Living Blue

10% of NASA’s workforce has been laid off—guess that’ll be a boost for SpaceX.

So universal background checks are intrusive but a billionaire having access to your social security number, tax records and payment records isn’t?

RONALD REAGAN (1988): We should be aware of the demagogues who are ready to declare a trade war against our friends, weakening our economy, our national security, and the entire free world—all while cynically waving the American flag.

Jasmine Crockett: "The problem is that Americans thought it was okay to take a full fledged criminal and make him the President of the US and then they want to act aghast when he does criminal things. Let me tell you, we have a thug in charge of the US and if we don't wake up we may not have a US"

This, over and over again.

The cover of the book Parable of the Sower.

Cannot stop thinking about how Octavia Butler wrote a book in 1993 about climate change. It opens with deadly fires in LA in 2025. In the story, a fascist President has just won office with the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."

She was a modern day Nostradamus. If only we'd listened.

How Democracies Live:

Congress banned TikTok for doing the same thing Cambridge Analytica did to get Trump elected.

Respectfully disagree. I use AI every day, my children use it everyday, my employer uses it everyday and it’s still early.

I trust the Chinese government more than I trust Elon Musk.

#sadbuttrue

If Dems can control the weather like MAGA proclaims then why isn’t it raining in Los Angeles right now?
🤷‍♂️

Let’s do this!

Billionaires have hijacked the narrative.

Just saying…

Or…. Just hear me out…
We could just elect a government that would hold insurance CEOs accountable for their actions.
Crazy right?

When you look at the world events taking place you do get the feel that all it will take is one provocation and we will have a world conflict on our hands.

Screw legacy.
If I was in his position I would pardon my son in a heartbeat.
And you’re a liar if you say you wouldn’t do the same.

Private prison operator stocks had a record day after Trump was announced the election winner.
Think about that for a minute.

Scary part is that all we have to hope for is that the Supreme Court stands up to Trump. And I don’t see that happening.

We thought the chains of societal control would be forced upon us.
Instead we have willingly took them and embraced them.
We have become slaves to the social media empires.
It steers our life on a minute by minute basis.

Is it possible that the billionaires have overplayed their hand?

Has their greed overshot their ability to keep the masses controlled by social media?

They used to have to recruit politicians to do their bidding.

Now they just run for office themselves and raid the national coffers firsthand.

Our society needs this presence. It’s not threatened by the LGBT crowd. It’s not threatened by bathroom gender choices. It’s threatened by a social media narrative that the right is forming that says stay young and angry and tough as long as you can.

My son looks up to me for the knowledge that I am able to pass along to him. My experience in life that says hey, there’s a better way than brute force. A mellowing presence that says slow down, think it out and here’s what I have found to work better.

What we are losing as a society is the mature, older male that makes decisions with his brain and not his pecker. We are losing that older wiser more patient males that mentor young men instead of trying to be like them.

Men are trying to hang onto their youth longer and longer. Testosterone treatments, ED meds, plastic surgery, Botox, hair replacements. Constantly trying to still be one of the boys even at older ages. And I think social media has a lot to do with that.

Show the “I got mine and screw everyone else” mentality.
Poor people are starving and homeless? They should have worked harder!
Kids get beat up for their uniqueness? That’ll teach them!

I think that is a lot of what we see today in the angry white guy crowd. A need for affirmation from the “cool” guys. And all too often that means attacking marginal communities to try to prove your macho tough mentality.

I’m also confident enough in my “manliness” that I don’t have to try and impress other men. I’m confident enough that I don’t need to look to other men for affirmation.

I see this quite a bit in just everyday life.
I’m a mid 50’s blue collar union guy and former Marine. I’m fit, financially secure and I like to think a great and strong Dad.

Nate Silver is the smart guy that wants to be liked by the “Alpha” crowd.
Insecure in his manliness so he has to play a part to the angry side.
Thread.