#Promotional inflatables usa

[wild-aspen]

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

EDIT:

Ok fine, I spent 3 hours compiling sources for all of these, you can find that below the cut.

I'll give at least one link per subject area. There are of course many more sources to be read on these subject areas and no post could possibly give someone a full education on these subjects.

Biden and trans rights: https://www.hrc.org/resources/president-bidens-pro-lgbtq-timeline

Trump and trans rights: https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/trump-on-lgbtq-rights-rolling-back-protections-and-criminalizing-gender-nonconformity

The two sources above show how Biden has done a lot of work to promote trans rights, and how Trump did a lot of work to hurt trans rights.

Biden on abortion access: https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/politics/what-is-in-biden-abortion-executive-order/index.html

Trump on abortion access: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-republican-presidential-election-2024-585faf025a1416d13d2fbc23da8d8637

Biden openly supports access to abortion and has taken steps to protect those rights at a federal level even after Roe v Wade was overturned. Trump, on the other hand, was the man who appointed the judges who helped overturn Roe v Wade and he openly brags about how proud he is of that decision. He also states that he believes individual states should have the final say in whether or not abortion is legal, and that he trusts them to "do the right thing", meaning he supports stronger abortion bans.

Biden on environmental reform: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/10/07/fact-sheet-president-biden-restores-protections-for-three-national-monuments-and-renews-american-leadership-to-steward-lands-waters-and-cultural-resources/

Trump on environmental reform: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html

Biden has made major steps forward for environmental reform. He has restored protections that Trump rolled back. He has enacted many executive orders and more to promote environmental protections, including rejoining the Paris Accords, which Trump withdrew the USA from. Trump is also well known for spreading conspiracy theories and lies about global climate change, calling it a "Chinese hoax".

Biden on healthcare and prescription reform: https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/06/09/biden-administration-announces-savings-43-prescription-drugs-part-cost-saving-measures-president-bidens-inflation-reduction-act.html

Trump on healthcare reform: https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/07/politics/obamacare-health-insurance-ending-trump/index.html

I'm rolling healthcare and prescriptions and vaccines and public health all into one category here since they are related. Biden has lowered drug costs, expanded access to medicaid, and ACA enrollment has risen during his presidency. He has also made it so medical debt no longer applies to a person's credit score. He signed many executive orders during his first few weeks in office in order to get a handle on Trump's grievous mishandling of the COVID pandemic. Trump also wants to end the ACA. Trump is well known for refusing to wear a mask during the pandemic, encouraging the use of hydroxylchloroquine to "treat" COVID, and being openly anti-vaxx.

Biden on student loan forgiveness: https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/biden-harris-administration-announces-additional-77-billion-approved-student-debt-relief-160000-borrowers

Trump on student loan forgiveness: https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/06/20/trump-knocks-bidens-vile-student-loan-forgiveness-plans-suggests-reversal/

Trump wants to reverse the student loan forgiveness plans Biden has enacted. Biden has already forgiven billions of dollars in loans and continues to work towards forgiving more.

Infrastructure funding:

I'm putting these links next together because they are all about infrastructure.

In general, Trump's "achievements" for infrastructure were to destroy environmental protections to speed up projects. Many of his plans were ineffective due to the fact that he did not clearly outline where the money was going to come from, and he was unwilling to raise taxes to pay for the projects. He was unable (and unwilling) to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill during his 4 years in office. He did sign a few disaster relief bills. He did not enthusiastically promote renewable energy infrastructure. He created "Infrastructure Weeks" that the federal government then failed to fund. Trump did not do nothing for infrastructure, but his no-tax stance and his dislike for renewable energy means the contributions he made to American infrastructure were not as much as he claimed they were, nor as much as they could have been. Basically, he made a lot of promises, and delivered on very few of them. He is not "against" infrastructure, but he's certainly against funding it.

Biden was able to pass that bipartisan bill after taking office. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Plan that Trump tried to prevent from passing during Biden's term contains concrete funding sources and step by step plans to rebuild America's infrastructure. If you want to read the plan, you can find it here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/build/guidebook/. Biden has done far more for American infrastructure than Trump did, most notably by actually getting the bipartisan bill through congress.

Biden on Racial Equity: https://www.npr.org/sections/president-biden-takes-office/2021/01/26/960725707/biden-aims-to-advance-racial-equity-with-executive-actions

Trump on Racial Equity: https://www.axios.com/2024/04/01/trump-reverse-racism-civil-rights https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-37230916

Trump's racist policies are loud and clear for everyone to hear. We all heard him call Mexicans "Drug dealers, criminals, rapists". We all watched as he enacted travel bans on people from majority-Muslim nations. Biden, on the other hand, has done quite a lot during his term to attempt to reconcile racism in this country, including reversing Trump's "Muslim ban" the first day he was in office.

Biden on DEI: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/

Trump on DEI: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-tried-to-crush-the-dei-revolution-heres-how-he-might-finish-the-job/ar-BB1jg3gz

Biden supports DEI and has signed executive orders and passed laws that support DEI on the federal level. Trump absolutely hates DEI and wants to eradicate it.

Biden on criminal justice reform: https://time.com/6155084/biden-criminal-justice-reform/

Trump on criminal justice reform: https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election/21418911/donald-trump-crime-criminal-justice-policy-record https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/05/trumps-extreme-plans-crime/678502/

From pardons for non-violent marijuana convictions to reducing the federal government's reliance on private prisons, Biden has done a lot in four years to reform our criminal justice system on the federal level. Meanwhile, Trump has described himself as "tough on crime". He advocates for more policing, including "stop and frisk" activities. Ironically it's actually quite difficult to find sources about what Trump thinks about crime, because almost all of the search results are about his own crimes.

Biden on military support for Israel: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/biden-obama-divide-closely-support-israel-rcna127107

Trump on military support for Israel: https://www.vox.com/politics/353037/trump-gaza-israel-protests-biden-election-2024

Biden supports Israel financially and militarily and promotes holding Israel close. So did Trump. Trump was also very pro-Israel during his time in office and even moved the embassy to Jerusalem and declared Jerusalem the capitol of Israel, a move that inflamed attitudes in the region.

Biden on a ceasefire: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/06/05/gaza-israel-hamas-cease-fire-plan-biden/73967659007/

Trump on a ceasefire: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-gaza-finish-problem-rcna141905

Trump has tried to be quiet on the issue but recently said he wants Israel to "finish the problem". He of course claims he could have prevented the whole problem. Trump also openly stated after Oct 7th that he would bar immigrants who support Hamas from the country and send in officers to American protests to arrest anyone supporting Hamas.

Biden meanwhile has been quietly urging Netanyahu to accept a ceasefire deal for months, including the most recent announcement earlier in June, though it seems as though that deal has finally fallen through as well.

[misfitwashere]

August 24, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

AUG 25

The raucous roll call of states at the 2024 Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, as everybody danced to DJ Cassidy’s state-themed music, Lil Jon strode down the aisle to cheers for Georgia, and different delegations boasted about their states and good-naturedly teased other delegations, brought home the real-life meaning of E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” From then until Thursday, as a sea of American flags waved and attendees joyfully chanted “USA, USA, USA,” the convention welcomed a new vision for the Democratic Party, deeply rooted in the best of traditional America. 

Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s. This week’s convention showed that it has now gone further, recentering the vision of government that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, called upon to make it serve the interests of communities.     

When the Biden-Harris administration took office in 2021, the United States was facing a deadly pandemic and the economic crash it had caused. The country also had to deal with the aftermath of the attempt of former president Donald Trump to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and seize the presidency. It appeared that many people in the United States, as in many other countries around the world, had given up on democracy. 

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. As the middle class hollowed out, those slipping behind lined up behind an authoritarian figure who promised to restore their former centrality by attacking those he told them were their enemies.

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. On Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the economy than Republicans, to bed. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination convention suggested a more thorough reworking of the federal government, one that also recalls the 1930s but suggests a transformation that goes beyond markets and jobs. 

Before Labor Secretary Perkins’s 1935 Social Security Act, the government served largely to manage the economic relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But Perkins recognized that the purpose of government was not to protect property; it was to protect the community. She recognized that children, women, and elderly and disabled Americans were as valuable to the community as young male workers and the wealthy men who employed them.

With a law that established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services, Perkins began the process of molding the government to reflect that truth. 

Perkins’s understanding of the United States as a community reflected both her time in a small town in Maine and in her experience as a social worker in inner-city Philadelphia and Chicago before the law provided any protections for the workers, including children, who made the new factories profitable. She understood that while lawmakers focused on male workers, the American economy was, and always has been, utterly dependent on the unrecognized contributions of women and marginalized people in the form of childcare, sharing food and housing, and the many forms of unpaid work that keep communities functioning. 

This reworking of the American government to reflect community rather than economic

relationships changed the entire fabric of the country, and opponents have worked to destroy it ever since FDR began to put it in place. 

Now, in their quest to win the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz—the Democratic nominees for president and vice president—have reclaimed the idea of community, with its understanding that everyone matters and the government must serve everyone, as the center of American life. 

Their vision rejects the division of the country into “us” and “them” that has been a staple of Republican politics since President Richard M. Nixon. It also rejects the politics of identity that has become identified with the argument that the United States has been irredeemably warped by racism and sexism. Instead, at the DNC, Democrats acknowledged the many ways in which the country has come up short of its principles in the past, and demanded that Americans do something to put in place a government that will address those inequities and make the American dream accessible to all.

Walz personifies this community vision. On Wednesday he laid it out from the very beginning of his acceptance speech, noting that he grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people, with 24 kids in his high school class. “[G]rowing up in a small town like that,” he said, “you'll learn how to take care of each other that that family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they're your neighbors and you look out for them and they look out for you. Everybody belongs and everybody has a responsibility to contribute.” The football players Walz coached to a state championship joined him on stage.

Harris also called out this idea of community when she declined to mention that, if elected, she will be the first female president, and instead remembered growing up in “a beautiful working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all who tended their lawns with pride.” Her mother, Harris said, “leaned on a trusted circle to help raise us. Mrs. Shelton, who ran the daycare below us and became a second mother. Uncle Sherman. Aunt Mary. Uncle Freddy. And Auntie Chris. None of them, family by blood. And all of them, Family. By love…. Family who…instilled in us the values they personified. Community. Faith. And the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated. With kindness. Respect. And compassion.”

The speakers at the DNC called out the women who make communities function. Speaker after speaker at the DNC thanked their mother. Former first lady Michelle Obama explicitly described her mother, Marian Robinson, as someone who lived out the idea of hope for a better future, working for children and the community. Mrs. Obama described her mother as “glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation.” 

Mrs. Obama, Harris, and Walz have emphasized that while they come from different backgrounds, they come from what Mrs. Obama called “the same foundational values”: “the promise of this country,” “the obligation to lift others up,” a “responsibility to give more than we take.”  Harris agreed, saying her mother “taught us to never complain about injustice. But…do something about it. She also taught us—Never do anything half-assed. That’s a direct quote.”

The Democrats worked to make it clear that their vision is not just the Democratic Party’s vision but an American one. They welcomed the union workers and veterans who have in the past gravitated toward Republicans, showing a powerful video contrasting Trump’s photo-ops, in which actors play union workers, with the actual plants being built thanks to money from the Biden-Harris administration. The many Democratic lawmakers who have served in the military stood on stage to back Arizona representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine, who told the crowd that the veteran unemployment rate under Biden and Harris is the lowest in history. 

The many Republicans who spoke at the convention reinforced that the Democratic vision speaks for the whole country. Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) identified this vision as “conservative.” “As a conservative and a veteran,” he said “I believe true strength lies in defending the vulnerable. It’s in protecting your family. It’s in standing up for our Constitution and our democracy. That…is the soul of being a conservative. It used to be the soul of being a Republican,” Kinzinger said. “But Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.” 

“[A] harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” Harris said. And she reminded people of her career as a prosecutor, in which “[e]very day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and said five words: ‘Kamala Harris, for the People.’ My entire career, I have only had one client. The People.”

“And so, on behalf of The People. On behalf of every American. Regardless of party. Race. Gender. Or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with. People who work hard. Chase their dreams. And look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America.”

The 100,000 biodegradable balloons that fell from the rafters when Vice President Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president were blown up and tied by a team of 55 balloon artists from 18 states and Canada who volunteered to prepare the drop in honor of their colleague, Tommy DeLorenzo, who, along with his husband Scott, runs a balloon business. DeLorenzo is battling cancer. “We’re more colleagues than competitors,” Patty Sorell told Sydney Page of the Washington Post. “We all wanted to do something to help Tommy, to show him how much we love him.” 

“Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for this community,” DeLorenzo said.  

[subdee]

Project 2025 goons wrote the memos requiring that

all "policy making" positions at federal agencies henceforth be political appointments, AKA filled by Trump loyalists rather than career civil servants;

2. All federal positions be "in office" only - not work from home - in a move Elon Musk has said would lead to a "welcome" voluntary reduction in the federal workforce.

...according to Molly White (they forgot to scrub the metadata from their PDF reports), so all that stuff about how Trump wasn't going to do project 2025 was of course a lie and we should expect them to continue shoving their unpopular agenda down our throats, in many cases illegally and contra the will of Congress.

BUT WHICH PROJECT 2025 GOON WROTE THE MEMO PAUSING ALL FEDERAL GRANT MONEY AS OF 5PM TODAY?

Edit: federal judge blocked the freeze, here's the details of that:

(Gonna tag all these posts "us politics" for anyone who wants to start a blacklist for mental health reasons.

Me personally... well I stopped following the news, and to keep up with all the fuckery I am just reading metafilter and subscribed to https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/ for the daily summary of exactly how quickly we are devolving into a fascist, anti-environmental, anti-public health, oligarchical dictatorship in the USA. )

It was definitely a goon because, I mean, look at this:

The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar. In Fiscal Year 2024, of the nearly $10 trillion that the Federal Government spent, more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans. Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities. Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending "wokeness" and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again. The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.

Goon writing through and through. Impacted are programs such as:

the Department of Agriculture’s tribal food sovereignty program,

Head Start,

the Veterans’ Affairs Department’s suicide prevention and legal services grants,

the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance, or LIHEAP, program,

Meals on Wheels,

numerous sexual assault prevention programs within the Department of Justice.

Plus basically all the rest of them via uncertainty... this is money already approved and allocated by Congress incidentally so 100% illegal for Trump to unilaterally block BTW, and there's a bunch of lawsuits pushing back already just as there were for the "birthright citizenship" memo (already temporarily blocked by a Federal judge) and the pause on all new foreign aid.

So now we have to argue, is this sheer incompetence or is it a deliberate attempt to cause mass civil unrest and/or demoralize, kill off or drive out the Democratic voters? Does it matter when people - all kinds of people but mainly poor people - are going to die while this mess, or one of the other many messes of this admin, gets sorted out?

I dunno, but I can tell you that when I worked for a school district that did budgeting like this - acting like every penny was personally coming out of the pocket of the superintendent - it was because said superintendent was stealing money from the budget. So I personally wouldn't discount that the chaos is intentional and a cover for mass theft from the federal budget... they just (illegally) fired all the nonpartisan federal budget inspectors, of course.

Anyway... WTFjusthappenedtoday for your daily summary of exactly how much fuckery is going on today. And in the interests of not depressing anyone further, I'll end it there.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 24, 2024 (Saturday)

The raucous roll call of states at the 2024 Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, as everybody danced to DJ Cassidy’s state-themed music, Lil Jon strode down the aisle to cheers for Georgia, and different delegations boasted about their states and good-naturedly teased other delegations, brought home the real-life meaning of E Pluribus Unum, “out of many, one.” From then until Thursday, as a sea of American flags waved and attendees joyfully chanted “USA, USA, USA,” the convention welcomed a new vision for the Democratic Party, deeply rooted in the best of traditional America.

Under the direction of President Joe Biden, over the past three and a half years the Democrats have returned to the economic ideology of the New Deal coalition of the 1930s. This week’s convention showed that it has now gone further, recentering the vision of government that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, Frances Perkins, called upon to make it serve the interests of communities.

When the Biden-Harris administration took office in 2021, the United States was facing a deadly pandemic and the economic crash it had caused. The country also had to deal with the aftermath of the attempt of former president Donald Trump to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and seize the presidency. It appeared that many people in the United States, as in many other countries around the world, had given up on democracy.

Biden set out to prove that democracy could work for ordinary people by ditching the neoliberalism that had been in place for forty years. That system, begun in the 1980s, called for the government to allow unfettered markets to organize the economy. Neoliberalism’s proponents promised it would create widespread prosperity, but instead, it transferred more than $50 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. As the middle class hollowed out, those slipping behind lined up behind an authoritarian figure who promised to restore their former centrality by attacking those he told them were their enemies.

When he took office, Biden vowed to prove that democracy worked. With laws like the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democrats directed investment toward ordinary Americans. The dramatic success of their economic program proved that it worked. On Wednesday, former president Bill Clinton noted that since 1989, the U.S. has created 51 million new jobs. Fifty million of those jobs were created under Democratic presidents, while only 1 million were added under Republicans—a striking statistic that perhaps will put neoliberalism, or at least the tired trope that Democrats are worse for the economy than Republicans, to bed.

Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination convention suggested a more thorough reworking of the federal government, one that also recalls the 1930s but suggests a transformation that goes beyond markets and jobs.

Before Labor Secretary Perkins’s 1935 Social Security Act, the government served largely to manage the economic relationships between labor, capital, and resources. But Perkins recognized that the purpose of government was not to protect property; it was to protect the community. She recognized that children, women, and elderly and disabled Americans were as valuable to the community as young male workers and the wealthy men who employed them.

With a law that established a federal system of old-age benefits; unemployment insurance; aid to homeless, dependent, and neglected children; funds to promote maternal and child welfare; and public health services, Perkins began the process of molding the government to reflect that truth.

Perkins’s understanding of the United States as a community reflected both her time in a small town in Maine and in her experience as a social worker in inner-city Philadelphia and Chicago before the law provided any protections for the workers, including children, who made the new factories profitable. She understood that while lawmakers focused on male workers, the American economy was, and always has been, utterly dependent on the unrecognized contributions of women and marginalized people in the form of childcare, sharing food and housing, and the many forms of unpaid work that keep communities functioning.

This reworking of the American government to reflect community rather than economic relationships changed the entire fabric of the country, and opponents have worked to destroy it ever since FDR began to put it in place.

Now, in their quest to win the 2024 election, Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota governor Tim Walz—the Democratic nominees for president and vice president—have reclaimed the idea of community, with its understanding that everyone matters and the government must serve everyone, as the center of American life.

Their vision rejects the division of the country into “us” and “them” that has been a staple of Republican politics since President Richard M. Nixon. It also rejects the politics of identity that has become identified with the argument that the United States has been irredeemably warped by racism and sexism. Instead, at the DNC, Democrats acknowledged the many ways in which the country has come up short of its principles in the past, and demanded that Americans do something to put in place a government that will address those inequities and make the American dream accessible to all.

Walz personifies this community vision. On Wednesday he laid it out from the very beginning of his acceptance speech, noting that he grew up in Butte, Nebraska, a town of 400 people, with 24 kids in his high school class. “[G]rowing up in a small town like that,” he said, “you'll learn how to take care of each other that that family down the road, they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they're your neighbors and you look out for them and they look out for you. Everybody belongs and everybody has a responsibility to contribute.” The football players Walz coached to a state championship joined him on stage.

Harris also called out this idea of community when she declined to mention that, if elected, she will be the first female president, and instead remembered growing up in “a beautiful working-class neighborhood of firefighters, nurses, and construction workers, all who tended their lawns with pride.” Her mother, Harris said, “leaned on a trusted circle to help raise us. Mrs. Shelton, who ran the daycare below us and became a second mother. Uncle Sherman. Aunt Mary. Uncle Freddy. And Auntie Chris. None of them, family by blood. And all of them, Family. By love…. Family who…instilled in us the values they personified. Community. Faith. And the importance of treating others as you would want to be treated. With kindness. Respect. And compassion.”

The speakers at the DNC called out the women who make communities function. Speaker after speaker at the DNC thanked their mother. Former first lady Michelle Obama explicitly described her mother, Marian Robinson, as someone who lived out the idea of hope for a better future, working for children and the community. Mrs. Obama described her mother as “glad to do the thankless, unglamorous work that for generations has strengthened the fabric of this nation.”

Mrs. Obama, Harris, and Walz have emphasized that while they come from different backgrounds, they come from what Mrs. Obama called “the same foundational values”: “the promise of this country,” “the obligation to lift others up,” a “responsibility to give more than we take.” Harris agreed, saying her mother “taught us to never complain about injustice. But…do something about it. She also taught us—Never do anything half-assed. That’s a direct quote.”

The Democrats worked to make it clear that their vision is not just the Democratic Party’s vision but an American one. They welcomed the union workers and veterans who have in the past gravitated toward Republicans, showing a powerful video contrasting Trump’s photo-ops, in which actors play union workers, with the actual plants being built thanks to money from the Biden-Harris administration. The many Democratic lawmakers who have served in the military stood on stage to back Arizona representative Ruben Gallego, a former Marine, who told the crowd that the veteran unemployment rate under Biden and Harris is the lowest in history.

The many Republicans who spoke at the convention reinforced that the Democratic vision speaks for the whole country. Former representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) identified this vision as “conservative.” “As a conservative and a veteran,” he said “I believe true strength lies in defending the vulnerable. It’s in protecting your family. It’s in standing up for our Constitution and our democracy. That…is the soul of being a conservative. It used to be the soul of being a Republican,” Kinzinger said. “But Donald Trump has suffocated the soul of the Republican Party.”

“[A] harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us,” Harris said. And she reminded people of her career as a prosecutor, in which “[e]very day in the courtroom, I stood proudly before a judge and said five words: ‘Kamala Harris, for the People.’ My entire career, I have only had one client. The People.”

“And so, on behalf of The People. On behalf of every American. Regardless of party. Race. Gender. Or the language your grandmother speaks. On behalf of my mother and everyone who has ever set out on their own unlikely journey. On behalf of Americans like the people I grew up with. People who work hard. Chase their dreams. And look out for one another. On behalf of everyone whose story could only be written in the greatest nation on Earth. I accept your nomination for President of the United States of America.”

The 100,000 biodegradable balloons that fell from the rafters when Vice President Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president were blown up and tied by a team of 55 balloon artists from 18 states and Canada who volunteered to prepare the drop in honor of their colleague, Tommy DeLorenzo, who along with his husband Scott, runs a balloon business. DeLorenzo is battling cancer. “We’re more colleagues than competitors,” Patty Sorell told Sydney Page of the Washington Post. “We all wanted to do something to help Tommy, to show him how much we love him.”

“Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for this community,” DeLorenzo said.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[thatswhywelovegermany]

October 29, 1923: The first radio broadcast in Germany goes on air

Radio had a rough start in Germany. At the end of World War I, where the German army was among the pioneers in radio communication, during the November Revolution, revolutionary workers occupied the headquarters of the German press and news service, falsely claiming the victory of the communist and socialist revolutionary forces. This made the social democratic government to impose harsh restrictions on radio broadcast, which severely hampered the development of the new medium in Germany:

Only the state had the sovereign right of to set up and operate transmitting and receiving systems

Private individuals were prohibited to receive any radio broadcast

Receivers were limited in their technical characteristics, supported by a requirement for state approval for any new model

This led to the state-controlled postal service becoming a monopolist serving a small number of (mostly public) institutions. Nonetheless, the first entertainment broadcast was distributed at Christmas 1920, when postal employees brought instruments to the broadcast center in Königs Wusterhausen (south of Berlin), played music and recited poems.

After heavy lobbying by radio pioneers such as Hans Bredow, complaints and public discontent and increasing numbers of illegal self-made private receivers, which frequently caused interferences, the harsh restrictions were finally lifted in 1923. Each owner of a state-approved receiver had to register as a "radio participant" and pay a license fee. In autumn of 1923, at the height of the inflation, a license cost 780 billion Mark per year, a sum that only very few were able and willing to afford. Thst's why the first broadcast by Funk-Stunde Berlin from a studio in the Vox House on October 29, 1923 has no (paying) listeners. The first registered participant was Berlin tobacco retailer Wilhelm Kollhoff, who received his license and his radio on October 31.

Rapidly, a number of radio stations opened throughout Germany, which were consolidated under the umbrella organization "Reichs-Rundfunk-Gesellschaft".

Infamously, radio became the main propaganda instrument of the Nazis, who quickly forced all radio stations into line, sending the liberal radio pioneers to the first concentration camps. The development and widespread distribution of a cheap radio receiver, the "Volksempfänger" ("people's receiver"), made radio a medium for the masses. Nonetheless, only 46.9 % of the German households had a radio in 1937, compared with the USA or the UK, which had already a density of 78.3 % and 66.1 %, respectively.

After World War II, radio developed differently in East and West Germany. Radio in East Germany remained state-controlled, sending communist propaganda now. In the West, organizations under public law were founded in the federal states, funded by fees of radio users and controlled by bodies in which the relevant societal groups are equally represented. In the 1980s, private radio stations were allowed.

Because Germany received only very few AM frequencies as part of the sactions after World War II, development of FM radio was accelerated, leading to new standards in the quality of transmission and HiFi stereo radio. Radio established itself as a promoter of culture in the area of literature and music. The stations set up symphonic and dance orchestras, big bands, choirs, and elaborate audioplay studios. They were also pioneering promoters of electronic music. In the recent years, however, the importance of radio as promoters of high culture has diminished more and more. With the exceptions of a few stations, radio is regarded as background entertainment for people who cannot stand silence.

In the future, it is expected that the split between music and entertainment, high culture, and information will will deepen. Radio as a promotor of culture will probably not play a role any more. Taking over podcast productions may revive the role of radio as an opinion-forming medium. Radio is still unrivalled as the fastest medium, being able to provide the latest news virtually in real-time.

[leam1983]

The Election - FAQ

You're Canadian; why do you care so much?

We have a saying, up here: The USA get a cold and Canada sneezes. In more straightforward terms, what affects you is, in some other shape or form, going to affect us as well. Our antivax waves were spurred on by American campaigns, our last two elections were marked by the presence of fringe Manosphere and generally misogynist groups that claimed to speak for "family values", and our own Right-wing politicians are only just starting to realize that when filibusters and name-calling in Parliament fail, landing direct threats on an Instagram post works just as well. We have the same bigots, the same zealots and the same Christofascists as you do - they're just slightly less organized by virtue of Canada being a less polarized society than America. Our big points of division are mostly linguistic, with a second one consisting of the Prairies' redistributed wealth, thanks to their rich petroleum industries.

So... Canada is basically America Lite, then?

Yes, absolutely. We're less polarized, but we have the same problems, and we tend to think of America as being Canada's shadow - i.e. what Canada could be if it had more of an Interventionist policy and were less Progressive than it already is. We share a lot of the same problems, however, such as the long-delayed restitution efforts towards Native populations, and the myriad scandals involving the abuse forced on Native kids to "christianize" them, in generations past.

We're the same as you, just - a little less bossy. We're America's quieter, shyer cousin, and we've got a ton of skeletons in our closet. So, considering, when something goes wrong in Uncle Sam's yard, we can expect a few bones to pop up in our turf, too.

Okay, so... What? You'll get nicer versions of Trump?

Something like that. We have a developed anti-trans and anti-woke contingent, but it's mostly limited to the Prairies. Head for the Maritimes, and you enter areas of the country that are staunchly liberal in structure (e.g. Quebec). The local Conservatives' bugaboos tend to be fiscal, which is a little bit more tolerable than attacks based on a person's lifestyle, but we do have our own brewing and growing basin of anti-DEI sentiment, as well as misogynist types aplenty. If you've followed the news, then you probably know that Canada and India are at odds on a few key questions, which has fostered resentment between groups outside of the Indian diaspora, and Indians themselves. As you'd expect, even groups that aren't related but that get tossed in by ignorant locals, like the Sikh, also needlessly get a bad rep.

For the most part, our "Trump" is gearing up to be Pierre Poilievre, a Calgary native who's mostly been campaigning on his, well, not being Justin Trudeau. He mostly promises to redress the Federal budget, cut taxes - and to catch up on the lack of windfall by slashing into Liberal and NPD-backed programs that tended to veer towards more Progressive views. Doubling import taxes are seen as a win, while dental credits helping younger families cover basic oral care were seen as driving inflation up - and slashed. They've audited the ArriveCAN program, which is designed to make re-entry into the country by those born here a tad easier, by driving part of the passport-screening process digitally. A few weeks into the audit, everyone knew they were doing this to stall the program and to effectively mess with the current Liberal cabinet. Poilievre's also used an ad block paid for to promote a home-building bill in order to depict Justin and his father, Pierre-Elliott Trudeau, as Marxists.

If you know anything about Canadian history, you know Social Democracy has nothing to do with Marxism. He's also voted against an aid package destined for Ukraine, citing that Kyiv's downtrodden would be somehow forced to pay for our newfangled Carbon Tax, if Zelenskyy received the shipment.

I could go on, but you get the gist of it. He's not at Trump's level of sheer rhetorical abhorrence, but he gets there, so to speak. And with Trump in the White House and Trudeau losing support and being rocked by a non-confidence motion, of late, this little shit's in the best possible position to pounce.

Trump's strategy for tariffs is likely to hurt the loonie, which will drive inflation up in Canada. I wouldn't be surprised if Poilievre brought it up as a failure of Justin Trudeau's government, and made it a leading campaign point. It's not the other guy's blithe disregard for the law, but it's arrogant sophistry, nevertheless.

It's not that far off, in my book. Trump is going to love Poilievre, as he'll have good synergy well with him, while also being just that smidge more likeable. He'll be a great way for the Trump brand to make in-roads in the Great White North, for his brand of discontent to brew in my back yard - and then spill back into yours.

It's not just one guy, though, right?

Of course not. You might've heard about the Freedom Convoy, a group of truckers that held antivax beliefs and who wanted the government to life health guidelines and restrictions earlier, in the later days of the pandemic. Poilievre is the nice, pretty, polite and regimented spokesperson for every free-wheelin' uncle who wants to keep guzzling diesel like it's water while never having received a single jab since before Woodstock - and they've got their meaner, nastier mouthpieces. The more abusive shitheads were quiet during the Biden administration, for the most part, but they ran rampant during Trump's last presidency. Think every juiced-up man-child that thinks pronouns are the world's greatest evil, for instance; the exact type that lobs death threats on a Facebook Live and then hides behind social commentary.

We'll see more of those, guaranteed. All we need is one guy with a shred of political acumen in the lot, and the fuse is lit. It's lit before - one of our more notorious Union locals was publicly known as the "back-breaking" type... Power to the people, as long as that power means keeping Trans people in their AMAB and AFAB bathrooms...

None of that is a serious, structural threat to democracy as we know it, but erosion should be as much a concern as any intent to blow base charges off of the structural pillars, as it were.

So, you'll be okay?

Sort of, excerpt how for every move Trump and his cronies will attempt, someone's going to be over my shoulder, obsessively taking notes. And I do not like where this leads.

[outsidereveries]

hello! can you do a reading on newjeans upcoming comeback and how successful it will be? thank you!

newjeans' comeback reading | 04.04.2024

what we should expect?: 5 of cups rx, the hanged man, 4 of cups rx • ace of pentacles

honestly, as much as i can see, this is about their comeback concept. except something min heejin would usually do (from concept perspective). it's not that much "as simple as that" because whatever concept min heejin (and possibly the girls) will want to do, it won't be that experimental and innovative. therefore, the stories of the double singles will most probably be ignored because it's already .. common. nonetheless this will be successful no matter what, so it seems that nwjns will have similar sound or the same as their previous songs.

should we worry of this?: temperance rx, queen of wands, the empress rx • 7 of pentacles

to some extent.. yes but because of the boycott some fans (not specifically bunnies) are doing because they want to remove scooter out of the corporation ador and newjeans are in. ador is DEPENDING A LOT on these album sales because this brings the company independence from the corporation's team. however, i don't see significant decrease but sort of gradual (like if for their previous album they had 600k sales in their 1st week, now it can be 500k or 400k, sth like that). i am unsure how much chinese people can buy for newjeans too bc of their own issues with the paper, or it was the inflation, i really cannot remember, but this can play significant role too. still, i feel the boycott the most.

how the comeback will be percieved? (card pov: bunnies, bunnies, overall, k-netizens, outsiders • bottom card): the tower rx, justice, 10 of swords rx, the star, queen of swords • 7 of cups

bunnies: there can be some sort of riot from bunnies because of the symbolism of the concept min heejin is making. i can see the mixed opinions some of them will have (example: newjeans is talking about politics somehow, bunnies will either defend it or will just be furious about it, the mixed opinions might be rare occurances). they will like the songs but not the story behind it.

k-netizens: they'll LOVE it!

outsiders: this era will make newjeans more known in foreign lands than before possibly due to connections hybe have with the usa radios and etc. i don't feel achieving something significant :|

overall: i'd say as usual as the reversed 10 of swords is usuaully a neutral card of mine. they can be more expressive though from one or another side.

success: the fool rx, the chariot, king of swords rx • the moon

newjeans might start promoting even more into foreign lands. i've read about japanese debut, right? this seems bold and risky desicion from ador's side, or even hybe's side (i feel ador more tbh). although newjeans will release one of these singles as japanese cf ost first in april, this is just .. it feels really risky. i understand the anticipation, and i am not saying it won't be as expected or even exceeding it, but ador should act very, very cautious in the japanese industry as i see that at some point (i am putting the fanmeet aside and also the debut) hybe will try to force their connections into newjeans in japan either for the group to promote more in the western industry or to overwork there. the comeback seems to do well though. i wouldn't say like usual though as this is more visible behind the scenes for some reason.

[ultra-raging-ghost]

Fun fact, I recently found out that turns out that when I was arpund 10 my parents were building actual plans (like, preparing for it) to move to USA from Russia (did not happen tho).

What state they were thinking?

Florida.

For SOME GODDAMN REASON.

Unfortunately common state to want to move to. Because we're a tourist state, there's a lot of places to visit and fun things to do but it encourages tourist culture which means touristy areas are really rich but expensive to live in and everywhere else is super poor and also expensive to live in. (There's a movie about this called The Florida Project!!!) There's a very large homeless population in a majority of the state, very few resources, and even fewer people who care about it.

This has actually been really prominent for me recently because of a lot of the amendments being passed which go republican, despite a lot of the youth and impoverished being left or centrist voters - passing amendments for year round hunting and fishing and the property tax inflation adjustments but refusing to pass ones for the legalization of abortion with zero govt. interference. A majority of the voters here are red because they're old, retired people who came here to live out the rest of their lives in a cheaper version of the classic Hawa'ii fantasy with a year round fast pass subscription to Disneyland and Adventure landing, so they vote for game and cheaper housing for the rich while not providing anything for the citizens and the governer or senator or whoever he is Ron desantis promotes this thinking and voting because it artificially boosts the states economy while not realizing that this type of boosting cant be sustained properly if he wants an actual fucking population in this state instead of just republican, silver drifters who live here for the last 20 years of their life and die, making room in their overpriced condos for the next john and Mary to move in and continue to pay way too much to have the fun they couldn't have working a blue collar job for 40 years and never being able to spend time with their families or significant others. Or maybe he does realize that and he doesn't care, either way I'll shoot him with the gun he legalized for me to carry at 19 if I ever see him in person!!!! Bless <3

[whiterosebrian]

Refined Letter to Democrats

I believe that I absolutely need to do my part for the cause of the environment.  For that reason, I have mailed letters to multiple politicians around the USA (focusing on Democrats because I believe they are more reachable—which is actually unfortunate for reasons beyond this post).  What I am posting here is the current letter to be printed and mailed, as I considered a need to make refinements to what I wrote previously.  I am posting this to provide a template for you to likewise write to elected officials wherever you live.  I urge you to seriously consider joining this effort of mine to reach out to elected officials. 

Greetings.

It is true that I am not one of your voters.  I am simply a man who cares for the well-being of the Earth, our common home.  In fact, I have written variants of this letter and mailed them to your fellow elected officials and will continue to do so.  I have been writing to elected officials such as you because I believe that you can do more to make concrete changes to both law and praxis than I can.  I am also aware that that elected officials generally prefer short letters.  However, I believe that I need to write a wide-ranging letter because the greatest environmental problems require a holistic approach.

Reports of extreme weather and brutal disasters have filled many, many hearts with dread and outright despair.  You may or may not recall the case of a Buddhist activist who set himself on fire in front of the Supreme Court—and a handful of people expressed frustration that he did not gain more attention than he did.  I have seen more than a few people on the Internet foretell immanent doomsday.  You may already be aware of the need to transition away from fossil fuels and towards cleaner renewable alternatives.  Of course, doing what you can to hasten the transition is utterly critical.  Resisting the fossil-fuel industry and its lobbyists is utterly critical.  I still wish to draw your attention to related issues. 

I have seen a figure floating around social media claiming that Indigenous peoples make up barely twenty percent of the world’s population yet safeguard eighty percent of ecosystems.  It is true that the one-with-nature Indigenous mystic is a crude stereotype, and I have no intention of reinforcing it.  It seems, though, that even that stereotype has roots in reality, given the efforts to revive earth-based Indigenous spiritual cultures and the attraction of outsiders to said cultures.  Even still, Indigenous activists have been demanding ample space for safeguarding their lands and neighboring lands.  A handful of them even outright assert that the United States of America is an illegitimate colonial occupying force.  I know that for a fact because I follow several Indigenous users and see posts within their orbits.

The brutal fact is that the USA has been built on the decimation of Indigenous peoples (along with the enslavement and forced transportation of Africans).  There are multiple instances of the USA acting as an imperial force, such as during the Cold War.  While I absolutely deny that there is some conspiring Uni-Party (much less a Jewish cabal), there is room to argue that the USA’s power needs to be reduced.  Giving land back to Native tribes and nations and fostering their renewed sovereignty is not only a long-needed act of justice but also a crucial part of defending and eventually healing the environment. 

When the war in Ukraine broke out, people all around the world feared the worst.  The US government coordinated Western aid to the Ukrainian army.  That led to screeds about the Military Industrial Complex.  Yes, a very large number of such commenters are cynically exploiting leftist rhetoric to promote a reactionary authoritarian agenda.  However, some are well-intentioned pacifists and anti-imperialists.  Aiding Ukrainian allies in defending themselves from Russian imperialism is most certainly one thing.  Further inflating our own already massively inflated military, however, is another.  At a certain point, you need to admit that the Military Industrial Complex is real, as Dwight Eisenhower famously warned decades ago.  That kind of money can be used far more productively for various social programs.  Our military is a major polluter—another compelling reason to drastically reduce it. 

When I refer to social programs, I am not simply referring to staples such as Social Security or public education.  Infrastructures are flawed.  Too many people are forced to drive long distances to reach places of employment in hopes of earning wages.  Too many people are unable to access healthful foods nearby.  Too many localities are built around automobiles instead of human traffic.  Too often supplies and goods and foods must go through convoluted supply chains.  This is surely not an exhaustive list.  These sorts of infrastructures need to be rebuilt.  Local communities need to rebuilt to be more self-sufficient, better able to thrive on their own. 

Along with human communities, nonhuman communities also need to be rebuilt and revived.  While perfectly recreating the wilderness is clearly impossible, historic landscapes and ecosystems do need to be revitalized as much as possible.  Civilization and nature need to be reconciled.  I understand that leadership in Scotland have been engaging in “rewilding” its landscapes.  I should note that past efforts at conservation on our continent have excluded or removed the original inhabitants of various landscapes—rebuilding and rewilding should be done in concert with them.  I should also note that many Indigenous languages did not have separate words for “nature” or “wilderness,” suggesting homes made among plants, animals, elements, waters, and grounds.  Building that kind of society anew should help in healing the environment.

I have already mentioned the critical need to resist the fossil fuel industry.  That should be a primary focus, though corporations in general need to be reined in.  They are fundamentally motivated by money and the socio-political power associated with money.  They are motivated by profits.  They are motivated by limitless growth.  Greta Thunberg has denounced the notion of limitless growth as a fiction.  Corporations will pull every trick to keep their profits growing, hoard more wealth, and wield more power.  They have pulled tricks for decades, such as Exxon Mobil’s recently revealed campaign of deliberate misinformation.  Tougher laws need to be imposed to reign in corporations.  Furthermore, corporations need to be made to reverse course and contribute to rebuilding infrastructures and phasing out fossil fuels. 

I further propose a renewed campaign of public education for changing lifestyles to aid in transition—which would, of course, be in tandem with governmental actions.  Yes, conservatives and outright fascists (a vanishingly thin line, sadly—the reason why I’m focusing on Democratic lawmakers is the radicalization of the Republican party) will inevitably screech about indoctrination.  Let the demagogues screech.  Every effort is needed to move more and more people to join the cause of mitigating the climate crisis, rebuilding society, and healing the environment.

All of this might sound like I advocate radical social change.  I am indeed doing exactly that.  I have become more convinced that radical social change is utterly important for defending and reviving our common home.  Standard politics is not sufficient.  Yes, safeguarding liberal democratic institutions is important.  Fascism is a very real threat.  Strengthening liberal democracy and living up to its highest ideals is also part of defending our common home.  Fascism exploits crises.  Fascism degrades living things, whether human or nonhuman, even when it claims fealty to a distorted Natural Law.  The notion of degrowth has begun to gain currency among activists and thinkers—in the simplest terms possible, as the great transition is carried out, society needs to be radically restructured to rely on mutual care and self-sufficiency instead of financial and material growth or large-scale state power.

Again, a holistic approach is needed for major environmental problems.  If my proposals here sound like vague generalities, that is because I am no expert.  I thus need to reach out to people who can more freely delve into the logistics of a just transition and how to execute that just transition.  Everyone needs to be involved in safeguarding our common home.  I trust that I am doing my part.  I trust that you will do your part as an elected official. 

You may call me Brian Hart Whiterose. 

[subdee]

Absolutely spot on, there is too much complacency and 'it can't happen here' in the USA right now.

It CAN happen here. It IS happening here.

The budget for "election security" was removed from the Department of Homeland security. They argued it was outside that department's purview.

There's another department that also handles election security at the federal level... Guess what?

From the Project 2025 tracker.

And look, I know cybercom is the same department that carries out cyber attacks against foreign adversaries. I know the US government and particularly the US intelligence agencies that are being dismantled as we speak (CIA, FBI, NSA, Pentagon have all seen big indiscriminate workforce reductions, forced leaks, or destruction of internal databases) have done a lot of evil, heinous shit, both domestically and - especially- abroad. The US does a lot of regime change, you know it, I know it.

But what's the end game of the current regime?

Take money from the part of the federal budget that is discretionary and works for ordinary Americans - the SMALL part of the budget that is discretionary and works for ordinary Americans - and redirect it to AI contracts that Elon Musk will benefit from, Starlink and SpaceX contracts that he will benefit from, so he can pay off the massive loan he took out to buy twitter?

Go after renewable energy SPECIFICALLY, freeze a program that passed with bipartisan support (the inflation reduction act) where 78% of the budget would have gone to Republican states whose voters feel they are not getting their fair share of federal money?

From Paul Krugman:

The Expendables are the means-tested programs outside of social security and Medicare that go to Americans in need, like food stamps, disability payments, Medicaid, and section 8 housing.

Eventually go after these popular and necessary programs - where the actual money is - so that money can be diverted to the 26 billion (estimated) deportation project and a 4.5 trillion dollar tax cut for the wealthy?

And in the meantime, gut education, strip mine public parks, abandon protections for clean air and water - contribute to global climate change!

Gut public health and health research, criminalize accurate reporting by the CDC, create a situation where the US could be the incubator for the next worldwide pandemic?

Loosen up banking regulations just as we're reaching the top of a manic financial hype cycle, so we can crash the economy again like we did in 2008 - this time with Trump et. al. in charge to handle the fallout?

Fund far-right authoritarian groups around the globe, pressure European countries to allow "free speech" (hate speech) against the interests of the people living in those countries, foment a global backlash against immigration FROM the countries that will be hit hardest by climate change, TO the countries that are largely responsible for climate change to begin with?

And blame everything that goes wrong on 'DEI' which means hiring or promoting anyone who isn't a white Christian male.

Like really. Really really. Every crazy Senate confirmation went through. Republican senators are begging trump for special exemptions from Trump's chaotic spending cuts that hurt their own constituents, they are kissing the ring exactly as Pritzer describes, and for what? Trump is only loyal to himself and - maybe - the people who put him back into power - that is, Elon Musk and the Heritage Foundation - NOT the Republican voters who will be materially hurt by his policies and only have Hate to show for it.

We aren't headed towards authoritarianism, we are already halfway there.

The Supreme Court hasn't ruled yet on any of Trump's acts of executive overreach, but the first of the funding freeze cases will reach them this week. Mass public pressure is so important right now.

There are people – some in my own Party – who think that if you just give Donald Trump everything he wants, he’ll make an exception and spare you some of the harm. I’ll ignore the moral abdication of that position for just a second to say — almost none of those people have the experience with this President that I do. I once swallowed my pride to offer him what he values most — public praise on the Sunday news shows — in return for ventilators and N95 masks during the worst of the pandemic. We made a deal. And it turns out his promises were as broken as the BIPAP machines he sent us instead of ventilators. Going along to get along does not work – just ask the Trump-fearing red state Governors who are dealing with the same cuts that we are. I won’t be fooled twice.

I’ve been reflecting, these past four weeks, on two important parts of my life: my work helping to build the Illinois Holocaust Museum and the two times I’ve had the privilege of reciting the oath of office for Illinois Governor.

As some of you know, Skokie, Illinois once had one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors anywhere in the world. In 1978, Nazis decided they wanted to march there.

The leaders of that march knew that the images of Swastika clad young men goose stepping down a peaceful suburban street would terrorize the local Jewish population – so many of whom had never recovered from their time in German concentration camps.

The prospect of that march sparked a legal fight that went all the way to the Supreme Court. It was a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU who argued the case for the Nazis – contending that even the most hateful of speech was protected under the first amendment.

As an American and a Jew, I find it difficult to resolve my feelings around that Supreme Court case – but I am grateful that the prospect of Nazis marching in their streets spurred the survivors and other Skokie residents to act. They joined together to form the Holocaust Memorial Foundation and built the first Illinois Holocaust Museum in a storefront in 1981 – a small but important forerunner to the one I helped build thirty years later.

I do not invoke the specter of Nazis lightly. But I know the history intimately — and have spent more time than probably anyone in this room with people who survived the Holocaust. Here’s what I’ve learned – the root that tears apart your house’s foundation begins as a seed – a seed of distrust and hate and blame.

The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe a lifetime ago didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

I’m watching with a foreboding dread what is happening in our country right now. A president who watches a plane go down in the Potomac – and suggests — without facts or findings — that a diversity hire is responsible for the crash. Or the Missouri Attorney General who just sued Starbucks – arguing that consumers pay higher prices for their coffee because the baristas are too “female” and “nonwhite.” The authoritarian playbook is laid bare here: They point to a group of people who don’t look like you and tell you to blame them for your problems.

I just have one question: What comes next? After we’ve discriminated against, deported or disparaged all the immigrants and the gay and lesbian and transgender people, the developmentally disabled, the women and the minorities – once we’ve ostracized our neighbors and betrayed our friends – After that, when the problems we started with are still there staring us in the face – what comes next.

All the atrocities of human history lurk in the answer to that question. And if we don’t want to repeat history – then for God’s sake in this moment we better be strong enough to learn from it.

I swore the following oath on Abraham Lincoln’s Bible: “I do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of the state of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of Governor .... according to the best of my ability.

My oath is to the Constitution of our state and of our country. We don’t have kings in America – and I don’t intend to bend the knee to one. I am not speaking up in service to my ambitions — but in deference to my obligations.

If you think I’m overreacting and sounding the alarm too soon, consider this:

It took the Nazis one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic. All I’m saying is when the five-alarm fire starts to burn, every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water if you want to stop it from raging out of control.

Those Illinois Nazis did end up holding their march in 1978 – just not in Skokie. After all the blowback from the case, they decided to march in Chicago instead. Only twenty of them showed up. But 2000 people came to counter protest. The Chicago Tribune reported that day that the “rally sputtered to an unspectacular end after ten minutes.” It was Illinoisans who smothered those embers before they could burn into a flame.

Tyranny requires your fear and your silence and your compliance. Democracy requires your courage. So gather your justice and humanity, Illinois, and do not let the “tragic spirit of despair” overcome us when our country needs us the most.

Sources:

• NBC Chicago & J.B. Pritzker, Democratic governor of Illinois, State of the State address 2025: Watch speech here | Full text

• Betches News on Instagram (screencaps)

[zecoya]

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Lavender Body Wash

A gentle, sulfate-free cleanser that calms both skin and senses—perfect for bedtime.

Mineral-Rich Bath Soaks

Packed with magnesium and natural oils, these soaks ease muscle tension and promote circulation.

Citrus Scrubs

A customer favourite that exfoliates without drying your skin—ideal for weekly use.

All products are carefully packed, ethically sourced, and designed to complement your wellness goals.

Call to Action: Your Self-Care Journey Starts Here

Refresh your self-care routine with our curated bath and body products—shop now and enjoy free shipping across Canada and the USA. With Zecoya, every shower becomes a sanctuary and every product supports your wellbeing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q1: What types of bath and body products does Zecoya offer?

Zecoya offers a wide range including body washes, scrubs, bath soaks, soaps, and lotions—all curated for different skin types and wellness needs.

Q2: Are these products natural or chemical-free?

Yes, Zecoya prioritizes clean formulations with minimal synthetic additives. Many products are free from sulfates, parabens, and artificial fragrances.

Q3: Is Zecoya only available in Toronto?

No! While Zecoya is based in Toronto, they ship across Canada and the USA—always with free delivery.

Q4: Can I find gift sets or bundles?

Absolutely. Zecoya frequently features seasonal sets and curated bundles that make perfect gifts or self-care packages.

Q5: Is Zecoya affordable compared to other luxury bath brands?

Yes. Zecoya combines boutique-level quality with affordable pricing—making it a standout among luxury bath products online.

Final Thoughts

Zecoya proves that daily self-care can be both luxurious and accessible. With a strong focus on natural bath essentials Toronto consumers can trust, this brand is quietly becoming a household name across North America.

Whether you’re revamping your skincare shelf or simply want to enjoy a more soothing bath after work, Zecoya has you covered.

Your body deserves better. And with Zecoya, better is just one order away.

Explore the Zecoya bath and body collection now.

[darkmaga-returns]

Bloomberg and the other Fake News outlets that hate Trump and want more EQUALITY, following the very same philosophies as Stalin imposed in Russia. All we hear is the danger of wealth disparity. When there is no wealth disparity because people are not allowed to invent or become rich, you get economic stagnation and widespread poverty. But these FAKE NEWS outlets constantly push the same nonsense over and over again. The de-dollarization is all because of Trump, so we better overthrow Trump and bring in Kamala so the Neocons can really help the economy with uncontrolled, endless war spending and a reduction of the population to reduce government obligations.

While the FAKE NEWS and the perpetual GOLD-ONLY crowd promote the de-dollarization with BRICS, that means in time of war, you are buying Chinese yuan, Russian rubles, and the country most in debt – Brazil. Their perpetual promotion of BRICS and even the latest absurd forecast for Bitcoin at $21,000 by 2046 suggests that these individuals appear to know little about the world economy, the business cycle, or war. They refuse to consider two critical factors: (1) the sovereign debt crisis, and (2) the war.

Interest Expenditures as % of GDP (Top 30 Economies):

United States: 1.9%

China: 1.2%

Japan: 2.0% (despite high debt, low rates keep payments manageable)

Germany: 0.8%

India: 3.3%

United Kingdom: 3.5%

France: 1.7%

Italy: 3.9%

Brazil: 8.5% (highest among major economies)

Canada: 1.4%

The sovereign debt crisis is brewing, but outside the USA FIRST!!!! Canada’s interest expenditures are on track to exceed healthcare expenditures. While people continue to discuss the US debt as a reason for de-dollarization, consider the BRICS; they are paying more in interest as a percentage of GDP than the US, and Brazil is the worst. Britain is in a precarious state, comparable to Italy, and Starmer’s policies are pushing the UK over the edge. Germany has just abandoned austerity and is now going to inflate to prepare for war. The Sovereign Debt Crisis is UNSUSTAINABLE, but it will break FIRST outside the USA. The United States will be the last standing.

[transagainstautogynephiles]

If y’all mean socialism as in this kind, nobody needs to be a servant. It’s the opposite actually, it gives workers more leverage.

All that does is help workers earn what they are properly owed rather than all the funds being sucked up by the corporate elites and owners. It would give us a middle class again and help the lower class not be in poverty.

There are also two different kinds of socialism, just gonna copy and paste tbh:

“The two major forms of social ownership are society-wide public ownership and cooperative ownership. The distinction between these two forms lies in the distribution of the surplus product. With society-wide public ownership, the surplus is distributed to all members of the public through a social dividend whereas with co-operative ownership the economic surplus of an enterprise is controlled by all the worker-members of that specific enterprise.

The goal of social ownership is to eliminate the distinction between the class of private owners who are the recipients of passive property income and workers who are the recipients of labor income (wages, salaries and commissions), so that the surplus product (or economic profits in the case of market socialism) belong either to society as a whole or to the members of a given enterprise. Social ownership would enable productivity gains from labor automation to progressively reduce the average length of the working day instead of creating job insecurity and unemployment. Reduction of necessary work time is central to the Marxist concept of human freedom and overcoming alienation, a concept widely shared by Marxist and non-Marxist socialists alike.”

I personally prefer the cooperative ownership version, where all businesses become cooperatives essentially. I love my local co-op grocery store. These things already exist and would just be implemented on a large scale.

If by socialism y’all mean tax funded programs, then still nobody needs to be a servant. In fact it would help people, particularly women, escape servitude. What we need is a movement targeted towards redirecting the military’s funds into ubi and uhc. These systems would also give workers more leverage in the workforce and allow them to walk away from abuse. The USA also already has some socialist policies like social security and minimum wage(which needs to be improved and adjusted for inflation). We need more socialist policies and in order to fund them we need to tax corporations, churches, and the wealthy properly. Finland just ended their homelessness issue with a socialist policy, all countries should follow their lead on that.

Not socialist in a “I won’t have to work” type of way but socialist in a “I’ll still be working but I won’t be worried I won’t make the rent” type of way. In a “billions won’t be hoarded by one person” type of way. In a “janitors, fast-food workers, child care workers, preschool teachers, hotel clerks, personal care and home health aides, and grocery store cashiers, will live comfortably” type of way. In a “the sick and elderly will be cared for” type of way. In a “no child should work” type of way.

[sweepstakesadvantage7]

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[s15-hummingbird]

good morning come with me on a journey of indian history told through photos. i sort of started with postage stamps and got carried away, i believe the internet refers to this concept as a "rabbit hole" because i accidentally spammed my friends so i decided to spam tumblr instead

okay so turns out back when the british still ruled india before 1947 the currency used was an anna, youll see it denoted as the A, AS, or the P or PS etc - this was before the rupee and paisa came into use. nowadays even the paisa isnt a thing because inflation, we're looking at a stick of butter being 200 rupees, singular candies being like 5 rupees

some historical indian stamps - india was freed from british rule in 1947 ( 75 years of independence as of 2022 ) my aviation nerd brain wants you to know that plane is a lockheed constellation

a cool fact i found out recently is that apparently this image here has been around since the 1940s. indian passports TODAY have this image printed on them like wow u old

map of india as distributed by the british empire. back in the day india was the crown jewel of the british empire, they literally put a good chunk of their resources into making sure india wasnt taken from them. we used to be insanely rich as a country until these guys came along 💀

now, you ask, what in the world were the british doing in the USA distributing a map of india of all things ? you see, propaganda. a quick google search tells us the british government distributed stuff like this to manage public opinion of the british, especially during stuff like wars, and surprise ! they had an office in NYC. turns out this map may have just been part of that subtle propaganda, maybe given to schools and universities and newspapers to show off the british empire, promote their image, essentially just make themselves look good in the eyes of the american public.

so yeah that about concludes it.

bonus that cartoon of a dude on a horse that i initially thought was an elephant is sending me

[rauthschild]

Great Britain isn't a country.  It's a company. 

The UK isn't a country, either.  It's an incorporated Municipal Corporation. 

Donald Trump isn't "President" of this  country.  He is President of a corporation merely calling itself "the United States of America, Incorporated----another British Crown Corporation, one that specializes in providing cheap mercenary services and refined oil products. 

And "the State of Israel" is just a franchise corporation --- the State of Israel, Inc., of the multinational conglomerate mentioned above.

How is it possible that the above facts have escaped everyone's attention?  These so-called "service organizations" have substituted themselves for the actual national governments, and the various Bar Associations have helped them do it.  

This, folks, is reality.  It's been reality for a long time.  Times have been tough for the USA, Inc., so they are drumming up business. War business. They just used their "State of Israel, Inc." franchise to do the dirty work of starting it. 

These are corporations masquerading as governments.  They have no authority.  They are just renegade multinational crime syndicates. 

And they make their money from war and theft of other people's resources, so guess what?  

"We" are kept at constant war, and people all over the world hate "the Americans" when it isn't even the Americans at fault.  It's not an American Corporation doing this.  It's a British Territorial Corporation that has been headquartered for many years in Puerto Rico. 

Go figure. 

The Catholic Church knew this and did nothing.  They were in on it. Cheering on the profiteers and sharing in the profits.  The Mormon Church (LDS) was in on it, too, and the Scientologists, and even the stodgy Lutherans got on the payroll.  B'nai B'rith, the Freemasons, everyone knew. 

Except possibly, the Sons of the Revolution and the Nazareans. 

And who invented all these imaginary "legal fiction" business structures we call corporations?  The Roman Catholic Church.  

Pope Francis admitted this, and Ecclesiastical Law records that they did; Francis also admitted that it is all fraud, all fakery, all nonsense. Corporations are just different ways of organizing business and making a buck selling registrations --- and business services, like tax accounting, he admitted.  And don't forget how handy it is, to have "regulatory power".  

None of it actually exists. That's the punchline. 

Pause a moment to feel really humble; pause, pause, and now, what to do about it? 

Set into the matrix of non-reality that created all these corporations is a simple requirement.  They can be organized for any lawful purpose.

Public corporations that belong to the Public and that enjoy Public Bankruptcy Protection as a result, are still required to be organized for lawful purposes. 

But they're not, and they aren't operating "lawfully", either. 

They've rigged the commodities markets for generations.  They've rigged the banks. They've rigged the courts.  They've rigged the monetary systems. They have rigged the rigging.  They've used this system to coercively control most of the world's population and vast sectors of the world economy. 

They've created illegal world-spanning monopolies, without a whisper.  They have securitized living flesh (otherwise known as peonage and enslavement) by pretending that people are corporate "franchises".  Then they have palmed off their debts on the same people by pretending that they are "shareholders".  

They've used illegal interlocking trust directorates to collude with each other and orchestrate events like the 1929 Stock Market Crash and the Covid Pandemic and to create illegal money mills like the Federal Reserve. They've used the same mechanisms to create product shortages, bank runs, inflation, "social (engineering) initiatives", and genocides.  They've covered up assassinations, profited from illicit drugs, promoted child pornography, even sunk to cannibalism, right under our noses. 

They created the Committee of 300, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, and finally, the World Economic Forum, as a means to organize and streamline their collusion and control. 

How have they done all this, with nobody noticing? 

They did it under "color of law".  Because they are "government services corporations" and people were used to receiving services from them, it was easy for them to usurp against the actual national governments they were supposed to serve. So they did. 

They tried to keep it secret and called this a "matter of National  Security" -- but they don't really have a nation.  They have citizens, instead.  

Their citizens are supposed to be government employees and  dependents, but they found ways to extend and apply this subservient political status to nearly everyone, simply by using deceitful language and false documents. 

The false documents are used to create unconscionable performance contracts that the victims are totally unaware of. 

Then, the so-called "equity" courts enforce these contracts, without the victim ever having a glimmer. 

This is the evil, ugly world we live in --- and it's all criminal.  This is purely a matter of crime.  Not politics.  Not religion.  Not race.  Not economic differences. 

To the living men and women reading this, be alarmed. 

The Evil Doers are organized in two teams, so that they can play Good Cop - Bad Cop games with us.  

Right now, Donald Trump is playing Good Cop, but it's just a game --- a game by which one or the other of the colluding Parent Corporations (Roman Municipal or British Crown) always win. 

Yes, that's how they work their casino businesses, too.  The house always wins, unless you cheat the cheaters. 

Our "alternative" mostly co-opted media is flooded with stories about how Donald Trump is single-handedly saving the world, and how the focus of his effort has been centered around saving children from the heinous adrenochrome industry.  Sappy paintings of Trump carrying small children to safety abound. 

Yet, in the real world, Trump didn't have a tear or a word for 20,000 children murdered in Gaza.  In the real world, most of the adrenochrome factories have been located in mothballed public and military facilities.  In the real world, eight million children have "gone missing" every year, without any concerted broad spectrum effort from the military or the hired corporate law enforcement agencies to find them. 

Here's what's going to happen: Trump is going to start a war to make money, because that's how "the United States of America, Inc." makes money.  The Roman Catholic Church is going to be blamed for everything and prosecuted, because the real criminals in the Church hierarchy are ready to move to new digs.

With Catherine Middleton poised to be Queen and Mr. Prevost already installed as Pope, you can be sure the fix is in and the "show" they are telling you to sit back and enjoy, is precisely that. 

A show, as in "picture show" or "movie".   

And just like the corporations themselves, none of it is real. 

The words of Edgar Allen Poe when all this started are just as true today -- believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see.