#it’s giving right-wing republican rhetoric

[blackandwhlteaesthetlc]

I’m sorry but this is so stupid all perfume are unisex, pleasing is just trying to gain woke points for something that already exist and people are fallin for it acting as if it’s groundbreaking. Also if you have to use vaseline for a perfume to last maybe the perfume is just not good quality.

Okay, sounds like my review wasn’t for you. Maybe let people just enjoy things and be excited if something like perfumes makes them happy?

I should leave it there but because you chose to take such an cunty tone with me, I’ll just match it.

To both of your obnoxious points: No shit. 🙄

Who exactly is acting like Pleasing is doing something “groundbreaking” by having unisex fragrances? I didn’t write that anywhere in my review and I certainly didn’t see anyone comment that in the notes. I don’t see Pleasing advertising that themselves anywhere either.

Of course all fragrances can be unisex, anyone can wear whatever the fuck they want. But in trying to make your eye-roll worthy point about this brand trying to be “woke” you ignored that I actually included an example of a fragrance that was also marketed as being unisex because surprise! Fragrances are still very much advertised as being more “feminine” or masculine” or “perfumes” vs “colognes.” So obviously I’m aware this isn’t something new being offered by this brand. Don’t be obtuse here, I was trying to assure people who were curious (clearly not you) that the notes in the samples did not lean heavily one way or another and my personal opinion will be that these can be sold as “unisex.” It’s a label anyone slightly interested in fragrances (not you) will know is used to indicate what you can expect from the notes themselves. Some people, as evidenced by the notes and dms I got, appreciate that sort of info (again, not you).

And I agree it’s disappointing if a fragrance doesn’t have lasting power. This isn’t the only time I’ve had this happen. I’ve tried some hugely popular luxury perfumes that lasted maybe 5mins on my skin. So for me, brand and price point does not indicate quality. But if someone truly loves a scent there are some tricks to try IF they want to take the risk in investing in a fragrances that may not perform how how they want. And really the only one I had that issue with was Rivulets but whatever, you don’t actually care about specifics. You just wanted to complain and try to sound superior to anyone slightly excited about this release. 🙃

But I digress.

My opinion, which I thought was clear to anyone with proper reading comprehension (obviously not, my mistake) is that the scents themselves are pretty complex and carefully layered. To me, that indicates some serious consideration was put into them which supports my opinion that they’re of slightly higher quality than your typical “celebrity fragrance” which usually just smell like alcohol and potpourri to me. I’ve tried plenty, hate most. I didn’t hate these, my overall impression is positive but I honestly said one did not mix well with my own skin chemistry so people can make their own decisions whether they want to buy or not as they might have the same experience.

There. Did I downplay my excitement about the samples enough to satisfy your hate for the big, bad brand that only uses Harry’s name and face to make money for his friends? Or whatever the fuck you want to make yourself miserable about this week.

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[decolonize-the-left]

WW3 will be white supremacists vs everyone else.

Not a singular Western country in support of Israel is innocent of colonization, war crimes, treaty violations, or having white supremacists in politics.

Each one of them has been ignoring protests and strikes in their own countries for human rights and protections. Human rights and protections that have thus far been denied btw. Meanwhile they give themselves raises and protections against protesters and so called "terrorists." They inflate military budgets while their people grow more agitated and they don't care.

Not a single one of them have a thriving, happy people.

Historically they've been awful for Black, indigenous, and immigrant populations despite many of their countries being founded on immigration. And even in modern times all of them currently have trials going on to combat state violence such as genocide, rights violations, or police brutality.

None of them have ever been paragons of human rights. None of them represent the world's moral compass least of all Germany.

So why and how is it that you can look at the USA and German support of Israel and your thought is "finally!" instead of seeing a red flag.

White supremacists are teaming up in a Big way.

And this time they're letting white Jewish people count as white which seems to have short-circuited ur brains so let me remind y'all that Nazis hate Jewish people but not every white suprmacist is a Nazi. And white supremacists have a long history of providing white Jewish people with conditional white privileges

For example here in the USA while white men who owned some land could vote, the same could not be said of white Jewish people who were barred from it in some colonies by language that stated you needed to accept Jesus as your savior. But white Jewish ppl could vote & could own land elsewhere when Black and native communities couldn't do that anywhere at all.

White supremacists exploiting white Jewish people for their vote or political support is nothing new and continues to be no surprise.

We can look at Trump's attempt to do exactly that as recently as 2019. We know he isn't an ally of any Jewish person anywhere and yet here he is trying to get right-wingers hyped up with virtue signaling.

The same article addressed how this right wing rhetoric and trying to incite it among Republicans is itself antisemitic and careless.

The past 24 hours have cemented President Donald Trump's reputation as America's "racist in chief." After tweeting a hateful diatribe about how four Democratic congresswomen of color should "go back" to where they came from, the President attempted to justify his racism with accusations that these members of Congress are anti-Israel. On Monday morning, he tweeted that these lawmakers "have made Israel feel abandoned by the U.S." and cited South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who called them all "anti-America" and "anti-Semitic."

[...]And despite his feigning concern about anti-Semitism, nearly three-quarters of Jews feel less secure than they did two years ago and the majority of Jews attribute their rising insecurity to Trump's policies. More specifically, many are concerned about Trump encouraging right-wing extremism and Republicans tolerating white nationalism within their ranks. In fact, according to a March Gallup poll, more than 70% of Jews continue to disapprove of Trump and only 16% now identify as Republicans.

....then Biden supported a fucking genocide in the name of trying to establish a safe place for Jewish people. When we all know his interest is actually oil in the middle east.

There is no fucking way either of them or the USA cares about any Jewish people or had their best interest in mind.

So that entire argument aside....

We can't keep letting white supremacists play these identity politic games and turning us on each other so we're keeping each other oppressed instead of helping each other be free.

Right now there are white queer people in my asks calling me (an Ojibwe) a Russian psyop for not wanting to vote blue.

That's the shit I'm talking about.

At the end of the day I don't want anyone except white supremacy and white supremacists to be decimated. I want a liberated and free people all over the globe.

Is that what you want too?

Then we have got to start focusing on the big picture. You are not my enemy and I am not yours. Our enemies are the same and they are unified.

We should be too.

International solidarity against white supremacy for the first time, for forever.

[qqueenofhades]

As someone whose country went through a brutal dictatorship, we still see the bleeding wounds it's left- even 50 years later. The idea of not exercising the right to vote is absolutely unthinkable to most citizens. Granted, voting is obligatory, but everyone I know does it voluntarily and enthusiastically. The discourse I hear around it in the US evidences a narrow perspective, which is so upsetting to see, especially within leftist spaces.

The right to vote is something every citizen must, sadly, defend. Most Latin American countries know all too well what happens when fascism and treason disguised as conservatism take centre stage. I hope it won't be too late when the people peddling anti voting crap to younger generations realise the harm it causes.

All around the world, the reason fascist authoritarian dictatorships of whatever ideology stay in power is precisely either because citizens aren't allowed to vote, the vote is outrageously rigged (think of the 99% margins routinely racked up in places like Russia and Venezuela) or they rely on repressing the vote through intentionally disheartening liberal, left-wing, progressive, or other similarly oriented voters, who often do much of the work themselves with constant internal attacks and purity tests and adopting the rhetoric of anti-voting propaganda in the name of purity. Despite all their populist claims to enact a monolithic Will of the People, all these anti-democratic authoritarian movements are terrified of a genuinely representative popular vote and will do anything to stop it, because it turns out that if you give them the choice, people anywhere in the world don't super like being repressed, extorted, and terrorized in the name of Ideology, and will give your tiresome fascist ass Das Boot.

In the American context, the Republicans have gone full masks-off illiberal authoritarianism and they desperately hate the idea of people voting, which is why they have filed endless lawsuits, passed endless restrictive laws, disenfranchised even their own voters, shrieked election fraud, and everything else to try to jerry-rig their position as extremist minority oligarchic rulers for life. Which is why it is befuddling, to say the least, to see people insist that voting doesn't work, it doesn't matter that much, it isn't an effective tool against fascism, it's Morally Wrong, or all the other idiot "justifications" they come up with. All you have to do is look at how fucking terrified the bad guys are of a minimally equitable electoral system (such as getting rid of the Electoral College, which would pretty much ensure a Republican never won the presidency again if it had to be selected by -- gasp! -- an actual nationwide popular vote). That's why I don't even buy into the "voting sucks and is the bare minimum" rhetoric that gets peddled as a sort of tempting carrot to get the recalcitrants to do it -- don't worry, you can still post your mean tweets about Biden and that totally is more effective! Voting is A BIG DEAL. Voting works. Americans don't realize this because they are lucky enough to never have lived in a country where it wasn't available to be taken for granted and therefore scoffed off.

Voting, having the right to vote, and the large-scale ability that it confers to change the structures of society, is a MASSIVELY powerful tool that has largely not been available to most people throughout history (and is still unavailable to a large chunk of the world today). That's why there were bitter and protracted battles to get women and African Americans the right to vote in America. That is why the GOP still particularly targets those voters today, because the simple act of exercising your civic franchise in your best interests (and therefore not in the MAGA TrumpCult's interests) is so terrifying to them. If it was meaningless, none of this would matter. But it does.

Here, Imma make it real easy for you. If you have any reason to think your voter registration is lapsed, inactive, or nonexistent, if you have recently moved and don't know your status or your polling place or whether you get a mail ballot or whether your evil DeSantis governor has recently taken you off the rolls, or if you have never done it before, or if you want to do one basic thing to oppose fascism today, click this simple link. Do it.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Republicans Are Soft on Fascism

(I try to put my head in the sand, but I suffocate.)

Stephen Jay Morris

9/7/2023

©Scientific Morality.

Billionaire Elon Musk blames Jews for the failure of his social Media venture, “X” (formerly “Twitter). It has something to do with the ADL. I saw recent videos of neo-Nazis on a Florida bridge, waving their swastika flags left to right in view of the oncoming traffic. Hitler fan and podcaster, Nick Fuentes, tells the world he hates poor people. Anti-Semitism has come full circle, again, to being blatantly expressed in public. There used to be repercussions for talking shit about the Jews. I am watching this cadre of Jew haters unfold in front of my very eyes.  Lots of American Jews once thought that if they converted to Christianity and married a Gentile, they would be immune to being put in concentration camps or thrown into ovens. I can still hear my father pounding his fist on the dining room table, in a rage, yelling that the Jews are a religion not a race. “Why is he yelling at his family and not to real Jew haters?” I thought. That is a story for another time.

 But alas, you can’t convince a Nazi that Jews are white. They think and feel that Jews are a mogul race of mud people and should be destroyed. Once they find out that you are Jewish—bye, bye!

In 1935, Sinclair Lewis published a book, “It Can’t Happen Here.” It warned about the possibility of Fascism in America. I read that book in 1969. I told my parents and they thought I was crazy. America is the strongest country in the world, they said; it would never happen here!

It is now happening here. What about the owners of massive wealth and the military industrial complex? Do they care? First, the so-called deep state couldn’t give a damn about Jews at risk for death! Second, Nazis are pro-capitalism so long as White men control it. I’ve asked this question a million times: have you ever seen a Right winger protest a Nazi? Neither have I. Conservatives are soft on fascism. They get embarrassed by Nazis because they say the quiet rhetoric out loud. They say things like, “the East elites (Rich Jews) want to run our country” or “the globalists (Rich Jews) want to run the world!” They say, “the Jews will not replace us!” to which the conservative agrees, but thinks the Nazis are giving the game away.

But when it comes to Communism? Holy fuck burgers! Bomb them! Kill them all and let God sort them out! They know that Communists would take away their property and businesses and give it all to the poor. If you ask me, I’d rather live in Stalin’s Russia than in the 1950’s America, anti-communist hysteria. Fuck anti-Communism!!! Conservatives outlawed free speech in America in the 50’s. If you slightly inferred liberal tendencies in your speech, the FBI would tap your phone and follow you to work! You think I am exaggerating? Go through some time machine and find out. During the 50’s, if you were in America and, simultaneously, in the then Soviet Union, you wouldn’t know the difference! In Russia, The KGB would follow you around and, in the USA, the FBI would follow you around.

As an anarchist, I am not surprised. As a Jew, I am highly concerned. Oh, and your gentile spouse will not be spared. During the Nazi’s regime, many Aryans were put into camps for marrying non-Aryan husbands or wives. The price for race-mixing is death.

I sure miss the Jewish Defense League, even though they were Right wing, Zionist revisionists. They were pro-active. Whenever there were Nazi rallies, they were there with baseball bats. I am not pro-violence, but I am not pro-surrender, either. I’ll tell you one thing. I will not walk into a gas chamber peacefully. Never again, motherfuckers!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Li Zhou at Vox:

NFL kicker Harrison Butker is facing widespread backlash after giving a college commencement speech that casually dabbled in misogyny and homophobia. Butker, who has won three Super Bowls with the Kansas City Chiefs in recent years, delivered the address at Benedictine College, a private Catholic institution in Kansas, on May 11. In it, he criticizes everything from women prioritizing professional careers to Pride Month to abortion access.

An outspoken conservative who is close with leading right-wing figures including Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Butker’s speech closely echoed Republican rhetoric and fixated on issues that have been popular fodder for conservatives as they try to mobilize their voters ahead of the 2024 election. “I think it is you, the women who have had the most diabolical lies told to you,” Butker said in his speech. “Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

The Chiefs have not commented on Butker’s remarks and the NFL league office distanced itself from them. “His views are not those of the NFL as an organization. The NFL is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion, which only makes our league stronger,” Jonathan Beane, the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer, told People. Butker’s speech advances the same agenda that the GOP has been pushing not only in its rhetoric but through policy. At least 21 Republican-led state legislatures have approved laws that ban or restrict abortion access and at least 20 have approved bills that curb access to gender-affirming care for minors. Butker’s remarks — which emphasized people “staying in [their] lane” — are the latest attempt to weaponize religion to achieve the same goals.

The backlash to Butker’s speech, explained

Butker joined the NFL in 2017, and is considered by some analysts to be one of the best kickers in the league. In recent years, he’s also been vocal about his support for conservative causes. On his Instagram page, Butker is pictured alongside Sen. Hawley, a darling of the religious right. He was previously photographed with Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a white couple that pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020. And during the Chiefs’ visit to the White House in 2023, he wore a tie expressing his opposition to abortion rights.

The Chiefs have been in the cultural spotlight not only for their on-field success but also thanks to tight end Travis Kelce’s relationship with pop star Taylor Swift. Butker referenced a Swift song lyric in his 20-minute speech and described Swift, a music mogul who is one of the most famous people on the planet as “my teammate’s girlfriend.” (For the curious, Butker cited the Swift lyric, “familiarity breeds contempt” in order to criticize priests who rely too much on parishioners for adulation and support.)

Kansas City Chiefs K Harrison Butker made a commencement speech at Benedictine College last weekend that drew lots of controversy, including his sexist and antifeminist view on women in careers, his anti-LGBTQ+/anti-trans statements, and his anti-abortion extremism he espoused in his speech.

He delivered small kick energy and heapings of hate.

[fromchaostocosmos]

(Because I don't know if/when this article will get put behind a paywall I'm putting the whole thing here)

This weekend, Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Detroit, appeared at the “People’s Conference for Palestine,” where she called for the voters to punish Joe Biden at the ballot box. “It is disgraceful that the Biden administration and my colleagues in Congress continue to smear [anti-Israel demonstrators] for protesting to save lives no matter faith or ethnicity,” she exclaimed, “It is cowardly. But we’re not gonna forget in November, are we?”

Also this weekend, the Washington Post reported on plans that Donald Trump is sharing with donors to crush protests by deporting non-citizens participants. “One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country,” he promised. “You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.”

In short, Tlaib is so angry at Biden for denouncing antisemitic rhetoric at pro-Palestine protests that she wants to elect the man who is promising to deport them from the country. (And while she phrased it coyly, telling people to punish Biden’s “disgraceful” behavior in November can only describe one kind of recourse, because November is when people vote.)

There is something irrational, at least on the surface, about this horseshoe alliance. Many progressives are already pleading with the anti-Israel left to reconsider its determination to punish Biden, whose campaign it has spent months attempting to disrupt or target with harassment. And some protesters surely do hope merely to move Biden as far left as possible and will climb down eventually.

But the position Tlaib revealed this weekend does have a real logic to it that suggests she may not merely be bluffing.

Tlaib, like the groups organizing the protests, opposes any two-state solution to the conflict and uses the slogan “from the river to the sea” to denote her demand for liberation of the entire territory controlled by Israel. Her speech this weekend confirmed the militant thrust of her position. It contained not even a word of condemnation of terrorism, any mention of the hostages, or acknowledgment that Jewish Israelis possess any rights to live under any future settlement. She treated criticism of antisemitic rhetoric at the protests — the extent of which can be debated, but the existence of which cannot — as nothing more than a smear.

She understands the conflict as one of pure good versus pure evil, with the side of good having no obligations and incurring no guilt, and the side of evil having no rights.

Trump has the same belief structure but in reverse. While Tlaib lambasts Biden for continuing to support Israel’s right to self-defense, Trump and his allies attack him for attempting to constrain its exercise.

David Friedman, Trump’s former ambassador to Israel and the leading candidate to hold the same position in a second term, told Marc Caputo that Trump sees the conflict as one of good versus evil. “It’s a far less nuanced approach,” he said. “Trump sees adversaries in two buckets: Are they people who are loyal to America or share American values? Or are they people who threaten America and hate American values? Not everyone fits cleanly in those buckets. But in the Middle East, they do.”

Likewise, Matthew Brooks, chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition, explained Trump’s position as a “blank check” to Benjamin Netanyahu. “He’s giving the Israelis a blank check to go in and do what they need to do to destroy Hamas and eliminate the threat in Gaza from Hamas. And what he’s also saying, which is actually true, he said ‘but do it quickly’ because time is not Israel’s ally right now.”

Netanyahu has always tried to maintain some balance between the demands of his right-wing coalition partners to maintain control over all occupied territory and the hope by American presidents to create a two-state solution. Netanyahu has putatively left the door cracked for peace while doing everything in his power to make it impossible: from allowing settlers in the West Bank to terrorize Palestinians with total impunity to shoveling money to Hamas in hopes of marginalizing any Palestinian figures who might want to negotiate peace.

Netanyahu is a one-stater. Trump is increasingly signaling his support for a one-state solution. Tlaib likewise supports a one-state solution. And while Trump and Tlaib obviously have opposing visions for how that single state should be governed, they share an incentive to discredit the forces of compromise that stand in their way and an unstated commitment to some violent future conflagration that will settle the struggle one way or another.

[robertreich]

How Republicans Could Steal The Next Presidential Election

The latest Republican plot to sabotage our elections could remove American voters from the process of selecting their president. 

You heard that right. A case headed to the Supreme Court could let Republican controlled state legislatures overrule the will of the people and pick the next president without you.

This all hinges on a radical idea called the "independent state legislature theory." It’s at the heart of a case the Supreme Court will decide called Moore v. Harper.

The decision in this case could give state legislatures the power to disregard the popular vote and substitute their own slate of electors pledged to whomever they wish.

We’ve already had a preview of what this could mean for our democracy. The independent state legislature theory underpinned a major legal strategy in Trump’s attempted coup.

Trump: “Just look at one thing: The legislatures of the states did not approve all the things that were done for those elections. Under the constitution of the United States they have to do that.”

Trump was wrong, of course, but the current Supreme Court could make him right.  

Here’s background on the case: In February 2022, the North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the state’s Republican controlled general assembly from instituting a newly drawn congressional district map, holding that the map violated the state constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering.

The Republican Speaker of the North Carolina House appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, advancing the independent state legislature theory — a theory that’s circulated for years in right-wing circles, which argues that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures alone the power to regulate federal elections in their states.

The Constitution does grant state legislatures the authority to prescribe “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives”

But the U.S. Constitution does not give state legislatures total power over our democracy. In fact, for the last century, the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected the independent state legislature theory.

Yet if we know anything about the conservative majority that now controls the Supreme Court, it’s that they will rule on just about anything that suits the far-right’s agenda.

The independent state legislature theory would also make it easier for states to pull all sorts of election trickery — like pass even more voter suppression laws, enact even more radically gerrymandered maps, and eliminate the power of election commissions and secretaries of state to make decisions. It’s bad enough without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. The last thing we need is for voter suppression to be made even easier for extremist state legislatures.

If the Supreme Court adopts the independent state legislature theory, it wouldn't just be throwing out a century of its own precedent. It would be rejecting the lessons that inspired the Framers to write the Constitution in the first place – that it’s dangerous to give state legislatures unchecked power.

But the Republican Party and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court don’t really give a damn what the Framers thought — no matter their rhetoric. They care even less about what you think.

It’s a recipe for despotism.

But we can fight back.

First, expand the Supreme Court to add balance to a branch of government that has been stolen by radicalized Republicans. This is not a far-fetched idea. The Constitution doesn’t specify how many justices there should be — and we’ve already changed the size of the Court seven times in American history.

Second, impose term limits on Supreme Court justices, and have them rotate with judges on the U.S. courts of appeals.

Third, Congress must restore federal voting rights protections and expand access to the ballot box. We need national minimum standards for voting in our democracy.

But these congressional reforms can only happen if Democrats retain control of the House in the midterm elections and add at least two more senators willing to reform or abolish the filibuster.

Your vote is important, and not just in federal elections. Make sure you also vote for state legislators who understand what’s at stake and will preserve our democracy.

Because, as this Supreme Court case shows, the future of our democracy is not guaranteed.

[collapsedsquid]

Over the course of the Biden presidency, Kennedy’s views have morphed into a bizarre amalgamation with no natural constituency in American politics. Just a quick look at his campaign website shows a contradictory mess of positions that match up to none of America’s clearly delineated political identities. In one moment, he declares support for police reform; in the next, he proposes border policies straight out of a Stephen Miller white paper. He backs liberal policies on the minimum wage and labor rights while also centering his campaign around right-wing rhetoric on “cancel culture.” He speaks out for massive reductions in military spending and overseas interventions while supporting anti-trans legislation. He declares his support for a federal abortion ban and then says he opposes it. Perhaps if you squint really hard, you might be able to make out some coherent ideology here: a sort of socially conservative, economically liberal “populism,” at least how a 70-year-old weirdo would imagine it. But Americans don’t think in terms of ideologies laid out on a chart. They view things through the perspective of the partisan identities they have adopted and hold dear to themselves. These identities come with a certain list of policies that each member is supposed to support. So, by crafting a platform including positions from both sides of the partisan divide, all Kennedy has done is give both Republicans and Democrats ample reasons to dismiss him. Conservatives can write him off because of his liberal positions on economic issues and because he’s a Kennedy. Liberals can write him off over his socially conservative stances, insane beliefs on public health, and virulent opposition to the Biden administration. While he may imagine himself to be reaching across a partisan divide, in reality, he’s just leaving himself completely boxed out from both sides.

I feel like the idea that this idea set has no natural constituency is just plain not true. There are reasons (I don't fully understand but have some ideas) why this group sucks at getting what they want but there are a lot of people like this.

[beardedmrbean]

A left-wing journalism professor who teaches at a top Chicago-area university has for months justified Hamas terrorists' war on Israel and even joined anti-Israel student agitators on campus, Fox News Digital learned after reviewing his social media and blog posts.

Steven Thrasher is an associate professor of journalism at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism and has been "regularly published in the New York Times, BuzzFeed News, Esquire, the Nation, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Daily Beast," according to his school biography.

Thrasher's activism could be raised on Thursday when Northwestern's president, as well as leaders from UCLA and Rutgers, appears before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for a hearing titled "Calling for Accountability: Stopping Antisemitic College Chaos."

"Staff like Professor Steven Thrasher continue to peddle hateful antisemitic canards," Florida Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez told Fox News Digital. "This professor has employed hateful rhetoric, invoked antisemitic tropes, and fostered a hostile environment that endangers Jewish students on campus."

Thrasher's bio states that he is "the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg Chair of social justice in reporting (with an emphasis on issues relevant to the LGBTQ community) and an assistant professor of journalism." His areas of expertise include methods of how to study the intersection of "racism, homophobia, policing, medicine, incarceration, culture, and health." 

A review of Thrasher’s social media accounts found that stretching back to October of last year, when Hamas launched an attack against Israel, Thrasher espoused anti-Israel rhetoric appearing to defend Hamas. 

"White supremacy and settler colonialism can NOT kill, maim and steal for decades (or even centuries) via genocidal violence and then expect patience and peace — ESPECIALLY when peaceful protest is met with economic, spiritual and literal death," he posted on X on Oct. 9 of last year. Fox News Digital reviewed the posts earlier this week, before Thrasher protected his X account. 

"For those asking 'But why don’t Palestinians protest peacefully; may I remind you that for me—who is not even Palestinian!!!—merely calling for *peaceful boycott* cost me the German translation of my book, made my PhD advisor shun me forever & almost cost me my entire career," he wrote in another post that same day. 

Later that month, Thrasher compared Israel to the Nazis, claiming the country was carrying out "a genocide of the disabled" in Gaza. 

"​​This is a genocide of the disabled people, too, who will suffocate on smoke. Who ARE suffocating to death right now. You know who else suffocated the disabled? The Nazis," he posted on X on Oct. 29. 

Thrasher is also apparently no fan of President Biden, according to his posts, claiming that "Biden won’t stop" Israel’s retaliations against Gaza, and that "the US is committing genocide."

In a November blog post titled, "Tearing down the Wall," Thrasher compared Gaza to a Nazi concentration camp, arguing, "we can feel compassion towards a desperate people stuck inside a Nazi concentration camp." He also argued that if Jews were able to break free from concentration camps, they would have killed "anyone they found partying," thus seemingly justifying Hamas' attack on the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, when hundreds of people were killed and dozens of others taken hostage.

"If the Jews being shot and shoveled into ovens could just break through that wall, of course, they would kill anyone they found partying right on the other side of it! And, of course, they would take women and children hostage and drag them back into their hell inside if doing so would give them leverage to free their fellow Jews from torture and death!" he wrote. 

Last month, Thrasher also spoke before protesters at an anti-Israel encampment, encouraging agitators to continue their protests, according to The Daily Northwestern. 

"To the Medill students and journalists within earshot, I say to you: Our work is not about objectivity," he said. "Our work is about you putting your brilliant minds to work and opening your compassionate hearts."

Northwestern, similar to colleges across the nation, has been the site of anti-Israel protests. University President Michael Schill will testify before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce over Northwestern’s "shocking concessions to the unlawful antisemitic encampments." Schill’s hearing on Thursday is anticipated to also include questions about Thrasher.

"Whether it’s Claudine Gay at Harvard or Liz Magill at UPenn, college presidents at elite universities have failed to address the dangerous and violent proliferation of antisemitism on campus," Gimenez told Fox News Digital. 

"As a member of Congress, I look forward to getting direct answers about President Schill’s inaction this Thursday. His failure to act emboldens hateful behavior and compromises student safety," he continued.

Northwestern was the first university in the nation to publicly announce that it struck a deal with protesters who established an encampment on campus demanding the school cut financial ties with Israel. The concessions included agreeing to let students review school investments; funding two visiting Palestinian faculty members for two years on campus; full scholarships for five Palestinian undergraduate students; and the immediate construction of a community housing building for Muslim, Middle Eastern and North African students. 

Protesters in exchange largely dismantled the tent encampment. 

The Jewish community in the Chicago area slammed Schill and Northwestern for the agreement, with the​​ Jewish United Fund writing in a letter that Schill embraced "those who flagrantly disrupted Northwestern academics and flouted those policies."

"The overwhelming majority of your Jewish students, faculty, staff, and alumni feel betrayed. They trusted an institution you lead and considered it home. You have violated that trust," the letter said, according to Jewish Insider. "You certainly heard and acted generously towards those with loud, at times hateful voices. The lack of any reassuring message to our community has also been heard loud and clear."

Student agitators infiltrated college campuses nationwide last month into May, including radicals on Columbia University’s campus taking over the campus’ Hamilton Hall building, while schools such as UCLA, Harvard and Yale worked to clear student encampments, which led to hundreds of arrests nationwide. 

The protests follow terrorist organization Hamas launching a war in Israel on Oct. 7, which initially fanned the flames of antisemitism on campuses in the form of protests, menacing graffiti and students reporting that they felt as if it was "open season for Jews on our campuses."

The protests heightened this spring to the point where Jewish students were warned to leave campus for their own safety, and schools such as USC, Emory and Columbia canceled their main graduation ceremonies. 

Gimenez continued in his comments to Fox Digital that "antisemitism has NO PLACE ANYWHERE  — especially not on college campuses receiving federal funding."

"It’s why I’m working to ensure colleges like Northwestern, that fail to protect students from hateful pro-Hamas activities, have their federal funding eligibility immediately reviewed," he said. 

"I stand resolutely with our Jewish-American community and students combating antisemitism on campuses nationwide. I am committed to fighting antisemitism and reinforcing America’s unbreakable bond with our strongest ally: the democratic, Jewish State of Israel."

Neither Northwestern nor Thrasher immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. 

[ausetkmt]

Donald Trump is a very violent man. He is the leader of an increasingly violent political movement.

Last week, Trump threatened Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley with death. Trump's death threat is part of a much larger pattern where he has made similar threats, directly or implied, against President Biden, Hillary Clinton, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Special Counsel Jack Smith, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, and his other "enemies."

Trump's MAGA cultists have been radicalized by him. Several MAGA people have gone so far as to have attempted or publicly threatened to assassinate President Obama and President Biden, respectively. And of course, Trump's followers launched a lethal attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 as part of the ex-president and dictator in waiting's coup attempt.

Trump and his allies and other spokespeople and influentials in the Republican fascist party and larger neofascist movement and white right are at the epicenter of a social environment in America were hate crimes and other political violence against Black and brown people, the LGBTQI community, Muslims, Jews, and other targeted groups is at historic levels.

New research by Rachel Kleinfeld, who is Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, provides much-needed insight(s) into the growing danger(s) that political violence and polarization poses to American democracy and the future of the country. In this conversation, Kleinfeld provides context for the relationship between extremism, polarization and violence in America. She also explains why right-wing political violence is a much greater threat to the country than political violence by "the left". Kleinfeld highlights the news media's continued failure(s) to understand the realities of the country's democracy crisis in the Age of Trump.

At the end of this conversation, Kleinfeld warns that whatever the outcome of the 2024 Election, that America's democracy crisis is likely to get worse not better.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

How are you feeling given the state of American politics and society and the country's democracy crisis and other great troubles?

I'm feeling sad. I want to give my daughters – and other kids – a better country than the one I grew up in. I don't feel like we are doing that, and I want all of us adults to start acting like adults and to do better.

What are you "seeing" as you survey American politics and society right now? What gives you the most concern?

Americans remain rhetorically attached to democracy, but when you ask them what they mean, large majorities are quick to give up basic rights, oversight, and even non-violence when their side holds power. And the idea of a loyal opposition is disintegrating. I'm deeply concerned by that impulse towards unchecked majoritarianism, and also worried about hypocritical alterations of those feelings when the other side is in power.

What are some of the blind spots, misconceptions, and outright ignorance that the mainstream media, the political class, and everyday Americans have about the realities of political violence in this country?  

People seem to underestimate how much political violence has risen, and how lopsided it is. There are vastly more incidents on the right, and they are targeting people. That is the major political violence problem faced by the country. That said, on the left, too many partisans are loathe to acknowledge that their side's violence, though largely against property, has also doubled since 2016. It has just grown from a much lower point.

I get constant calls from reporters asking if Donald Trump is going to start another January 6 style riot – and when I speak about political violence, my mail fills with people asking why I don't speak more about the overwhelmingly (but not entirely) peaceful Black Lives Matter protests.

But Trump is not currently able to draw out large crowds – his followers are afraid of the FBI and believe people who goad them to violence on list serves are false flag operations. Instead, we are seeing people kill neighbors over politics or murder business owners who display a pride flag. In other countries, when someone runs a car into a peaceful crowd, it's almost always a rare international terrorist event. In America, that has happened over 150 times since Heather Heyer was killed at the Unite the Right rally. Political violence and credible threats have become small scale, hyperlocal, across the nation, and extremely frequent

Premeditated political violence against people has skyrocketed on the right, and premeditated political violence on the left has also grown - though from a much lower point, and more often targeting property. Hate crimes are at their highest point in the 21st century, even higher than the spike after 9/11. Local officials who were barely targeted before are now receiving significant numbers of threats – in San Diego, 75% of county officials report threats or harassment, for instance. Threats against Members of Congress rose tenfold from 2016 to 2021, though they fell slightly last year.  In the 1960s and 1970s we faced high levels of political violence, but it was largely against property, or involved foreign terrorists. We haven't seen Americans targeting other Americans politically like this since Confederates reversed Reconstruction and used violence and threats to return to power after the Civil War.

The news media and the political class tend to have a crisis frame that is very immediate and focused on the now. What would the news media – and by extension the political class and public — better understand and see in terms of political polarization and violence if they had a longer view and more time to digest what is happening or not?

America has faced political violence at many points in its history. It is usually used as a method alongside elections to try to win power by intimidating people. That is how it was used by the Know Nothing Party in the early 1800s, by Confederates after Reconstruction, and by Southern Democrats under Jim Crow to maintain single party dominance in eleven Southern States.

Right now, the threat of violence is being used to destroy pro-democracy Republicans and allow a non-majority faction to take over the Republican Party. While there are more threats overall against Democratic constituencies, women, and minorities, those threats are a spill-over from attempts to build Republican base intensity through highlighting a white Christian male dominant identity. The targeted threats are occurring largely to win power and are often targeted very intentionally – against certain election officials who will matter in swing states, or against the judges and DAs involved in cases against former President Trump. 

The spike in violence is helping an anti-democratic faction of the Republican Party overcome a pro-democratic faction. The media framing violence as largely about Republicans versus Democrats misses that crucial part of the story.

What does the actual data tell us about political violence and extremism in the Age of Trump and where we are potentially going as a country?

Political violence and criminal violence are highly connected.

The best study of murder in America back to our Revolution found that the strongest variables predicting a rise in the murder rate was trust in fellow Americans and trust in government – especially among young men (the demographic that commits most violence everywhere). In the 1960s when political violence rose, America also saw a doubling of the murder rate, and homicide kept rising until the 1990s. When people normalize violence and lesser forms of anti-social behavior, such as Lauren Boebert's obnoxious vaping and groping at a theater, oafishness on airplanes, or "rolling coal" – blowing car exhaust in the faces of bicyclists – it reduces the sense of social propriety and impulse control. Society and civilization are actually very fragile things – as anti-social behavior gets normalized and people "let it all hang out", as it were, all forms of violence tend to rise. We are probably on the verge of that again, and this MAGA political faction and left-wing illiberalism pushing people towards it will be to blame for the deaths and dystopian cities we are going to have for the next few decades.

When I write articles or interview experts who are trying to sound the alarm about right-wing political violence by Trump followers and other such malign actors, one of the common responses in emails and comments is that this is all so much hysterics. The MAGA movement threat is exaggerated. These right-wing extremists and others who are violent are being put in jail. The danger is also so much talk as there won't be a second civil war, etc. How would you intervene and push back?

I just provide the numbers. It's not that these levels of political violence are unprecedented – America is an unusually violent democracy compared to countries with similar levels of wealth and democratic history. The United States has seen violence at these levels before. But New York in the 1970s, or the post-Reconstruction South which had a lynching every 36 hours at its height, would not be the periods of our past I most want our country to revisit.

Is the American public "polarized" or are they "sorted"? That distinction is very important.

American politicians are highly ideologically polarized – members of Congress now hold virtually no policy beliefs in common across the aisle. Regular Americans, on the other hand, are not very ideologically polarized – they hold a lot of policy beliefs in common, although Republicans and Democrats care more intensely about different issues. But regular Americans do really dislike partisans from the other party – which is known as affective, or emotional, polarization. That level of affective polarization is likely to be caused, at least partially, because we are highly sorted as a country. When multiple identity characteristics, such as religiosity, geography, gender, and race, are the same for members of the same party, it is easier to feel that any of one's many identities are threatened by members of the other party, and when people are geographically separated so that they don't socialize, those misunderstandings get even larger. However, sorting alone just sets the kindling - politicians are lighting the flames by using that latent affective polarization to further inflame sentiment, in order to use that voter intensity to win power. So, it is unlikely to be possible to reduce Americans' polarization until we change the incentives that are allowing politicians to win seats by furthering polarization.

Most journalists and reporters assume that the public follows politics closely, is ideological, and has a real understanding of the details and facts. Decades of political science research shows that mostly to not be true. Unfortunately, the mainstream media, for a variety of reasons including intellectual laziness and careerism, is clinging desperately onto those fictions of folk democracy even when the evidence is abundant and obvious to the contrary. This translates into a news media that still does not fully appreciate — and is in willful denial about — the realities and the depths of the country's democracy crisis in this moment of ascendant neofascism and illiberalism.

Americans share a large number of policy beliefs in common. But they also, by and large, really, really don't care about politics. They don't want to think about politics, they don't want to talk about politics, they want it all to go away. That means that Americans also hold a very tenuous understanding of the basics of what it takes to maintain a democracy – such as the importance of a free press, or the role of a civil service. In America, as in many countries where democracy has slipped away in recent years, we see significant pluralities willing to support anti-democratic behavior when their party is in power. Fear of the other side doing just that is one of the main forces that empowers a party to act first to undermine democracy in order to, in their minds, prevent the other side from doing it first.

Is "consensus" and "bipartisanship" across lines of political difference just a type of fetish for the political class and news media? The public generally does not care.

I have my own strong policy beliefs – but I understand that as a country, we have about half the voting population who are conservative, and about half who are more liberal. Both sides need politicians who can represent them in a pro-democratic way, where we disagree on policy, not on whether we will allow the system of peacefully settling our disputes to disintegrate. Liberals need to give some support to pro-democracy Republicans or both will be overrun by the anti-democracy faction that is gaining control over that party. Liberals should also pay more attention to how their own illiberal wing in cultural and academic institutions is driving more conservatives, independents, and minorities to support their own anti-democratic faction. The problem in the political realm is clearly a faction of the Republican Party – but it has not grown on its own, there is a call and response with cultural forces on the left.

What are some interventions that can be made to make the country's political institutions and culture more durable and healthier in the face of the type of extreme polarization – which is asymmetrical and more on the right— that we are now seeing in the Age of Trump and the decades that got us to this crisis?

America should give serious thought to voting reforms that would allow the anti-democratic faction to have representation without letting them take over one of our two major parties. Proportional representation is the best way to achieve that, though ranked choice voting and primary reform might be less radical and cause fewer governing headaches. Both would likely allow MAGA Republicans to have control in some states and localities (which, of course, they do now), while still allowing the majority of Republicans to support a pro-democracy party. Campaign finance reforms that empower small dollar donors also empower extremists, who are better at raising anger that gets those small dollar donations flowing. Big money in politics is also problematic, of course, but the problem of small dollar donors pushing our politics towards extremes has not been recognized or discussed. Finally, we need better anti-trust enforcement to break business monopolies. Part of the distrust in America since 2008 has as much to do with the way elites keep making money, and is economic as much as political in origin. There is a reason Aristotle and Jefferson both recognized the dangers to democracy of large concentrations of wealth.

As Trump's criminal trials and the 2024 Election approach, how do you think that will impact the dynamics of violence and polarization?

There is no good way out of the 2024 Election. No matter how the election turns out, it will harm faith in democracy – but the worst future damage is likely to be inflicted if Trump wins and takes power, given the signals he has already given about how he will misuse his department of justice against his enemies, attack the civil service, and otherwise damage the institutions that keep our democracy tethered to the rule of law.

[dionysus-complex]

good story as ever from Adam Serwer:

--

There’s an expression reporters use, that you’ve “reported yourself out of a story.” That is, you had a hunch or a tip about something, but when you checked the facts, the story didn’t pan out. Sometimes, though, reporters stick to the narrative they’ve decided on in advance, and they don’t let facts get in the way.

The United Auto Workers union is striking for a better contract. The combination of a tight labor market and President Joe Biden’s pro-labor appointees to the National Labor Relations Board has given workers new leverage, leading workers in writers’ rooms, kitchens, and factories to demand more from their employers. This has been broadly beneficial, because many of the gains made by union workers benefit other workers.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, it was Biden who went to support the striking autoworkers, joining a union picket line—something not even his most pro-union predecessors in the White House had ever done. “You saved the automobile industry back in 2008 and before. You made a lot of sacrifices. You gave up a lot. And the companies were in trouble,” Biden told the striking workers Tuesday. “But now they’re doing incredibly well. And guess what? You should be doing incredibly well too. It’s a simple proposition.”

A president on the picket line, telling workers they deserved to share in the wealth they had helped create, was a genuinely historic moment. Franklin Roosevelt didn’t do this. It’s shocking that Biden did.

But that wasn’t as interesting for many in the political press as the hypothetical story, the one that didn’t happen: a Republican presidential candidate winning over striking autoworkers by supporting their struggle for a better contract. Trump didn’t do that. In fact, Trump, who governed as a viciously anti-union president even by Republican standards, chose to visit a nonunion shop to give a campaign speech in which he said, “I don’t think you’re picketing for the right thing,” and told them it wouldn’t make “a damn bit of difference” what they got in their contract, because the growth in electric-vehicle manufacturing would put them out of work.

Telling striking workers that they should give up trying to get a better deal is not supporting workers or supporting unions; it is textbook union-busting rhetoric that anyone who has ever been in a union or tried to organize one would recognize. In other words, Trump did not go to Michigan to support striking workers at all. He did what cheap rich guys do every day: He told people who work for a living to be afraid of losing what little they have instead of trying to get what they deserve. This is not comparable to, nor is it even in the same galaxy as, supporting workers on a picket line. It is a poignant metaphor for the emptiness of right-wing populism when it comes to supporting workers—a cosplay populism of superficial “working class” aesthetics that ends up backing the bosses instead of the workers.

[radicalreports]

Morning Briefing: Far Right Prepares for Trump's Appearance at Miami Courthouse

Morning Briefing: Supporters of former president Donald Trump are planning mass protests at the Wilkie D. Ferguson U.S. Courthouse in Miami, Florida, and researchers have reportedly “identified individual users who are threatening violence against Trump’s perceived enemies and at least one who has explicitly said they are planning on attending with guns.”

At least two GOP members of Congress “used alarmingly warlike rhetoric in response to the federal charges filed against Donald Trump,” including Rep. Clay Higgins and Rep. Andy Biggs.

The calls to action and threats have been “amplified on right-wing media sites and have been met by supportive responses from social media users and cheers from crowds, who have become conditioned over several years by Mr. Trump and his allies to see any efforts to hold him accountable as assaults against him.”

Data from social media platforms reveal that “references to ‘civil war’ more than doubled on alternative social media platforms frequented by the American far right the very day that Trump posted on Truth Social about the indictment,” according to an analysis by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE).

During the past few days, prominent and influential members of the far right and right-wing media have called for mass protests at the federal courthouse in Miami in support of the former president.

Wayne Allyn Root, the far right pundit and conspiracy theorist, wrote at World Net Daily that the “Democrats in power and the people who run our government are evil. Demonic. Satanic,” and add that “this is war. This is life or death. This is the end of America if we don't fight fire with fire.”

Ali Alexander, the far right activist, wrote on Telegram that “if we don't have LAW, we shouldn't give them ORDER.” Alexander also wrote that if “Republicans do not do something unprecedent, we’ll all hang,” and added that “everyone should see Members of Congress sweating in the heat with ordinary supporters.”

Laura Loomer, the far right conspiracy theories and failed Florida Congressional candidate, promoted the protest at the federal courthouse on the InfoWars program War Room with Owen Shroyer, and Kari Lake, the 2020 election denier and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate, promoted her plans to attend the protest on Steve Bannon’s War Room.

While it has been reported that the Proud Boys, the far right violent extremist street gang, publicly displayed “apathy towards Trump’s legal woes sets them apart from the wider far-right extremism world,” the Miami chapter of the Proud Boys promoted the Loomer’s protest in their Telegram channel.

The violent rhetoric of the far right is “echoing among some Donald Trump sympathizers ahead of the former president’s appearance in a Miami court,” and both federal and local law enforcement “assigned to domestic terrorism squads are actively working to identify any possible threats.”

Advisors of the former president are reportedly “quietly expressing some concern that the pro-Trump protesters already assembling in front of the courthouse aren’t helping the former president’s case,” and one advisor predicted there is “going to be a disaster” and there will be people who “don’t want to be peaceful.”

Read more here.

[qqueenofhades]

I truly think the leftists forgot that Republicans got so far because THEY PLAY DIRTY. Did they forget the fiasco that was Bush v Al Gore? Forget all the racist BS Obama had to undergo and the many obstructions Republicans did to limit his power (Now I'm wondering if this wave of 'Roe v Wade being overturned was Obama's fault' from leftists was started by racist conservatives to divert attention. Hmmm)? Forget Trump's coup attempt?!?!?!?!?!? Republicans don't play by the rules.

I mean, we've established the fact that they struggle with basic reality and relevant political analysis of any type, especially if it involves actually blaming the Republicans for anything without finding a way to make it secretly be the Democrats' fault, so.... yeah. A lot of the early-twenties Twitter clout chasers are too young to remember Bush v. Gore, want to paint Obama solely as a "corporate centrist," and therefore act like that was the only reason his policies were so relentlessly obstructed and gave rise to the Tea Party and the rest of the white grievance backlash. We've also established that they're constantly vulnerable to right-wing psyops and bad-faith disinformation campaigns such as "not voting is a good thing and Hillary should be punished!", which was pushed HARD by the Russian-troll social media interference machine in 2016. It worked because certain segments of self-righteous leftists were predisposed to believe it anyway, and it exacerbated and increased their existing rhetoric. The right-wing slime machine is unparalleled at turning leftists and liberals against each other and knowing which weaknesses to exploit, for the precise reason so they don't get their shit together and vote in a consistent and organized fashion to stop the fascists. Welp.

This is likewise why it's a fucking stupid idea for Biden to make any deal with McConnell and actually think that Mitch will hold to his end of the bargain; he simply does not give a shit about honor, truth, precedent, previous statements, previous actions, or anything except seizing and consolidating Republican power as relentlessly as possible. Even if Biden does go through with this rumored nomination of an anti-abortion judge in Kentucky in order to buy off McConnell's opposition (and he's evidently only getting two US Attorneys for it, which is not a good trade for a lifetime federal judgeship), there's no reason to think that McConnell would honor the deal. He simply does not care what he said to you earlier; it was just a stopgap on his way to getting what he wanted. He will lie to your face and take as much as possible, and the Democrats, while they are a whole lot wiser to his game than they used to be, are still beholden to the fatuous idea that the American public really wants "bipartisanship." Obama tried it even after the Republicans made clear they would spit in his face every time; by the time he realized there was no working with them, he had lost Congress and it was too late to do anything but executive orders anyway. Biden has managed to get a few more bipartisan bills through the Senate, because he spent decades there and the old-school Republicans know him (and besides, he's an old white guy, so they don't have to look like they're doing the brown guy's bidding), but it's still an extremely one-sided relationship. It's infuriating to watch Biden mouth hoary cliches about Bipartisanship and act like the Republicans can be negotiated with in good faith, while they shamelessly fleece him for whatever they can get. Because as I said in an earlier post, he is too stuck in his past thinking and still believes there are "good people on both sides of the aisle" who genuinely have the political process and the country's best interests at heart. I would say, uh, no.

By now, Democrats know that Republicans can't be trusted and Republicans don't care about what anybody thinks except for God King Donald Trump. They have long ago given up trying to win a free and fair election on the merits of their ideas; they know that their ideas are total shit, toxically unpopular, and only benefit a tiny fraction of the most privileged white men in all of America. That's why they have turned so enthusiastically to attempting to rig elections, restrict voting rights, and pack the judiciary with partisan hacks. They don't give a shit what the average American wants, they don't want elections or politicians that reflect what's best for said average American, they don't believe in democracy, and they don't believe in going through a fair competition if it means they might lose. Cheating has been a fundamental part of their playbook for a while, and now it's become the only thing as they continue their jackbooted march to fascist authoritarianism. But, as ever, good luck getting the proud denizens of Cloud Cuckoo Leftist Land to understand that.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Molly Sprayregen at LGBTQ Nation:

Donald Trump campaign staffer Johnny McEntee has been slammed for a recent TikTok video in which he proudly explains how he gives fake money to homeless people so that they will get arrested when they try to use it. “So I always keep this fake Hollywood money in my car so when a homeless person asks for money, then I give him like a fake $5 bill, so I feel good about myself, they feel good,” McEntee explains in the clip. “And then, when they go to use it, they get arrested so I’m actually like helping clean up the community. You know, getting them off the street.” McEntee was a personal aide to the president and headed the White House Presidential Personnel Office during the Trump administration. He currently works in human resources on Trump’s presidential campaign and is also a senior advisor on The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 – a far-right wish list laying out policy positions for the next Republican president, which include several viciously anti-LGBTQ+ proposals.

[...] The TikTok video was originally posted to the account of the right-wing dating app, The Right Stuff, co-founded by McEntee, but it has since been re-posted across the Internet. The caption on the original clip reads, “Just a joke. Everyone calm down,” but it was not enough to appease folks who know how dangerous rhetoric like this can be, serious or not. Additionally, many did not seem convinced it wasn’t a legitimate confession of his actions.

John McEntee is a soulless monster and a wanker.

[frostyreturns]

the next president of the u.s will be a republican maybe even trump again. here’s why it makes sense for the elites to do.

1.) Republicans will suddenly stop talking about stolen elections and half the country will believe in voting again

2.) A republican in office when all the disasters they have been pushing hard for in the last few years hit, means they can blame the disaster on trump and therefore any policies he pushes for while he’s in. 

3.) They want a war and tend to put a republican in whenever they want to start a war because you get the most support for war from the right when a right president is in. Get ready for all the right wing patriots to suddenly want to go die for ukraine and tell you to go live in china if you’re not on board with sending your sons to fight in some pedophiles proxy money laundering war.

4.) they want division when these disasters hit so expect more trump presidency clown shows and divisive rhetoric from the media with a right wing lightning rod to take it all, again probably why the next person they put in power will again be trump. They’ll want chaos for this next stage of the plan so it makes sense to want the left to be more pissed off because they are more unhinged and much easier to manipulate.

5.) They’re already starting to turn the narrative on Biden, the narrative that he’s demented and ruining things will suddenly start to be okay because they’re going to blame thigns they did on purpose with malice of forethought on the incompetent bumblings of a dementia patient who never actually had any power.

6.) as america nears collapse they want a certain segment of the population to feverishly want to help that collapse along and they’ve already made the perfect bad guy for that. A good chunk of the country will want a total collapse if the person in charge is trump or some new ultimate evil republican.

7.) The narrative is that democracy is on the line in this next election, could this just be the usual histrionics around vooting time maybe, or maybe they figure it’s time for a collapse and this way they look prophetic, look like they tried to stop it and set themselves up as the people who should be trusted to rush in and “fix” things which will of course just be implementing the new world order and giving more power and authority over to international unelected governments. which they’ll somehow spin as bringing back democracy. They’ll try to spin this era of carefully constructed government caused chaos as anarchy so a lot of people will demand more government to fix the problems.

8.) they literally take turns, they have spent a hundred years going okay tag you’re it back and forth and people still sit there and vote like it matters or has an effect. It’s either the republicans turn soon or it will be in another four years. Basic pattern recognition should tell you it’s all rigged.

9.) with Trump in saying all the right things and doing none of them, lip service will be all it takes to get conservatives to love the government again.