#and some are not

[dufflebagwitch]

The boops are so delightful that for a few blissful hours this morning I forgot that this site is absolutely fucking unusable on April Fools

[tenderwatches]

sometimes you need dialogue tags and don't want to use the same four

[marvelsmostwanted]

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)

[daftpatience]

slow down for your disabled friends. thats like a bare minimum kindness that we shouldnt have to ask for. i love that youre so quirky and walking fast is a cool personality trait to you and all that but i bet you can count your physically disabled friends on less than one hand

[alkemylabz]

"writing about fucked up things doesnt indicate your values as a person" and "the way you write about things may indicate some of your values" are not conflicting statements if im going to be real

post cancelled. look at mysterious green glacier mice move across the ice in formation

if anyone wants to assume this post is about rugrats porn or hentai or censorship or ao3 i will have you know this post was because i found it odd (as someone with a passing interest in cults and high control groups) that so many people were insistent that the former scientology auditor did not have any internalized views about what consent meant that showed through in his writing. it's possible that you could glean he has such views through the way he talks and writes about certain things. what a strange and novel way to view communication that has no applications in real life.

do not derail and continue discussing glacier mice as usual though

[mi1kw33d-2]

ao3 is crazy because you'll read the most gut-wrenching 200k word slowburn that leaves you sobbing into your sweater at four in the morning and the author will be applejacksmonstercock

[miggylol]

Surprise! Tumblr just got turned into an epic fantasy RPG, just like [your favorite appropriate media franchise]. And the Tumblr RPG's plot needs to have all of its characters covered, in roles both large and small.

That means that you are assigned to a stereotypical RPG role inside our new fantasy world. Spin this wheel to find out what you are now doing for a living.

[climbingthefloors]

the us banning tiktok over fears of chinese influence prompting americans to flee to xiaohongshu (which translates to little red book - the same name as the famous red book of mao zedong quotations) and form instant connections with the chinese… you can't make this kind of irony up

[puppppppppy]

filipina miku!! my mom helped me with her outfit ^_^

[tickfleato]

self-love/self-hate

[keitrinkomfloukru]

[watercolor-rainclouds]

[juraorbi]

coming back after a year of not posting art with a shitpost,, hello jayvik nation

[destiel-news-channel]

[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'At least two Capitol Rioters rejected Trump's pardon.' to Cas' 'I love you'. /End ID]

"Trump can shove his pardon up his ass,"

said Jason Riddle, who had been sentenced to 90 days in prison for two misdemeanor offences. Pamela Hemphill, a 71-year old woman, also refused her pardon with the words "The message is, if I took a pardon that what I did was OK. They were criminals. They broke the law. I broke the law. Pay the price." - source link

[kazoosandfannypacks]

The company budsies, which specializes in making custom stuffed animals and making duplicates of old or lost plushies, is currently offering to recreate the beloved stuffed animal of any kid who lost theirs in the LA wildfire, free of charge.

Their instagram post said to share this, so please spread this around so that families who've lost everything can receive just a little bit more hope in their lives 🥺