#Bush 41 Administration

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos:

On Monday, a group of over 200 former Republican officials endorsed Kamala Harris for president. These officials—who worked for the late Sen. John McCain, Sen. Mitt Romney, former Vice President Mike Pence, and Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush—represent the last three Republican administrations and the two Republican presidential candidates before Trump.  They all share a single message: “[R]e-electing President Trump would be a disaster for our nation.” Could Trump compile over 200 Democratic officials of a similar rank who support his candidacy? It’s not clear if he’d find that many supporters even among those who served in his administration. Either way, the support that Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, are getting from Republicans should be a big red flag to Trump and his supporters.

Joining the officials endorsing Harris is retired four-star General Larry Ellis, who served as the commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command under George W. Bush. This is the first time he has endorsed a candidate for president. "Donald Trump has demonstrated that he is wholly and dangerously unfit for Commander-in-Chief,” Ellis wrote in his endorsement of Harris. “He praises and emboldens our enemies that seek to weaken our country. He has denigrated our brave men and women in uniform.” The mass endorsement follows the appearance of former Republican officials during all four nights of last week’s Democratic National Convention. At least seven Republicans appeared on the DNC stage, including former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, former Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham.

Their endorsement of Harris doesn’t come because these Republicans have suddenly adopted Democratic policy positions. As the letter from the former officials states, they have “plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz.” But these officials are putting party aside to endorse Harris because they recognize the magnitude of Trump’s threat to American democracy.

[...] Republicans can try all they want, but the hundreds of lifelong Republican officials lining up behind Harris, as well as the long list of Trump officials who don’t want to see him return, is not something that can be just waved away. Neither can the “Republicans for Harris” groups that are appearing and gaining steam in swing states. What’s happening isn’t a big shift to the left by Republicans; it’s a broad recognition by those connected to past Republican administrations, and to many registered Republicans today, that Trump is not a continuation of the party of Abraham Lincoln. He doesn’t represent their concerns or their principles. 

Over 200 former Republican officials who worked for various Republican Presidencies and campaigns ranging from George H.W. Bush to Mike Pence, have endorsed Kamala Harris for President.

[deadpresidents]

"For the first time, I think [George H.W.] Bush looks like he's in over his head. You know, any effective leader has got to be a son of a bitch. [Dwight D.] Eisenhower was as cold as ice. He had to be to do the damn job. And [Lyndon B.] Johnson? Forget it. You have to instill the fear of God in your people in order to get results. This is Bush's problem. He's nice; everyone likes him. But no one fears him."

-- Former President Richard Nixon, on President George H.W. Bush, to his aide Monica Crowley, November 22, 1991

[mariacallous]

In the quaintly upsetting era of George W Bush’s presidency, there was something people liked to pompously call the “cultural opposition”. This was made up of figures in popular culture pushing back against Bush, and 20 years later it may be imagined their spiritual heirs are limbering up for equivalent duties. The first formal opportunity falls next week with Donald Trump’s inauguration and, just as leaders in the tech and business worlds have failed spectacularly to rally against him, so a sense prevails that among certain artists and influencers there has been a gentle softening of spines too.

This is a general observation and also one located in the figure of Carrie Underwood, the country star scheduled to sing the national anthem in Trump’s honour on Monday. Underwood, a 41-year-old who came to prominence via the fourth season of American Idol, may seem a slim figure on whom to hang observations about the waning of cultural opposition towards Trump. There persists a feeling, however, that in 2016, no singer-songwriter of Underwood’s prominence would have offered her services to the Trump administration. Back then, when Trump’s election struck many in the US and around the world with the force of an out-of-body experience, the best the inauguration committee could come up with was another talent-show graduate and holder of the unfortunate mantle “former child star”, Jackie Evancho.

By contrast, Underwood is a multi-platinum artist who has won eight Grammys. She is not Lady Gaga, who appeared at Joe Biden’s inauguration. Nor is she Beyoncé (Barack Obama), Aretha Franklin (also Obama) or even Jennifer Lopez (Biden). But she is a big name with a huge following, and her willingness to appear for Trump follows a general pattern of appeasement publicly justified as “why can’t we all get along?” national unity. Life is a journey, after all, and glancing down the inaugural set list, we can see how far some of next week’s artists-for-Trump have come. Victor Willis, for example, the only original member still in the disco group the Village People, has enjoyed a growth mindset that has taken him from sending cease-and-desist letters to Trump in 2020 demanding he stop using his 1978 hit Macho Man at his rallies, to making himself available for the inauguration weekend and assuring everyone he is not a “Trump hater”.

To be fair to the American cultural elite, the rest of the lineup for Trump’s inaugural festivities is pretty low grade, involving, as inevitably as a cockroach rising after a nuclear event, Kid Rock, as well as Billy Ray Cyrus and classical singer Christopher Macchio (no idea either). Plus the now reformed Village People, still led by Willis, who recently claimed, thrillingly, that YMCA wasn’t ever supposed to be a gay anthem and whose wife threatened to sue anyone who said otherwise. All the inauguration needs at this point is Marilyn Manson dithering about on stage like a Camden Market goth from the 1990s, and it will have found its perfect level.

Underpinning these cultural wobbles, of course, is the momentous backsliding towards Trump of US money. Meta, Apple, Amazon and Google have collectively contributed millions to the inauguration fund, as have BP, Boeing, Delta, Uber and, with a nice touch of irony, the trading-platform-for-little-people, Robinhood. This is opportunism of a kind that singers and artists at least have the decency to hide in other parts of the world, rather than shove under American noses. (I’m thinking vaguely of Beyoncé, and Kylie, while we’re at it – both of whom played for millions of dollars at private events in Dubai, where their gay fans enjoy the risk of imprisonment.)

Anyway, as usual, next week the job of being more morally rigorous than everyone else falls to Michelle Obama, who in defiance of protocol will not be attending the inauguration (she skipped Jimmy Carter’s funeral, too, a decision it is imagined was rooted in Trump-avoidance). She is an outlier. In 2009, President Obama capped individual contributions to his inauguration fund at $50,000, but of course Trump hasn’t done that, and so great and unseemly has been the rush to donate that there’s likely to be a surplus, which it is said will go towards the Donald J Trump presidential library. And if you are smirking at the oxymoron of the words “Trump library”, then you simply don’t believe in national unity and are precisely why the man was elected in the first place.

[sophieinwonderland]

Oh no! Imagine a world where innocent people are detained in Guantanamo Bay, in inhumane conditions, without legal representation. It’s truly unthinkable and never happened before!

Also, “those non humans Muslims were all evil war criminals (unlike Obama and Rapist Biden of course), but also Obama actually released almost all of them”, bitch do you hear yourself or islamophobia and Anti Arab racism destroy your brain ??? What next, soldiers didn’t committed rape, torture, sexual humiliation, and war crimes in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ??

So you're still ignoring that Obama and Biden didn't send anyone new to Gitmo?

That both worked throughout their administrations to transfer prisoners and reduce the number of inmates?

That on day 1 of his Presidency, Obama issued an executive order banning torture of the prisoners?

That Obama managed to reduce the number of prisoners from the 200s when he came in to 41 when he left office?

That this was in spite of heavy Republican congressional opposition, that passed rules banning money being used to transfer prisoners to the US or countries they viewed as sponsors of terrorism? (Which prevented a lot of detainees from being sent to their home countries.)

That Joe Biden, by the time he left office, further reduced the number of detainees in Gitmo down to only 15 despite facing the same congressional restrictions from Republicans as Obama?

You don't like that the Democrat Presidents didn't do quite enough to free the people detained at Gitmo by the Bush Administration? You don't like that they didn't do enough to close the facility down? Neither do I.

But if you are looking at Obama and Biden actively working through their administrations to empty out Gitmo, even as slowly as they were... and then you look at Trump who ceased this process in his first term (which is why Biden started his term with roughly the same number of detainees as Obama ended his with,) and has promised to fill Gitmo with 30,000 people, nearly 40 times as much as it held at its highest capacity... and your conclusion is "both sides are the same because people were technically being held in Gitmo during all of these administrations," I genuinely don't know what to tell you.

I simply wish you the best life someone with your complete lack of ability for critical thinking or understanding of nuance can conceivably have.

Meanwhile, I hope that people who do possess even a shred of rationality are terrified that Trump is turning the facility that was infamous for torture under the last Republican President, which had been reduced to a population of only 15 thanks to the effort of the last two Democrat administrations, into a concentration camp for immigrants.

[darkmaga-returns]

Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report, says the real work for the Trump Administration is happening now.  CAF is a financial expert and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.) who managed hundreds of billions of dollars in her career.  CAF says this is a fight within the Trump Administration that is summed up by those who will fight for freedom and sovereignty and those who want America under Deep State control.  CAF explains, “You had a lot of people who voted for Trump that wanted to see him protect freedoms.  You also have a lot of people voting and donating for Trump because they think he can get them the control grid.  The centralization and decentralization are both hoping Trump will give them what they want. . . . Trump has to do something that works economically.  The first day, Trump will be asked to fill the top 10 or 20 positions.  Ultimately, after you fill the cabinet and the other top positions, then there are another 10,000 positions to be filled.  The President does 1,000 positions, and those thousand do the rest of about 10,000 positions.  The guys who want the control grid are trying to get their people in place.  The guys who want freedom are trying to get their people in place. . . . After you get the people in place, it’s going to have to be battled out one policy at a time. . . . So, this is trench warfare, and it’s not going to be decided by the election.  It’s going to be decided by the staffing and the policy debate that happens day after day.

The corruption that has to be cleaned up is huge.  Take the recent announcement of royalties being paid to a government health agency — the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  CAF says, “The NIH is receiving $1.1 billion from Pfizer–BioNTech for the Covid vaccine shots.”

Ed Dowd says we just added a fresh 800,000 disabled people to the 4 million disabled since the CV19 shots were introduced.  The total amount of disabled people in the US from the CV19 vax now stands at 4.8 million.

[booksinmythorax]

On Tyranny and Tumblr #8: "Stand out."

Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

So this is the first time that Snyder has annoyed me. It doesn't invalidate his point, which we'll get to in a minute, but he did.

Here's how: He invoked Rosa Parks in this blurb, then spent the whole chapter discussing Winston Churchill and Teresa Prekerowa as in-depth examples of standing out. The latter, a Polish woman who brought food and medicine to the Warsaw ghetto, helped a Jewish family escape it before they would have been killed, and later became a historian of the Holocaust, certainly deserves note, but still.

As a historian of European history, it's understandable for Snyder to use his expertise in this book. However, it's annoying to me when white Americans say "Rosa Parks!" when they want to argue for standing out and then don't follow up with any background information.

If you're an American reading this, you probably know that Rosa Parks' action on a Montgomery, Alabama bus was the catalyst for the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. I hope you also know that her refusal to move when a white passenger complained was a planned action by a group of activists, not just a spontaneous decision because she was "tired".

You might not know that Parks was fired from her Montgomery job after her act of bravery. You might not know that she received death threats for years afterward, or that she had to move from Montgomery to Detroit, over 800 miles, after the boycott. You might not know (I didn't!) that she worked as a secretary for U.S. Representative John Conyers from Michigan for 23 years. Her activism continued long after the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Parks died in 2005. She was the first woman to "lie in honor" for viewing and public paying of respects in the Capitol Rotunda.*

Five states recognize a Rosa Parks Day sometime in the calendar. Notably, her birthplace and the location of her most famous activism, Alabama, does not.

So, with all that in mind, I'd like to amend Mr. Snyder's advice a little:

Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. Remember Rosa Parks. The moment you set an example, all hell may break loose, you may suffer personal consequences, and your life may never be the same. But the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

This is something we can do online. It is most effective in real life, in person, collectively. In addition to that:

-If someone you know personally, particularly someone with a lot of power, says or does something aligning with the incoming administration, speak up. Respond in the forum in which they speak, whether that's their social media page or dinner in your kitchen. Name-calling and snark are unlikely to change anybody's mind, but firmly disagree out loud and tell them why. Your speech will make others who disagree more likely to speak up.

-Keep calling your representatives. Use scripts sourced from social media or from the app 5 Calls if you want.

-Use your own social media to talk about issues you find important.

-If it is safe for you in your immediate environment, talk about your identities and your experiences online. Sometimes "standing out" is as easy as talking about your day.

Other lessons from On Tyranny:

#1: Do not obey in advance

#2: Defend institutions

#3: Beware the one-party state

#4: Take responsibility for the face of the world

#5-7: Remember professional ethics, Be wary of paramilitaries, and Be reflective if you must be armed

#9: Be kind to our language

#10: Believe in truth

*This was during George W. Bush's second term. His approval rating was terrible at 41 points at that time, and would fall to as low as an abysmal 25 points by late 2008. Rosa Parks deserved a state funeral, but the decision may have been a way for W to try and gain some approval among liberals. The only other non-state officials to have lain in honor in the Rotunda so far have been 2 Capitol Police officers in 1998, evangelical pastor Billy Graham in 2018, and 2 more Capitol Police officers in 2021.

[readingsquotes]

...Biden’s failures in the Middle East predated and in many ways made possible the October 7 Hamas attacks that set off Israel’s brutal campaign. The bar was already in hell, but compared to almost any of his predecessors other than Trump in his first term, Biden did not even make a token effort to bring about a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (yes, even George W. Bush tried harder—look it up). After Trump shifted U.S. policy in the region well to the right—moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel’s authority over the Golan Heights, and negotiating the “Abraham Accords” that normalized Israel’s relationships with several Arab countries without any nod toward Palestinians—there was near-total continuity in policy going into the Biden administration, with Trump’s moves treated as fait accompli.

...The Harris campaign’s contempt for Palestinians was so palpable that a pro-Trump PAC funded by Elon Musk capitalized on it, targeting ads at Arab Americans in swing states that claimed Harris would “ALWAYS stand with Israel.” It was a cynical play—the same PAC also targeted Jews in swing states with the exact opposite message—but Harris left a wide opening for it, and the thing is, it worked: many Arab Americans in Michigan and other swing states actually did switch from Biden to Trump.

...In the same week that the ceasefire deal was tentatively announced, two other stories broke that spotlighted the extent of Biden’s moral and political failure in Palestine. One was The Lancet’s publication, subsequently covered in the New York Times, of a peer-reviewed study of traumatic injury deaths in the Gaza Strip from October 7, 2023 through June 30, 2024. The study estimated that the Palestinian Ministry of Health underreported such deaths by 41 percent during that period, and that over 64,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, had died from traumatic injury, a figure that does not include the untold thousands more who died of starvation or disease resulting from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza’s infrastructure (a previous analysis published by The Lancet estimated total Palestinian deaths to that point at over 186,000). Another six months of nonstop devastation in Gaza have passed since the data for The Lancet study was collected.

...Taken together, the Lancet study and the IMEU survey capture Biden’s decision to prioritize the slaughter of countless Palestinians over what he himself described as the core mission of his presidency: saving American democracy and preventing Trump from returning to power. As Trump sets about dismantling his predecessor’s fragile domestic accomplishments, the mass killing in Gaza is the one aspect of Biden’s legacy that can never be erased. When Trump rounds up migrants and refugees and forces them into camps, or guts the federal regulatory state, or ushers in the next mass-casualty pandemic—it will all be downstream of an addled Biden’s stubborn refusal to apply meaningful pressure on Netanyahu for fifteen months. After a decades-long and profoundly mediocre political career, it’s what Biden deserves to be remembered for.

[militantinremission]

Why aren't Blackfolk feeling Kamala Harris?

Many outside of the [Indigenous] Black American Community are befuddled by Our COLLECTIVE rejection of Kamala Harris. Afterall, she's a 'Black' Woman that (supposedly) shares Our Experience. Why don't We give Donald Trump the same heat? Are We 'Closet Trumpers'? What about Project 2025- Aren't We concerned?! In a Word, NO. New Black Media is on a Crusade against Kamala Harris for several reasons:

She's a Democratic Candidate & the DNC hasn't done ANYTHING for Us since 1968.

She's a Prosecutor who went after Blackfolk for 'Quality of Life' Offenses, but Campaigns that she targeted 'Predators' & Drug Cartels.

She ILLEGALLY kept Black Inmates past their Release Dates, 2 profit from Prison Leasing.

She publicly stated that she wouldn't do ANYTHING just for Blackfolk Only, but has been Very Specific in getting BILLIONS for the AAPI Community.

She is Directly Responsible for the Illegal Immigrant problem currently affecting Blackfolk more than any other Demographic.

We DEMAND Tangibles, but she continues to insult Us by rolling out Bootlick Celebrities pushing Identity Politics over Policy.

I KNOW that as Black Americans, we're supposed to be functional illiterates that can't think & chew gum at the same time; but Folks should take a Closer Look at American History. Most of America's inventions & innovations came from the Minds of Black Men & Women. MANY couldn't afford Patents & either sold their inventions, like Granville Woods, or were swindled out of them. To be clear, We're FAR from Stupid.

Donald Trump is NOT a threat to Black Americans. In spite of his outlandish Comments & Talking Points, he's No Worse than 'Jim Crow Joe'- who PROMISED to have Black America's 'Back', but reneged on EVERY PROMISE made to Us. Joe Biden behaves like his Dixiecrat Mentors. He is clearly about marginalizing Black America, & Kamala said her Platform doesn't differ much from Biden's.

In the Black Community:

Immigration is more important than Abortion.

Reparations is more important than decriminalizing Marijuana federally.

Prison Reform is more important than the threat of Project 2025.

Kamala's 'Plan for Black Men' was an INSULT! The DNC assumed Blackfolk don't read past the Title Page, & wouldn't see the language that says this Plan is for EVERYONE. We have been dealing w/ Democratic Doublespeak for over 50Yrs now; watching Our Neighborhoods being neglected, while Resources meant for Us were diverted to build up Newcomers.

Donald Trump doesn't represent a Political Party that We supported LOYALLY for the last 64Yrs. We don't expect anymore from Trump than We expected from Reagan or Bush (41 & 43). The Fact of the Matter is, a Harris- Walz Administration likely means a continuation of Neo Liberal Policy that PURPOSELY marginalizes Black Americans, while propping up Immigrants w/ resources originally meant for Us.

Donald Trump, is a Megalomaniac that has No Regard for ANYONE. Fred Trump may have been a Klansman, but Donald is an Equal Opportunity Manipulator. Judging from his 1st Term in Office, Donald Trump isn't particular about WHO he grifts. If Black America is screwed regardless, We'll see to it that EVERYONE feels the Bite.

-Our Ancestors survived worse

[choppedcowboydinosaur]

Here is my view/retrospective on the legacy of emo rock/pop punk bands I listened to growing up. Also, some bands that aren't emo/pop punk but I still like.

All American Rejects: I always thought they were the rivals to Green Day, but their legacy isn't as big as the other bands in pop culture at the time. Their legacy on Bionicle for Toa Inika commercials is good. Shame they aren't as big in retrospect since I like their songs a s a kid and as an adult.

Green Day: They had a massive Pop culture impact. They peaked with the American Idiot album. A lot of their early stuff is good. Their early albums in the 90's capture this sense of malaise, angst and edginess while occasionally having funny songs. American Idiot is probably their strongest album and the most political one since it's against the Bush Administration, the Iraq War and all the shit the neocons were doing at the time. It was very energetic, intense and introspective. While 21st Century Breakdown feels like the leftovers of American Idiot. It still has the same style as American Idiot but is not as intense. 21st Century Breakdown felt more resigned than American Idiot. Like the fight was fading from them. I still like 21st Century Breakdown nonetheless. The most recent song I heard was that one where they are making fun of mass shooters called Mommy's Little Psycho. It's a decent song in its own right and the subject matter is a good satire. But in terms of the energy, it felt lacking compared to their older stuff. It feels kind of worn out. If that's how that song was, I'm guessing the rest of the album it came from must be the same unfortunately.

Politically, they are the definition of being fake rebels especially Billy Joe Armstrong. He acts like an edgy anarchist but is more of a basic bitch liberal. Kind of a shame tbh since their live shows seem fun. He never criticized Obama's foreign policy and surveillance state despite building off what Bush did. That always bugged me since he was one of the most vocal anti-Bush rockers during that time period. I've noticed this since middle school when comparing them to other pop punk bands at the time like Rise Against which was more radical. Mind you my middle school years was during George W. Bush's 2nd term where everyone was bitching about him. Sorry to bitch about politics folks it ends here. Overall, they do have good music with their older songs, but they aren't as edgy as they make themselves out to be.

My Chemical Romance: These guys also had a big impact on pop culture and Gerard Way leveraged it for his comic book writing career. When I was growing up, I thought of them as THE EMO ROCK BAND growing up. Their early stuff is surprisingly raw and kind of hardcore. Their later stuff is still good but doesn't have the same edge as their first album. The first album is more politically driven because of Gerard Way's trauma to 9/11 and it's aftermath. But it's integrated as more of this darker feeling rather than being explicit like Green Day was. I still like them.

Blink 182: They surprisingly had a big effect on other pop punk bands. Looking back, it feels like a lot of smaller bands at the time were imitating them like MxPx, Sum 41 and Anarbor. A lot of those bands felt like they were copying that fun feel Blink 182 has. They were always more light fun rather than being edgy or political. But that's fine since they were good at it. They basically were the band that were reflective of young boys in the 2000's. Fun, crass but not that edgy but still entertaining, nonetheless.

Jimmy Eats world: I don't know if they left a massive legacy but i like some of their songs. They can go surprisingly hard with songs like Disintegration.

Fall Out Boy: I don't know if they influenced other bands but I do like a lot of their earlier stuff. Mainly the stuff from the early 2000's. Their early 2010's albums like Save Rock and Roll and American Beauty are ok. I have a particular soft spot for the song What a Catch Donnie. It just speaks to me.

Panic at the Disco: I always felt they were meant to be rivals to MCR. I do enjoy the earlier stuff. Though the later stuff is just Brendan Urie doing his own thing which is still decent, and you can see how he evolves. I always thought Panic at the Disco was the whole band not just a Brendan Urie vehicle. I always thought bands just focused on staying together rather than splitting apart to do their own thing. Turns out that's actually pretty common in bands. I guess a lot of those rock band movies I watched as a kid were misleading. Really love that Green Gentleman song. It's probably my favorite song of theirs.

Red hot chili peppers: They're not pop punk but I still like their music. They're fun and interesting to listen to even to this day. I'm not sure what sub-genre they fall under buy I guess they fit into the alt-rock umbrella, I guess. Many of their songs still hold up and have a good variety to them. Some are intense, some are more introspective, and some have this sort of laid-back feel to them. I think that variety is why I like them.

Foo Fighters: I've grown to appreciate them over the years. Since I did not listen to them as a kid but rather as a teenager. Which is funny since they are probably older than most of the bands listed here so I guess I got into them kind of late. Once again, they're not pop punk but still good. I've listened to them from the mid 2000's to my high school years. I've gradually listened to more of their songs, and they hold up really well.

The Offspring: I've grown to appreciate them over the years. Since I only listened to a few of their songs growing up (mainly the Crazy Taxi theme song) but as an adult have listened to more of them. Basically, they are what Green Day wishes it was politically. They're left wing but they feel more legit somehow. Like they're more sincere and have more of an edge to them. They're not anarchist but more legit. I guess they incorporate it more naturally rather than having to put up a front. Also, they have lots of funny songs too. So, it's a good balance.

Atari's: I discovered them some years ago. Shame I never listened to them beforehand. They are fairly good. Not the greatest but worth listening to some of their songs. The acoustic version of Looking Back on Today is really good. Better than the electric guitar version. The acoustic one feels more soulful.

Anarbor: I learned of them through Cartoon Network as a kid. I enjoyed them when I was younger. They didn't stand out too much and were kind of reflective of the bands of that time period. They were still enjoyable, nonetheless.

Reel Big Fish: They are ska not pop punk, but I love their music. They are very funny as hell. I put them here as an honorable mention. They are not just funny but very entertaining in their own right.

Sum 41: I heard a few of their songs like Fat lip growing up. They are another one of those bands that in retrospect are reflective of the time they were made in. They're entertaining but don't stand out too much or change the genre.

The main thing I remember them from is We're all to blame from Godzilla Final Wars. 10-year-old me loved that and it goes harder than a Sum 41 song has any right to. it also spawned tons of Godzilla AMV's in the late 2000's on YouTube. I still love it to this day.

Those are my views on 2000's emo rock bands, pop punk bands and other bands of that time. There is a tinge of nostalgia to this, but I also tried to be more analytical. It's kind of hard not to be nostalgic about this since I pretty much grew up with these bands as a kid. But I hope I did a good job, nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed reading this!

[limelocked]

the more i read about the 2006 palestinian elections via wiki page rabbit holes the more i think the language surrounding it is so EXTREMLY weird considering where we are now with a divided palestinian government where theres not been legislative or presidential elections for soon 18 years even tho the attempt has been made at Least twice and has been embraced by both hamas and fatah in 2021 only for the scheduled election in may the same year to be suspended indefinitely by soon 18 year president abbas whos term was supposed to end 2009

from what im reading hamas and fatah got a ye old american split in 2006 where hamas got 44% of votes and fatah 41% which was a shock for israel and usa who favored fatah, this in itself would have not been a problem if not for

SURPRISE! PEOPLE GETTING INVOLVED THAT HAVE NO RIGHT GETTING INVOLVED!

the quartet on the middle east is a group of the usa, russia, the un, and the eu which for some reason was in charge of mediating between israel and palestine (please observe the usa bush administration in the room with us as well as the marked lack of middle eastern representation within the mediating parties)

the quartet said that the election was free and fair but

where youd fucking think it was the non-violence part that hamas had problems with or the recognizing israel part and maybe it was but im reading the wiki page for the Road Map of peace which is what this is talking about and good fucking god dude its so bad but if you insist on not reading the article which you should its terrible just know that famous war criminal george bush of 9/11 fame and a hardline israeli president (who as defense minister was found by an official israeli enquiry to bear personal responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre) was calling a lot of the shots and being dicks about how palestines parliament should look like and who should get to do all the violence (israel, against palestinians)

so yeah the quartet was kinda asking for a lot and hamas which had branded itself on reform and change to the at the time kinda pathetic government (re: Road Map from 2000-2004 holy shit) said we're not gonna do all that to which fatah said well then were not forming a unity government to which hamas went well were gonna form a government anyways and they did which was followed by a year of tension and conflict between hamas and fatah, international sanctions levied against the palestinian government, and the blockade of gaza (which hamas had not yet taken over)

in 2007 a unity government was created. according to leaked documents authenticated by the guardian and published together with al jazeera; abbas and the PLO conspired to form this government and if it didnt meet the quartets conditions abbas would dissolve government and set up an emergency government, which happened when hamas allied forced and fatah allied forces clashed in gaza, believed by IISS to have started over suspicion by hamas that the fatah allied presidential guard (loyal to abbas and expanded by the us) was going to take over gaza

concluding statements: the way the media talks about this time is either that gaza exclusively voted for hamas without mentioning that hamas won the majority in all of occupied palestine, or its talked about as a coup done for shits and giggles with no contributing factors. whats almost never talked about is the external involvements prior to and after the election

abbas has the constitutional power to call an election as the president, he could just do it still, thats a thing he could do

[deadpresidents]

"If I gain Reagan's confidence, I'll have tons to do. If I don't, I'll be going to funerals in Paraguay."

-- George H.W. Bush, on what his role would be as Ronald Reagan's Vice President, during the 1980 campaign

[bllsbailey]

Biden Official Who Trump Fired and Was Reinstated by an Obama Judge Has Been Fired Again

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed President Trump to re-fire Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger pending the disposition of Dellinger's lawsuit for reinstatement. This is a very important decision as it overturns the order by District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson

forcing the Trump administration to reinstate Dellinger (DC Circuit Court Judge Orders OMB, Treasury to Reinstate Legally Protected Official Who Trump Fired – RedState).

The backstory is that Dellinger, according to statute, can only be removed from office “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Trump fired Dellinger using a recent Supreme Court precedent as the rationale. Shortly after being reinstated, Dellinger began waging guerilla warfare against Trump's dismissal of probationary federal employees by pushing their cases to the Merit System Protection Board. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court (see Trump Sends Scorching Appeal of DC Court Order Reinstating Biden Appointee to the Supreme Court – RedState). The Supreme Court sent the case to the DC Circuit for review without taking action; Supreme Court Punts on Trump Firing Legally Protected Official – RedState; and a three-judge panel ruled on that tonight.

The two-page ruling Wednesday from three judges on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals contained no detailed explanation. But it said lawyers for the Trump administration had met the legal standard to lift an injunction that U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued on Saturday.

IANAL, so I'll turn to friend and former RedState colleague Bill Shipley for analysis.

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has just vindicated CJ Roberts.  The Court has just granted the Motion to Stay the Order of Judge Amy Berman Jackson that Hampton Dellinger remain as head of the Office of Special Counsel while he litigates the legality of his dismissal without cause in alleged violation of the statutory requirement that he can be removed only "for cause."    Chair of the MSPB Cathy Harris was allowed to join the proceedings as amicus -- the same issue applies to her, with Judge Contreras having ordered that she remain in her position while litigating her dismissal.  This is "regular order".  Judge Jackson issued a ruling on the merits Saturday night, granting summary judgment for Dellinger.  The DOJ filed a Notice of Appeal, and a Motion to Stay Judge Jackson's order that Dellinger remain as head of the Office of Special Counsel.  The Appeals Court has now undone her Order while the appeal is pending.  That means the TRO and Prelim Injunction are vacated and the firing of Dellinger is now back in effect.  I expect the same will happen next to Cathy Harris. 

Cathy Harris was the head of the Merit Systems Protection Board, enjoying the same statutory protections as Dellinger, and whom Trump fired anyway. She has also been ordered reinstated; see Judge Orders Biden Appointee Fired by Trump Reinstated to Office – RedState. The appeals court allowed her to file an amicus brief in this case. 

The Supreme Court held a motion to vacate Judge Jackson's TRO "in abeyance" while she was considering the merits.  She acknowledged such during the hearing when she said she understood the Supreme Court was watching over her shoulder.  BUT, the Appeals Court has now done its job -- meaning the decision by SCOTUS to respect "regular order" was the correct one.    That said -- the panel granting the stay has two GOP appointees -- Judge Henderson (Bush 41) and Judge Waker (Trump).    DOJ was fortunate in the draw in that regard.

No matter how the appeals court panel rules, this is headed back to the Supreme Court. I think Dellinger is toast because he is the sole director in the Office of Special Counsel and his case is a nearly perfect analog for Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the 2020 Supreme Court ruling that permitted Trump to fire the head of the CFPB because he was a sole director who could not, according to statute, be fired.

The Harris case will be more interesting and significant. It will test the validity of the Humphrey's Excecutor precedent and the amount of control the president has over the administrative state; see Trump Declares War on the Administrative State – RedState.

[back-and-totheleft]

Hubris Inc.

Not every child of the sixties was a flower child. At Yale in 1965, when George W. Bush was a young pledge at DKE, the fraternity to which his war-hero father had belonged, Oliver Stone was about to throw away the staid future his investment-banker father had planned for him. The two didn’t know each other, and they were hurtling on different trajectories. While Bush was learning the nicknames of his new frat brothers, Stone was burrowing into his foxhole of postadolescent alienation. “I was 19, and I said, ‘Look, I can’t make it, I can’t go to Yale, I don’t belong in these groups, I don’t belong here,” recalls Stone, who is in a back booth at the Royalton Hotel, looking weary from the exertions of finishing his new movie, W., which comes out next week. He’s a large man, but even so, his fleshy, Mayan-obelisk head looks too big for his body.

Stone dropped out of Yale, and the voyage he embarked on was both outward—to Vietnam and later Mexico, standard stops on the sixties itinerary—and inward. “I wanted to get rid of the ego,” he says. Bush’s trip out of the sixties could not have been more different, but he, too, had something he was running from. “Losing the ego is one reason born-agains are born again. It’s a key of Christianity, Evangelicism,” says Stone. “George Bush is broken, now you take the persona of Jesus.”

The dreams of the sixties often started in unhappy families. Though on opposite sides of the culture war, Bush and Stone were, fundamentally, questioners of the same authority—their fathers. (Stone’s was an aide-de-camp to Eisenhower and a staunch Republican who had a highly successful Wall Street career.) But the world these children of the greatest generation wanted to inherit was not the same one that their elders wanted to pass along. Instead, they chose to Easy-Ride their own paths to adulthood.

With W., Stone intends a kind of semi-comic Citizen Kane of the current administration, flashing back to find the source of the troubles of the past eight years in W.’s youthful hurts—family damage that changed the world. Releasing the film now, in the middle of a campaign in which the president’s failures are topic A, but the president himself seems out of the picture, requires an Oliver Stone–size hubris. We’ve seen this horror show on television—we know the punch lines, the motivations, the backstory. Will people really want to sit through two more hours of a Bush presidency? Stone is more than conscious of the risk. “It may miss completely,” he says, with real nervousness.

But Stone has always worked to force himself into the center of the national discourse. And W. has been a headlong, five-month race to catch up with history. “When we started,” he says, “no one wanted this movie. ‘Who’s interested in Bush?’ was the idea. ‘We hate the guy,’ or ‘He’s gone in January.’ And I kept arguing, ‘You have no idea how important the guy is in the culture.’ ”

W. is essentially the story of a son’s turning the tables on a disapproving father. “I think it’s very hard to be a first son who’s a black sheep, who’s a failure,” says Stone. “All his life, that is a traumatic, emotional thing.” The elder Bush, as played by James Cromwell, is a remote, scolding presence (with little of the silver-foot-in-the-mouth comic logorrhea of the real 41), convinced of his own rectitude, constantly reminding W. (Josh Brolin) that he’s no Jeb. “You’re a Bush. Act like one,” he says in an early scene, after ticking off a list of his firstborn’s many failures.

The fulcrum of the movie, the moment when W. measures himself against his father, is the 1992 election, when Bush Sr. taps his eldest—Jeb was unavailable, Poppy explains, twisting the knife—to run his campaign. “That ’92 election scarred Bush—both Bushes, the whole family,” says Stone. “And when they lost, people could say Bush didn’t seal the deal in Iraq, he waffled on taxes. And the son said, ‘It will never happen to me, I will never be as weak as my father.’ ”

Stone’s own damage is much more operatic. While he certainly has Daddy issues, it’s safe to say that Mommy (still living in New York) was the one who really fucked him up. A glamorous, elusive, free-spending Frenchwoman who had numerous affairs, she eventually left for good when Stone was away at boarding school—though not before teaching him how to masturbate (“I don’t remember that she touched my person,” he once told an interviewer).

An only child, Stone was simultaneously obsessed over and neglected, the center of a world whose center did not hold, and he was propelled out of his adolescence a prodigiously talented, prodigiously damaged seeker. There’s autobiography just below the surface in all of his movies. It’s a species of boundless baby-boom narcissism—he has remade his private damage into what he put forth as the American story.

Josh Brolin as George W. Bush and Toby Jones as Karl Rove in W.Photo: Sidney Ray Baldwin/Courtesy of Lionsgate While Stone rejected much of his father’s belief system, and even had to be bailed out of jail just as W. is in the movie, he’s made peace with his father’s memory. “I never had to be stronger than him because he was strong,” Stone says. “My father was a man who was blunt—he made many enemies by what he said. He used to tell me, ‘Don’t ever tell the truth, kiddo, you’ll get into trouble.’ ”

Stone is a man of the left, but much like Norman Mailer, he’s always been too bombastic, too egotistical, too enamored of his own masculinity to be fully accepted by those who share his views. W. is not likely to change many of these minds. He insists that, regarding his portrayal of W., his large thumb is not on the scale. “You can make up your own mind,” he says. A more vexing question is verisimilitude. Stone’s films have annexed territory previously the province of journalism and history, which is why debates over factual accuracy (as with JFK) have dogged his career. Stone now seems exhausted by these battles. “All the scenes are necessitated by real events that occurred,” he says with a sigh. “There is a list of annotations we can give you.”

But fact-checking W.—which is certainly more moderate than, say, the typical Paul Krugman column about the president—misses the point. And real or imagined, there are some wonderful scenes and performances. The gang is all here, tweaked to a point just south of satire. Thandie Newton plays Condi Rice with a sycophancy that’s almost canine. Scott Glenn’s Rumsfeld is underwhelming, but that may be because the man himself is so ostentatiously Dr. Strangelovean that no actor could ever measure up. Karl Rove (Toby Jones) is amusingly overdrawn, an evil dwarf behind owl glasses, whispering in the president’s ear. “Don’t get cute, Turdblossom, this is serious,” says W., when Rove—really, what Stone has made him is an arch-Republican Truman Capote—cracks wise. “There’s possibly a kind of homoerotic impulse in the way Rove picked up on Bush,” says Stone, putting forth his Brokeback Mountain theory of the administration. “They were opposites. Bush was entitled, he was rich, and he had an air of confidence.” The president, dimly aware that he’s being played by Rove and Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), is careful to keep them in their place, listening to their arguments, then pointedly ignoring them. “I’m the decider,” W. insists. It’s a desiccated idea of leadership, a parody of the strong father.

Stone emphasizes Bush’s vast hungers—long after he’s ceased mainlining bourbon, he’s scarfing sandwiches in staff meetings and choking on pretzels. There’s a heavy load of contempt in the portrayal: To Stone, Bush is a substance-abuse simpleton. “I don’t think Bush was an alcoholic; I think he is a man of excess and recklessness. Norman Mailer said that he was a dry drunk. It’s a little harsh, but the truth is that the habits did not change.”

Stone himself is a man of large appetites. “I understand excess,” he says (reading some of his accounts makes you think of Caligula with a social conscience). Yet he seems to see his own excess as heroic, part of a journey of self-awareness, which also included a good deal of therapy. He is a proud man, and part of that pride must come from the fact that he’s faced his own darkness, understood his own damage, turned his pain into something valuable. For Stone, the ultimate tragedy of Bush is rooted in the sixties sin of not being able to look inward, thus fucking up his American story, along with everyone else’s. As in Easy Rider, he blew it.

-John Homans, "Hubris Inc," New York magazine, Oct 9 2008

[lboogie1906]

Maxima Corporation, a computer systems, and management company was incorporated on February 14, 1978. Headquartered in Lanham, MD, it will become one of the largest African American-owned companies and earn its founder, chairman, and CEO, Joshua I. Smith, chairmanship of the US Commission on Minority Business Development.

By 1993 the company had revenues over $41 million and had been ranked by Black Enterprise magazine at number 33 in its list of minority businesses. In 1996 the company had expanded to operate in 14 US states, employing 800 members of staff. Smith serves as a trustee on several boards and has been a strong advocate for African American entrepreneurship. According to Jet magazine, Smith became the “leading spokesman for Black businessmen under the Reagan and Bush administrations”. In 1989, he was appointed by President George H. W. Bush to be the chair of the Commission on Minority Business Development. Smith’s recommendations for improving a lot of small businesses from minority groups were largely ignored by the President. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 1998. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[pashterlengkap]

Meet the award-winning activist who could soon make queer history in Florida

Here are this week’s most popular positive stories, with some fun social media posts tossed in too. Like seeing uplifting content like this? Sign up for our Good News email. School’s back in session and our cafeteria is serving up heaping helpings of good news! This week’s menu includes some spicy drag queens, a sweet first date between two women, a big slice of community help, and a nice cool Texas drink to wash it all down. We’re always interested in hearing your good news as well. So if you have any uplifting stories that you’d like to see on LGBTQ Nation, write me an email and you could find your tale at the head of the class. How’s that for being teacher’s pet? Cougars on the prowl! Never Miss a Beat Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights. Subscribe to our Newsletter today View this post on Instagram A post shared by Devon Poole (@itsdevonpoole) Drag queens get payback after GOP politician tries to smear their reputation A New Hampshire state Republican thought he could talk trash about two local drag performers. But they fought back and taught him an important lesson: When you come for drag queens, you best not miss! Of course, drag queens have long been the glamorous warriors for the queer community. One fictional drag queen helped raise some very real money for a queer youth charity, the musician Lizzo got a small army of drag queens to fight Tennessee’s anti-drag law, and one winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race made such an impression that they got a tribute on in the U.S. House of Representatives! Yasssss — slay ladies, slay. This award-winning community organizer could become Florida’s first out trans legislator Ashley Brundage created a scholarship foundation for youth and mentored children. Now, she could make history in The Sunshine State. Gay flight attendant wins job back after “mystifying” dismissal The gay Virgin Australia flight attendant was dismissed from his job for the weirdest of reasons. Thankfully, he spoke up and is flying the friendly skies again. And now, some health advice from comedian Betty White View this post on Instagram A post shared by JASON ZEFFIR (@jasonzeffir) My first date with a girl went surprisingly well She went for a romantic beach walk with a woman named Penny — now you’re invited to be a fly on the wall and see how it all went. This story is guaranteed to make you smile. Texas brewery supports LGBTQ+ veterans with “Big Gay Beer” The business turned lemons into lemonade, and helped queer military members in the process. “Very demure” TikToker Jools Lebron’s viral fame is allowing her to fund her transition Lebron’s workplace beauty advice caught on with celebrities and web users, and now she has partnered with brands like Verizon and Lyft. You go, gurl! Friends help each other out before a big day View this post on Instagram A post shared by PRIDE+GROOM (@pridegroomnyc) The White House is providing HIV funding to the people who need it most The Biden-Harris Administration is giving a $1.4 billion grant to poorer people living with HIV — and it’s all part of a larger strategy to keep Americans happy and healthy. Lesbian DJ carries torch in Paralympic Opening Ceremonies DJ Barbara Bush appeared in a controversial Olympic Opening Ceremony segment featuring drag queens. Now she’s stepping out to show that love and inclusion win. Hundreds march for trans visibility in DC: “We stand tall because that is power” The National Trans Visibility March returned to Washington, D.C., ensuring that trans people are a part of the national conversation. You’ve never seen Titanic quite like this before… View this post on Instagram A post shared by CM Ƴσѕнι Omega (@cmyoshiiomega) From our sibling sites: * OUTSPORTS: There are at least 41 out LGBTQ+ athletes… http://dlvr.it/TCj8Cr

[gaast]

To say that Democrats' politics over the last few decades was completely divorced from the country's harsh rightward turn is to be ignorant at best and lying at worst.

When Obama was elected with a popular mandate to right the economy and bring justice to everyone who was harmed by the 2008 financial crisis, he used it instead to pass legislation that authorized Reagan-era trickle-down economics by giving huge payouts of public dollars to the very C-suite criminals who had just put so many people out of work, out of their homes, and out of their futures. He allowed Wall Street lobbyists to guide the direction of the legislation that was written in the wake of the financial crisis, and everybody watched it happen in real time. America limped towards recovery thanks to the billions of dollars used to help it recover--money taken, again, from taxpayers--went into the pockets of the obscenely wealthy.

Following that, charged with a completely dogshit health care system, Obama's signature legislation, dubbed Obamacare, forced people onto expensive marketplace plans that often offered minimum (read: inadequate) coverage. Rather than use their mandate to reshape the health care system based on models provided by Canada, Finland, or the UK, Democrats decided the better option would be to leave the system fundamentally undisturbed, except now if you don't get on your employer's plan, you can lose all the money you don't have on absurd premiums for health care you still can't afford.

Meanwhile, the Ferguson protests made all the more salient the fact that structural racism is alive and well in America. As countless people filled the streets to face an overmilitarized police force, the Democrats went to bat for the police, as they always do, wagging their fingers at the people who just want to not get murdered--or to at least see their murderers punished when they do get murdered. By failing to meaningfully address people's grievances over this issue, the Democrats ensured that more protests would erupt, guaranteeing condescending news coverage from a media environment that always kisses the rings of both the government and its police. Allowing these for-profit enterprises to cast the Black Lives Matter movement as a struggle between Black and white people, instead of as another theater of the class war raging in the country since Eisenhower, meant that further divides were made between people who should have been standing together in solidarity.

But even still, Democrats' fingers are in the many pies of the Bush administration's myriad failures. Check how many of them voted to authorize pretty much everything about the War on Terror. Hell, just check the votes on a handful of legislation. The Patriot Act? Passed the House 357-66 and the Senate 98-1. I don't think I need to tell you that there weren't 357 Republicans in the House, nor 98 in the Senate. No Child Left Behind? 381-41 in the House, 87-10 in the Senate.

The rise of the American Right was enabled by the Democrats' failures, at every turn, to work meaningfully for the working class, for immigrants, for women, for queers, for EVERYONE against the fucking CEOs, the oil executives, Wall Street, all the assholes prosecuting the class war on the side of property. To say that Donald Trump was made by Newt Gingrich and Fox News alone is to ignore the many, MANY ways that Democrats' legislative and political failures and missteps further stoked the very divisions among the working class that Fox and Gingrich and Trump prey upon. Biden's administration as President has done plenty to fight the working class. It has served as a weapon of the rich. Biden forced railroad unions to accept a contract they wanted to strike to improve. His Transportation Secretary actively refused to do anything to regulate the railroad industries' safety protocols following numerous high-profile rail disasters. Biden ran on a promise to give everyone $2000 in stimulus money, only to give us $600, less than Trump did, and tried to gaslight us into believing that we all knew that that's what he meant. He's sending weapons to Israel to kill Palestinians. He continued pretty much every single Trump-era immigration policy, including caging up kids at the border. Rather than fight for legislation to improve the lives of queer people, he just issued executive orders and pardons, the former of which can be easily and immediately overturned and the latter of which, while a good move, doesn't really help the fact that those people were treated as criminals for how fucking long, partially because of DOMA and Don't Ask Don't Tell, policies, lest we forget, that came into being in the Bill Clinton presidency (the former of which passed by veto-proof majorities). We make jokes about being unable to afford groceries largely because Biden refused to replace the Fed Chairman who said that he was managing inflation in such a way as to curb labor's power. He said that! He saw all the inroads that unions were making and said that he was going to use inflation to weaken them! And Biden let him stay! Biden agreed with him! Biden did! And he didn't fucking have to!

To sit here and wag your own goddam finger at anyone who doesn't want to participate in a system that has never, at any point, done any good for any of us is just fucking disgusting. It ignores the broader context of who and what Trump is, and who and what Biden is. It further enforces the goddam fucking class infighting that we all seem to love so fucking much, where it has to be Us against the Boomers and Trump country Voters and whatever the fuck else, like we aren't all fighting the same struggle, like we don't need to stand in solidarity with fucking racists and transphobes because we are ALL the ones who will suffer at the hands of fuckwits like Musk and whatever Exxon executive they want to take the fall for shaping climate-denial policy for decades to come. To say that I SHOULD, that I MUST do my part to legitimate the very system of my own fucking execution is fucking revolting.

The government is a fascist system no matter who's at the fucking levers and a fascist system will always seek to annihilate the working class. To even pretend that because one hand is "better" than the other is like saying that it's better to swallow arsenic than cyanide because at least arsenic doesn't kill you as fast. Newsflash: you're dead either way.

"The revolution is not the answer" "the revolution will leave behind the very people you say you want to protect" you are a bootlicker. You are a bootlicker.

You are a bootlicker.

You refuse, you REFUSE to imagine a better society. You have been defeated. You let your fatalism, your nihilism, overcome your idealism. You don't believe in solidarity. You don't believe in mutual aid. You don't believe in anything except making your own wretched little life as easy for you as you possibly can. You are content to fucking die.

Leave me out of it.