Vomiting It All Up
How Do We Get Rid Of This Cancer?
We MUST Answer
1984's Thought Police Are Already Here
From Mock Paper Scissors:

Elmo and the Incels has taken to hunt for 1984-style ThoughtCrime, which of course adds ThoughtPolice to their assorted CVs. And how are they doing this, you might ask yourselves?
AI, of course. One of its most obvious applications is to surveil your messages for disloyal thoughts and expressions.
"Trump administration officials have told some U.S. government employees that Elon Musk's DOGE team of technologists is using artificial intelligence to surveil at least one federal agency's communications for hostility to President Donald Trump and his agenda, said two people with knowledge of the matter."
"While much of Musk's Department of Government Efficiency remains shrouded in secrecy, the surveillance would mark an extraordinary use of technology to identify expressions of perceived disloyalty in a workforce already upended by widespread firings and severe cost cutting."
Of course, the irony here is that Big Balls et all are using Signal to avoid having their own communication and thought scraped by Grok:
"The DOGE team is also using the Signal app to communicate, according to one other person with direct knowledge of the matter, potentially violating federal record-keeping rules because messages can be set to disappear after a period of time."
"And they have "heavily" deployed Musk's Grok AI chatbot – an aspiring ChatGPT rival – as part of their work slashing the federal government, said that person. Reuters could not establish exactly how Grok was being used."
That's pretty easy to figure out: once they gained access to the servers, they gain access to the archives; they are using the Presidential Records Act against everyone but themselves.
As we said up front, Elmo and the Incels are Big Brother's ThoughtPolice.
And no one except a scattered handful of Democrats is standing up to this abuse.
Vomiting It All Up
This Guy?
From Greg Fallis:
Okay, first off, I admit I'm confused. I mean, I understand that Donald Trump, with the assistance of a cadre of feral Christo-fascist authoritarians and the support of a cartoonist collection of buffoons, is conducting an aggressive frontal assault on the US Constitution. And so far it's been mostly effective.
Unlike a LOT of folks, I'm inclined to think Trump has a plan. It's a very simple, very very stupid, and very selfish plan, to be sure. It's the sort of plan you'd expect from a cartoon villain. But it's still a plan. As I see it, Donald Trump's plan is as follows:
Make everybody dependent on the whims and wishes of Donald Trump.
It's ridiculous, isn't it. What Trump really wants, of course, is loyalty and respect. Two things he'll never get. He'll never get the respect he wants (and thinks he deserves), and I suspect he knows that. Nor will he ever get real loyalty, because loyalty is reciprocal; you earn loyalty by being loyal to others. Trump is loyal to nothing and nobody. Who's going to respect of be loyal to this guy?
Since he can't/won't get the respect and loyalty he truly wants, Trump has to settle for a shabby substitute–unquestioned obedience. The problem for Trump, even as POTUS, is that there are HUGE intentional limits to presidential obedience in a representative democracy.
The president's actual job is to preside over the government, not to rule it. 'Preside' literally means "to sit in front of." The president is basically like an orchestra leader. In order for Trump to command unquestioned obedience, he has to first weaken or destroy the Constitutional constraints on presidential power.
That's exactly what he's doing. In his first term, Trump converted the entire Republican Party to so-called MAGA loyalists (I say 'so-called' because many/most of the GOP are just sycophantic cowards or craven opportunists, not actual loyalists). He also stacked the Supreme court with 'loyalists'. The only check on his authority came from the professionals who occupied the Cabinet posts and the various governmental agencies. Now, in his second term, he's replaced the Cabinet secretaries and the heads of every government agency with more so-called loyalists. He's basically removed or degraded almost every federal administrative constraint on his authority (there are still some federal judges who remain independent, though they're under attack now).

But hey, it's working. Some large law firms and some universities have already compromised themselves; many news agencies have modified their coverage of Trump and are parroting his bullshit; a lot of businesses threatened by Trump's trade practices are considering personal appeals to Trump and praising his harmful policies. Intimidation works. But c'mon, how could anybody be intimidated by this guy?
I find truly astonishing that so many people and institutions are afraid of this guy. He's a cartoonish nitwit; he's more a malignant Elmer Fudd than an evil genius. The sheer mass of his ignorance could bend light. He's ten pounds of racist bullshit in a five pound bag. He's a coward and a liar. People are afraid of taking on this guy?
This guy?
"Fly My Pretties! Fly!"
Don't EVER Forget
This is who and what he is.
Vomiting It All Up
Don't Be Afraid To Call Things By What They Are
Words of Wisdom
For those who are stressed out and depressed by reading about politics, but don't want to completely block it out and risk being uninformed, here's a tip: Focus your reading on solutions, not problems. Read only articles and posts about what is being done to solve the problems we face, or about what should be done about them — about those who are fighting back against Trump's depredations in various ways, how you can help do so, how the Democrats need to change in order to win elections in the future, and suchlike. Skip the ones that are basically just "here are all the latest terrible things that are happening" or "here's yet another example of how bad and awful and terrible Trump is". You already know bad things are happening and you already know Trump is awful. Wallowing in more of that will just depress you further while providing nothing positive. Reading exclusively about resistance and positive action will keep you still informed but a lot less stressed out. – Infidel753
[Thanks Rick]
Relaying A Message
Mark Elias: An Open Letter to Elon Musk
(via http://ishouldbelaughing.blogspot.com/)
Elon Musk attacked democracy defender and superstar court lawyer Marc Elias as "undermining civilization," taunting him by asking if he suffered "generational trauma" and Elias's response was brilliant and worth amplifying:
Mr. Musk,
You recently criticized me and another prominent lawyer fighting for the rule of law and democracy in the United States. I am used to being attacked for my work, particularly on the platform you own and dominate.
I used to be a regular on Twitter, where I amassed over 900,000 followers—all organic except for the right-wing bots who seemed to grow in number. Like many others, I stopped regularly posting on the site because, under your stewardship, it became a hellscape of hate and misinformation.
I also used to buy your cars—first a Model X and then a Model S—back when you spoke optimistically about solving the climate crisis. My family no longer owns any of your cars and never will.
But this is not the reason I am writing. You don't know me. You have no idea whether I have suffered trauma and if I have, how it has manifested. And it's none of your business.
However, I will address your last point about generational trauma. I am Jewish, though many on your site simply call me "a jew." Honestly, it's often worse than that, but I'm sure you get the point. There was a time when Twitter would remove antisemitic posts, but under your leadership, tolerating the world's oldest hatred now seems to be a permissible part of your "free speech" agenda.
Like many Jewish families, mine came to America because of trauma. They were fleeing persecution in the Pale of Settlement—the only area in the Russian Empire where Jews were legally allowed to reside. Even there, life was difficult—often traumatic. My family, like others, lived in a shtetl and was poor. Worse, pogroms were common—violent riots in which Jews were beaten, killed and expelled from their villages.
By the time my family fled, life in the Pale had become all but impossible for Jews. Tsar Nicholas II's government spread anti-Jewish propaganda that encouraged Russians to attack and steal from Jews in their communities. My great-grandfather was fortunate to leave when he did. Those who stayed faced even worse circumstances when Hitler's army later invaded.
That is the generational trauma I carry. The trauma of being treated as "other" by countrymen you once thought were your friends. The trauma of being scapegoated by authoritarian leaders. The trauma of fleeing while millions of others were systematically murdered. The trauma of watching powerful men treat it all as a joke—or worse.
As an immigrant yourself, you can no doubt sympathize with what it means to leave behind your country, extended family, friends and neighbors to come to the United States. Of course, you probably had more than 86 rubles in your pocket. You probably didn't ride for nine days in the bottom of a ship or have your surname changed by immigration officials.
As new immigrants, life wasn't easy. My family lived in cramped housing without hot water. They worked menial jobs—the kind immigrants still perform today.
Some may look down on those immigrants—the ones without fancy degrees—but my family was proud to work and grateful that the United States took them in. They found support within their Jewish community and a political home in the Democratic Party.
I became a lawyer to give back to the country that gave my family a chance. I specialize in representing Democratic campaigns because I believe in the party. I litigate voting rights cases because the right to vote is the bedrock of our democracy. I speak out about free and fair elections because they are under threat.
Now let me address the real crux of your post.
You are very rich and very powerful. You have thrown in with [The Felon]. Whether it is because you think you can control him or because you share his authoritarian vision, I do not know. I do not care.
Together, you and he are dismantling our government, undermining the rule of law and harming the most vulnerable in our society. I am just a lawyer. I do not have your wealth or your platform. I do not control the vast power of the federal government, nor do I have millions of adherents at my disposal to harass and intimidate my opponents. I may even carry generational trauma.
But you need to know this about me. I am the great-grandson of a man who led his family out of the shtetl to a strange land in search of a better life. I am the grandson of the three-year-old boy on that journey. As you know, my English name is Marc, but my Hebrew name is Elhanan (אֶלְחָנָן)—after the great warrior in David's army who slew a powerful giant.
I will use every tool at my disposal to protect this country from [The Felon]. I will litigate to defend voting rights until there are no cases left to bring. I will speak out against authoritarianism until my last breath.
I will not back down. I will not bow or scrape. I will never obey.
Defiantly,
Marc Elias
Fuck Tesla
In London
Road Trip
We needed to get out of the house, out of the city, out of our heads for a bit, so this morning we headed south to Organ Pipe National Monument—because who knows how long any of our National Parks will be around at this point.
Lots of sahuaro and cholla cactus; not so much organ pipe.
And then we came upon this…
You've read about it. You've seen it on videos. But nothing prepares you for the horrific, ugly in-person reality of the orange felon's border fence separating the United States and Mexico:
I don't understand the gates. Why are there (admittedly welded shut) gates? What is their purpose?
I wonder how MAGA would react if Canada erected a similar fence on their southern border to keep us out…
And my final thought was are these fences being built to keep them out or to ultimately keep us in?
Vomiting It All Up
Absolute Fucking TRUTH
No Lies Detected
Seems Legit 🫤
A Reminder For Those In The Back…
Finally Some Good News… Or At Least A Break In The Shitstorm
From Palmer Report:
Elon Musk's DOGE agency was in trouble from the start when its co-head Vivek Ramaswamy resigned on literally day one of the Trump administration, and then the agency's top lawyer also resigned in the first week. Since that time Musk has made one harmful, incompetent, and bizarre move after another.
Over the weekend he swung for the fences by demanding that every federal employee immediately respond to his email or be fired. When five Trump-appointed agency heads told Musk to shove it, Musk then claimed the email was merely "voluntary." I wrote that this marked a major inflection point, because Musk had just forfeited all the leverage he had. Who would take his threats seriously after he backed down like that?
Sure enough, Musk is now fully on the defensive. Twenty-one DOGE staffers resigned today in protest of Musk's agenda. These people all recently took jobs with DOGE, meaning they were on board with what DOGE initially said it was going to do. Yet just a month in, they're now so disgusted with what DOGE has turned into that they're quitting very loudly, announcing their disgust to the Associated Press.
Elon Musk responded to the mass resignations by calling them "fake news" on Twitter, which is how you know the resignations are a blow to him. At this point Musk is now stuck playing defense against the courts which keep ruling against him, the Trump-appointed agency heads who keep defying him, and his DOGE staffers who have already turned against him. How much longer before Trump decides Musk is more trouble than he's worth and cuts him loose?