wish to emulate them, hence the “Right Wing Death Squad” logos. They admire and learn terrorist tactics from radical Islamic groups as well. Look at WWII, you’d think the “Aryan” German Nazis would have had a problem with the Asian Japanese. Just the opposite, both the Japanese and Germans at the time felt they were racially superior to their respective neighbors and bonded over being kindred spirits. It wasn’t a political expediency. They were too far apart to support each other or have any meaningful trade. They were fascist states that both wanted to impose their own unique fascism in there own sphere. We can’t let history repeat itself either here or abroad.

Not enough people in our society are taking the threat of Republikkkan fascists seriously. If you’re taking the time to read this rant then you were already in the know but the general public, both our side and theirs are not. This threat goes beyond the identity politics so en vogue with young people, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s part of a much bigger war against us all. Republikkkans don’t even realize they’ve been co-opted by Nazi’s and the few that do don’t care.

I’ll keep repeating this ad nauseum but the racists, homophobes, militias, evangelicals, xenophobes, Republikkkan politicians, and even the fascists are all foot soldiers duped into waging war against the rest of us by the billionaire oligarchs and their corporations. It always comes back to money. Yes they share most of the same beliefs and each thinks they are manipulating the others. But the only ones with the power (dollars) to bring this shit storm together in a cohesive fashion are the oligarchs. The Rupert Murdochs, Elon Musks, Koch, Walton, etc are coordinating and funding everything for power and profit. Meanwhile we are fighting a Hydra of Nazis, Confederates, Klansmen, evangelists, and armed militias.

In 2020 we took to the streets to protest the George Floyd execution but that quickly morphed into a widespread national protest of Trump. We can’t only begin massive protests when one of our African-American allies is killed unjustly. We should be doing this for every major issue of the day; abortion rights, disenfranchisement of black voters, gun control, trans-persecution, preservation of Medicare/Social Security, migrant rights, union rights, and all basic human rights that the corporate/Christo/fascist/Republikkkans are taking away from us. They are no longer content to persecute people of color and are coming for us all, at once.

This isn’t an intellectual exercise anymore, we have become a de facto fascist state under the yoke of an oppressive and hostile Republikkkan Party. They aren’t even pretending to disguise it anymore. Their leaders and political spokesmen are openly telling us they are going to strip our rights and begin sending us to death camps. They’re past the concentration camps already and we barely even protested those on the border. Between their control of the state legislatures and the Supreme Court they are doing as they please and will begin overturning election results in 2024. A few more takeovers of state legislatures and they will hold a Constitutional Convention to write a MAGA/Republikkkan Constitution.

Now is the time to fight. Resisting didn’t work and a tidal wave of GQP laws and SCOTUS decisions prove that every day. You can not take the high road with Nazis or anyone who is literally trying to kill you.

Rant concluded. Please bear in mind this is food for thought and not an incitement to violence. Remember John Lewis and his “good trouble.” Also try to refrain from violent comments about Republikkkans in comments, notes, and reblogs. We certainly don’t want any of us to be de-platformed by admins.

✌️

[anticonspiracist]

Oh. Wow. Like literally I never realized that you are THIS dumb and dense. You have written " Interested in Larries Bullshit" right at the top of your blog in your bio, and when someone ask you about the actual issue you just duck out of that situation because you yourself don't have any fucking idea about that. And I genuinely believed that you actually have some brains to talk about larrie bullshit.

The funniest thing is someone asked you about Rebecca few days ago and you replied - conspiracy theorist don't care about facts, so trying to prove reality to them is a waste of time. LMFAO. Now m realizing that you don't even know what THE REALITY is. You are seriously so stupid.

How can someone be that stupid to write Interested in Larry Bullshit in their bio and then say I literally have NO TIME for that Bullshit?? Like really woman, you don't know ANY reality related to Larry bullshit. And it took me time to figure it out.

And let me tell you that if you have created a blog where you talk to strangers and where you have literally written Interested in Larry bullshit, then saying that you don't owe people anything just describes how obtuse you are. But actually you know what thank you for showing how idiotic you are, you actually helped me here to decide that which side of fandom I'm gonna support. And people like you who pretend to know about conspiracism should get your brain checked.

You are so fucking stupid, and I'm publishing your ask in full so everyone who reads this blog can see just how fucking stupid you are.

I guess you don't understand a couple of basic concepts, among them time and also what campaign season means. What you're responding to is me saying that until after the November 8 election, I don't have time to pay attention to larrie bullshit. It is October 13, early voting starts on October 24, and so political campaigns, including the one I volunteer for, have events every day, weekday and weekend.

I have a full-time job that I spent 50 hours per week at, plus I am in grad school which takes up 18 hours of the rest of my week. Any time that I would be using to pay attention to larrie bullshit is currently being taken up by me helping to turn out Democrats to vote in a deeply red district. I am knocking on doors and talking to voters, phonebanking, writing and mailing postcards, attending events, registering people to vote (I registered 110 ON MY OWN in one day on ONE high school campus, the fuck have you done lately?), training to be an election judge, coordinating with election workers, attending protests and ejecting MAGA assholes from safe spaces ....

But no. YOU expect that I should feel obligated to discuss stuff that a woman said TEN YEARS AGO, that has already been discussed to death and nothing new has been revealed? And because I decline to do so, I'm "dumb and dense"? I'm "seriously so stupid"? I should get my brain checked because I "pretend" to know about conspiracism? You fucking idiot, this is what I'm formally studying eighteen hours a week and I've been informally studying for the last six fucking years. Take a goddamn seat.

I'm going to compare you to a troll that my candidate ran into on Instagram. A user by the name of "Baby Maga" DM'd him to say that he was "disgusting" for hosting a Drag Show, and that until that, Baby Maga had supported him. Baby Maga had NEVER supported a Democrat for state House and he was only saying so to make my candidate feel like taking the right stance was politically untenable. Fortunately, my candidate knows how to spot a troll. Just like me.

Me refusing to re-discuss something isn't what made you "Decide which side of fandom" you're "gonna support." You already made up your mind to be a conspiracy theorist. You already made up your mind to troll me and other people. You already made up your mind to spend your time vomiting thousands of words into my inbox over several months.

It's sad that you have to put me down, someone who is positively contributing to society. Cease and desist.

[thatstormygeek]

It was the sort of horror show that any person of awareness has come to expect from the Republican Party over the decades. Abusing others for sport and profit is pretty much their whole bag at this point—at least when they aren't openly longing for license to say slurs again. Our false-equivalency engine in legacy media was humming along by the time the Republicans' piss-haired felon of a candidate hit the stage, so after his 90-plus minutes of nonsensical menace rambling, we were treated to the usual media responses to all this horror. One of the greatest hits from these quarters is a scold from those who claim to be in "the center." Now, "the center" is a term that doesn't really reflect any coherent policy, but which establishes for everybody watching that the person self-applying the label isn't horrified by horrific things like the rest of us, but also isn't actively pursuing those horrors like Republicans are. It's a valueless principle-free position which those in "the center" frame as the rational reasonable position. "The center" wants us to make sure we understand the perspective of the MAGA party, who are perpetually licensed by centrists as "regular folks" no matter how irregular and degenerate their morality becomes, no matter how committed they are to harming every sort of "regular folks" including themselves. What centrists mean by "understanding" is not actually understanding, I should note. In fact the act of truly understanding MAGA fascists is seen by centrists as very polarizing and divisive. What's being suggested is that we join MAGA in imagining that by wanting what they want, they actually want something entirely different, something good and reasonable. What's being suggested is that we continue take the MAGA self-exonerative rationales as credible, even though they are not credible. What's being suggested is that at any point of disagreement we take the time to change MAGA minds, one-by-one, by proving our point of view to them to their own satisfaction, and if we fail to persuade them to return to humanity, then the failing is not theirs, but ours. This is all bullshit, so I treat it like bullshit.

I've given up engaging people who ask me to prove to them that Trump and the Republicans are supremacists and fascists. The question is like being asked to prove gravity; it reveals such a desire to not observe things that it exposes itself as an active desire to not understand. ... Now: both Harris and Walz are Democrats, which means that they have deep and unfortunate and abiding institutional ties to our long-standing governmental traditions of punishment and deprivation, of colonialism and imperialism mediated through military violence and economic violence. This is something you'd think would reassure Republican voters, for whom the punishment and deprivation of millions or billions of others clearly represents safety and comfort. But no; Republicans actually refuse to acknowledge that Democrats are often similarly awful on these issues, because Republicans want to win elections, and Republican voters think that awful things are good. So Republicans have to pretend that Democrats actually do a bunch of really wonderful and necessary things that would make our society better, things they frame as existential threats, insisting that all Democrats are dirty socialists, which is something that would be far, far, far better than what Democrats all too often are. The Democrats meanwhile have spent most of their time pursuing the votes of people who won't vote for them, by promising that they won't do any of the awesome and desperately necessary things that Republicans warn their reality-free voting base Democrats are doing and will continue to do. And then Tim Walz—center of the road, steady as she goes, gee-whillickers Tim Walz—shows up, and gets accused of socialism, and his response appears to simply be well sure, I used government to help feed hungry kids; food is just the thing for hungry kids, what the hell is wrong with you weirdos? and the explosion of impotent vitriol from the overcoddled right and the explosion of ... I suppose you'd have to say grateful relief? ... from the near-totally ignored left, simply due to a glimpse of a politician who had seemingly no interest in currying the fascist vote, was an amazing thing to see. Look, I don't want to overstate here. I don't doubt there are disappointments to be found in Waltz' current record and in his political future. And a great deal of the enthusiasm we see is due to the top of the ticket, which is Kamala Harris, the first Black woman to headline a major party presidential campaign, and somebody who is proving to have sharper political instincts than she's been given credit for. And some of the enthusiasm is probably due to a lot of people who really didn't want Joe Biden suddenly receiving a viable option who wasn't Joe Biden. But in my opinion a big part of it comes from the tone Walz set in the days after Biden stepped down—a tone that Democrats have to some degree adopted—his straightforward proud owning of his preference for using government to help people, and that total willingness to give people who would rather see government hurt people a confused and disgusted countenance, then blithely tell them to go to hell. It's almost—almost—as if there's a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm to harness from millions of people who would rather not be menaced and abused and killed by their government, and would even like to be helped by it, who haven't been very well represented at all for decades. It's almost as if the Democratic habit of trying to pick up voters to their right flank is a totally doomed strategy in an age when conservative voters have selected a completely alternate reality to live in, and will never acknowledge the ways that the opposition party is giving them a lot of the cruelty and violence they so desperately want.

This is a real problem a lot of people are struggling with right now, and it's not only because Republicans are fascist monsters, but because so many Democrats have spent my entire lifetime seeking a compromised center that is just monstrous enough that fascist monsters will finally hopefully agree unify with them there—this, instead of just accurately naming fascist monsters as creepy weirdos with perverse desires, and then getting down to the business of for example feeding the hungry without for example fretting about how it might alienate people who hate seeing hungry people fed, if the feeding hasn't first been fully authorized by them. This is the struggle a lot of people are facing, and it's a struggle Democrats chose

[lawbyrhys]

Ari Melber FACT-CHECKS Stephen Miller LIVE

Everybody knows I love "The Beat with Ari Melber," but tonight's segment was so damn frustrating due to Stephen Miller's raging that I have to vent about it to my brilliant audience.

Let's break down the bullshit we bore witness to, and how well Melber handled said bullshit.

Tonight, I watched Trump-affiliate Stephen Miller yell at Ari Melber on the latter's own show, put loosely, about how it was election deniers' legal right to deny the results of the 2020 election. Imagine berating a bright legal mind like Ari Melber, calling the just prosecution of seditious insurrectionists a "clear cut case of government against innocent people," as if those people were innocent in any way. Especially those in power who pulled the strings around that time. He went on to berate the processes in place, saying that what the MAGA team urged Pence to do was somehow just and legal. He claimed that remanding votes to the six swing states and flipping the results would have been a perfectly normal, legal thing to do; electon fraud is a serious crime. As if Stephen Miller knows shit about the law, let alone the law at hand. He went on to scream about Republicans lawyers being prosecuted for their "Good, sound legal advice," as if that's true in any way. We all know why Trump's counsel always face the utmost in legal consequence; they are the legitimate definition of malpractice. It was aggravating, to say the least, and Miller's inability to speak in any variation of a calm tone was even more so—props to Melber for being the professional he is the entire interview. He's my favorite anchor.

More was said—well, screamed—but I digress.

The real kicker—one of them, at least—was when Melber questioned Miller on his own fucked way of thinking. Essentially, if what they wanted Congress and Pence to do in putting an alternate slate through and overturning the results was legal and just, then surely it'd be so if Harris were to do the same thing this time. Of course, Miller wasn't having any of it, going on to trip over every word through the remainder of the interview to somehow justify getting caught. It was a messy interview, but it had to be done.

It was beautiful to see Melber be so calm and assertive, though. He's a prime example of what I'm talking about when I give advice on arguing. He barely had to say a word besides pointing out the fallacies and thanking Miller for his time. Sometimes, all it takes to win an argument is to be the sane one, and Melber did an excellent job. That's not all he did, but that would have been enough. A stellar performance from him.

I also appreciate Ari Melber for platforming the ideas of the far-right to remind those of us who may have forgotten how legally and ethically unsound they are. I believe in each and every one of our rights to free speech and expression; even if what's expressed is objectively wrong.

You have to be willing to face the consequences for what you say and do, though, i.e. defamation suits, which Melber reminded Miller are a thing.

I really don't want this blog to be a partisan one since the law doesn't have a political leaning, and in no way would I ever prescribe it one. That being said, though, I can't just sit back and watch this breed of weirdos tear apart the law and act like that's totally normal. As long as they shit on what I swore to uphold, I'm going to do just that in every capacity—even on this blog.

Believe what you want, but believe in the law.