kara

Any other administration wouldn’t be deliberately tanking the dollar to push everything to crypto.

Launched a trade war with penguins.

This is the dumbest timeline.

He plans to follow this with a bill requiring mandatory Econ 101 classes for Trump and Vance.

New seasons of Black Mirror and Handmaid’s Tale dropping soon, in case you haven’t had enough dystopian horror lately.

Oof. Yellow Gate wins again.

In fact we have so far:
French runner I
French runner II
The Back to the Future Guy
Not the human sacrifice
The second runner
#bm100
barkley.ferrett.io

Amazing use of metaphor here.

"Australian leadership must deftly manage an evolving geopolitical economic reality that most closely resembles a bus driver on an eight-day coke bender who has just locked his passengers in the vehicle to joyride through a minefield with a rabbit in his pants."

What a read.

This isn’t a failure to prepare. The goalposts keep moving.

Nevermind that the median household income has only increased ~25% (adjusted for inflation) since 1990 when many of us entered the workforce.

Meanwhile, the cost of living as measured by the consumer price index has increased 144%.

And for those of us with kids in college: tuition is up 180%

It’s not that we have failed to save for retirement. The goalposts keep moving.

Dude, we tried. Economy tanked our 401ks in 2008 and again now. Paid dutifully into Social Security since 16 only to be called vampires for wanting to collect. Employers killed pensions for most of our generation. Short of burying gold like Ron Swanson, I’m not sure what else we should have done.

LFG

The power of the oligarchy lies in their wealth and the virtue and power we attribute to it.

Spend accordingly.

Rewrite history. Purge academia and research. Diminish and dehumanize women and minorities.

Ignore the laws, and control the means of enforcement.

Crash the economy so we’re forced to work in Freedom Cities. Piss off our allies so we have nowhere to escape. Pressure golden visa countries so the moderately wealthy can’t escape with their money.

There is a method to the madness.

It’s also why they are dismantling public health services like pandemic response.

Cull the herd. Breed the survivors.

And it’s why they view public services as waste, fraud, and abuse.

Those who cannot labor do not deserve to eat.

Retirees on Social Security are “parasites”

It’s why the Ten Commandments are always in schools, never the beatitudes.

The only virtue is wealth.

They have hijacked Christianity. The rise of prosperity gospel, the politicization of the pulpit, all to serve centering Trump instead of Jesus.

Framing empathy as a sin.

Just to be clear, none of this is a mistake.

To the oligarchs, we are not equal. We are livestock. We are to be yolked, bred, worked, and left to die when we have outlived our usefulness.

And the singing orange.

YouTube video by mstatz Sesame Street - A drum from a barrel

That one was my favorite too
youtu.be/1MRl63M-fCk

The steel-drum-from-a-barrel one is a core memory for me. Sesame Street was a gift.

So those on the outside looking in will have a hard time seeing what’s actually happening.

Which is also intentional, because they also won’t see when things go bad or when to send help (if they’re even willing to by then).

Most local protests aren’t receiving significant news coverage, even from local media outlets. National news is all but ignoring them unless they have a “hook” that will go viral.

I have been paying into Social Security since I was 16.

It is an EARNED BENEFIT. It is an “entitlement“ only in the sense that I’m absolutely entitled to that benefit since they saw fit to take it from my paycheck with no way to opt out.

God I miss 2014.

The comments on DownDetector.com are… something.

Et tu, LinkedIn?