Adam Unger

Nobody wants to talk about it but my whole life has been a corporate psyop shifting the burden of saving our burning planet onto me, the consumer trapped in consumerism, when the reality is that my lifetime of recycling is negated by one private flight by Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, or Taylor Swift.

For the record, our division commander BANNED things called “presence patrols” in Iraq.

“If you don’t have a specific task & purpose, your ‘presence’ doesn’t do anything.”

National Guard stating they are now doing presence patrols in DC.

A complete waste of soldier’s time & effort.

We’re just not used to the good guys being good at winning. They win, sometimes, yeah but they haven’t been good at winning in a while.

a woman wearing a mask and a yellow shirt is dancing in front of a street ALT: a woman wearing a mask and a yellow shirt is dancing in front of a street

What watching business/markets coverage feels like right now:

This is not about fighting crime, it is about punishment of political enemies, subjugation of out-groups, and intimidation of popular opposition.

A proper opposition party will find every anecdote like this and blast it out into oblivion.

What they SHOULDN’T do is fight about whether there really is enough crime to merit the fascist takeover of the city, because that GRANTS THAT FASCISM IS AN ACCEPTABLE OPTION.

We shall see what they do!

Pointing out how safe DC by showing the low crime rates isn’t going to convince conservatives because “people breaking the actual law” isn’t what they mean by “crime”. To them, “crime” includes merely seeing black people, unhoused people, and anyone else the bigots clutch pearls about as “crime”

Unless you are around conservatives a lot- it is really hard to convey how much of a load bearing ideological structure their hatred/fear of cities represents.
They are scared everywhere, all the time.
It's overwhelming.

The road to authoritarianism is littered with people telling you you’re overreacting.

I think this sounds about right. Clear is kind.

Arguing that the D.C. crime rate is at a 30 year low may be true, but it’s a loser.

Crime is just a pretext, so don’t argue about it at all. They’re doing this because it’s a way to grab power for themselves, and to punish and terrorize their enemies, to the delight of their supporters.

That’s it.

I'm a super macho, tough law-and-order conservative and I'm here to tell you that just thinking about a big city makes me pee my pants a little bit.

Two things can be true:

1) The President has legal authority over the D.C. police and the D.C. National Guard that he doesn't have *anywhere else* in the country; &

2) Even if this doesn't set a legal precedent, it sets an ominous *political* precedent for pretextually overriding local government.

DC statehood is now an imperative. No more dicking around. Next Dem majority, get it done immediately.

Not to mention the effective loss of D.C. home rule sets a precedent for federalization of other major cities (even if it would be much more legally dubious). We're 10 steps closer to that today than we were yesterday.

This raises the stakes for everyone, everywhere.

I like this and on one level you're right - this is clearly a major swing to flex like an aging dad who leases a Porsche and makes it his whole personality.

But I really do fear for the immediate harm to the city's unhoused its young people, and all its black and brown residents and commuters.

Trump's attempt to militarize and federalize D.C. is an incredibly dangerous acceleration of his fascist takeover of the nation

AND

It's clear he's pursuing it to distract from the Epstein Files

His craven personal self-preservation is driving this escalation and that makes it all the scarier.

When pro-democracy forces do one day retake power, we will need to undertake a full structural refounding and revival of the country.

Today, D.C. statehood becomes a non-negotiable part of that project.

“Their job is kitchen tables!”

I fear for everyone in DC, those who live or work there. First, it will be the unhoused, and of course the immigrant communities. And it’ll then be everyone who does not conform to the new fascist state, in looks or deeds, and those who work - legally and democratically - to stand against it.

The most important part of this whole saga is how normal this all obviously is, how everything is being done totally by the book, and how there is certainly nothing to see here.

Important preface: The Beatles are probably my favorite 20th century band.

But I find it so hard to get through The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill when listening to the white album in order, especially knowing While My Guitar Gently Weeps is next.

I just wanted you all to know.

Shitposting you can believe in.

it is a testament to the low quality of the people of this administration that gabbard does not stand out as especially delusional

When this is all over, and I believe it will be because I just have to, we need a serious truth and reconciliation process that provides true accountability and justice.

There can be no turning the page on this chapter of our history without it.

among the many things they don’t tell you about having kids is the amount of money you will shell out to buy various berries

What did FSU ever do to you?

Really embarrassing that we have to exert this Herculean effort to get the Epstein thing over the finish line for a guy who is legally a felon and rapist, who started a teen beauty pageant and walked into the dressing room, confessed to sexual assault on a hot mic, and oh yeah, PARTIED WITH EPSTEIN.