Jennifer Smyth

If democrats weren’t also so married to nakedly corrupt insider trading like the stuff done by Pelosi they could run on anti-corruption and win in landslides.

Illinois state police? So either Gov. Pritzker is saying one thing and doing another, or he has no control over the police nominally under his authority.

There’s a line in Elie Wiesel’s Night where someone says “Hitler is the only one…who’s kept all his promises to the Jewish people” that I cannot help thinking of when Trump gets mentioned in the context of doing what he says, or keeping promises, or even debating what we should take literally.

The thing about the modern Senate is all these people are criminals that desecrated their oath to the constitution and have enabled Trump to be a dictator every step of the way.

These aren't the friends of reformers, no matter how they spin themselves.

If he exposes it or doesn't play it well, they know they can't trust him and ice him out of things. If he keeps it quiet, the relationship continues and they tell him more and suddenly he is complicit.

No idea if @grahamformaine.bsky.social reads his BlueSky account but this is the old trick.

You call up the guy and regale him with how talented he is and how they could use his help up on Capitol Hill. Then you start telling him some insider goss and see how he plays it.

Hannah Arendt distinguished totalitarianism “from other forms of political oppression known to us such as despotism, tyranny and dictatorship” in that totalitarianism seeks to subjugate civil society and private lives, not just political opponents, using psychological, not just physical, repression.

Genie is the reason I really stopped and did a little digging into the construct/word, but she absolutely has been saying repeatedly that these men and women are aiming at totalitarianism. And it is what has been happening from jump. Not mere authoritarianism. Bigger. More complete. Final solutions.

Yes, this applies to so much right now. We'd get so much farther if the elaborate excuses got ditched and went with "they're just evil and dedicated to doing evil things."

City cleaning at historical Freedman’s Cemetery Memorial site stirs untrue vandalism fears Speculation that the Freedman’s Cemetery Memorial, a Dallas historical landmark and burial site for the city’s African American population, had been...

And here’s how this was reported initially, because people are always quite sure Black people are just being hysterical.

www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2...

They’re restoring monuments to the Confederacy while monuments to freedmen are vandalized.

One great aspect of iconic inflatable costumes (aside from how they instantly undermine propaganda about war zones) is that it's useless to arrest the person wearing one. Cuffing a frog would make law enforcement look pathetic. And carting one off just guarantees that more will show up the next day.

Crimes against humanity.

When America rebuilds itself (or when parts of it do), the people that run for office on a platform of prosecuting these goons will win in a landslide.

Trading on Tom Homan: Inside the Push to Cash in on the Trump Administration’s Deportation Campaign A Pennsylvania businessman who had Tom Homan on his payroll led companies to believe his connections to the future border czar could help advance their bids for government work, industry executives sa...

At least half a dozen companies vying for some of the $45B allocated for immigration detention work hired a friend of border czar Tom Homan because that friend (who previously had Homan on his payroll) led them to believe his connections to Homan would help their chances of scoring a contract.

The soft opening for this was telling teachers to necromance chatbots out of Anne Frank. There’s a historical parallel to this I’ve been chewing on, a bit of gristle stuck in my teeth since I wrote this footnote about a public debate in Weimar Germany on the educative potential of replicas. 🧵

People enjoy seeing Black people poor , they enjoy lecturing us about it, they love ignoring our observations by pointing to " commitments"

and they love feeling justified when we have appropriate human reactions they can villainize to justify the inequality

Madagascar’s president says illegal power grab by military is under way Soldiers from elite Capsat unit have announced they are taking over after weeks of youth-led protests Madagascar’s president said an “attempt to seize power illegally and by force” was under way, as an elite military unit that joined protesters on the streets on Saturday announced it was taking over the army. The Capsat unit’s intervention comes after weeks of youth-led protests, which started on 25 September against water and electricity shortages and expanded to calling for the resignation of the president, Andry Rajoelina, an end to corruption and radical overhaul of the political system. Continue reading...

Madagascar’s president says illegal power grab by military is under way

Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people Critics condemn Robby Starbuck, appointed in lawsuit settlement, for ‘peddling lies and pushing extremism’ A prominent anti-DEI campaigner appointed by Meta in August as an adviser on AI bias has spent the weeks since his appointment spreading disinformation about shootings, transgender people, vaccines, crime, and protests. Robby Starbuck, 36, of Nashville, was appointed in August as an adviser by Meta – owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other tech platforms – in an August lawsuit settlement. Continue reading...

Meta AI adviser spreads disinformation about shootings, vaccines and trans people

HOP

Never give up hop 🐸

An attempted coup is underway in Madagascar, the country's president says The president of madagascar says an attempted coup is underway in the Indian Ocean island country. A statement from President Andry Rajoelina’s office said it “wishes to inform the nation and the international community that an attempt to seize power illegally and by force” has been “initiated” on S

BREAKING: An attempted coup is underway in the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar, the country's president says.

No, resurrecting the corpse of Anne Frank so 12-year-olds can gossip with her is not how you “make history come alive.” It’s how you destroy history so that someone can come in, rewrite it, and then author a future to their liking.

So my point is that we need to get better at understanding when the language of progressivism is co-opted by bad actors to hustle into the public sphere (“too innovative for regulation”) technologies that threaten the basic foundations of trust necessary to a functioning society.

Also on the "never view politicians as saviors" front.

A quick reminder: The Salvation Army is an international organisation and the national branches are not administratively or financially independent. Australian Salvos may be (usually) less overt in, or better at getting away with, the fascism they do, but if you support them then you support US ICE.

Mainstream American Protestantism is basically a bronze age-esque civic religion where the purpose of the faith and community is, expressly, to justify and reinforce state authority

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party Has Accepted £2.3 Million from Fossil Fuel Interests, Climate Deniers, and Polluters Since 2019 Election Reform UK has received more than £2.3 million from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations...

Every day is a good day to point out that 92% of Reform's donations were found to come from figures and groups linked to the fossil fuel industry. @desmog.com

Numerous Billionaires Preparing for End of Society Billionaires are (still) doomsday prepping. AI — the tech many of them are building — has them more paranoid than ever.

Which they are doing their best to accelerate.

So thankful that dudes without game now have the option of driving all of our energy bills up to come up with devastating lines like it was nice to meet you

YouTube video by CassElliotVEVO Cass Elliot - Make Your Own Kind Of Music (Lyric Video)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mraL...

“But the politicians are scared of police violence,” hmm how do you think we feel about it?