#fire the gop

[thatstormygeek]

We are literally facing the authoritarian future that John Stormer was warning us about back in 1964. Only instead of “communists” in the State Department, it’s a billionaire president with the avowed goal of ending union rights and locking up or using the Army with live ammunition against those who protest his policies.

Kirk and his followers essentially predicted in 1951 that if today’s “hairdressers and working tallow-chandlers” — college students, women, working-class people, and people of color — ever got even close to social and political power at the same level as wealthy white men, there would essentially be a communist revolution in the US, handing us over to Stalin and his Politburo. ... Wealthy white conservatives freaked out as the morbidly rich promoted the idea that America was experiencing a “moral decline” that could only be fixed by ending the union movement and other “liberal” causes that shared the union movements’ populist goals. They became convinced that they were seeing Kirk’s prophecy play out in real time on their television screens every night: the “communists” — those uppity racial minorities, women who’d forgotten their “rightful place in society,” students who objected to Vietnam, unionized workers, and gender minorities — were on the verge of “taking over” America.

Their plan was to declare war on labor unions so wages could slide back down again, end free college across the nation so students would live in fear rather than be willing to protest, and increase the penalties Nixon had already put on drugs so they could use those laws against their scapegoats, particularly the hippy antiwar protesters and Black people demanding an end to police killings. They also wanted to outlaw abortion, to put women “back in their place.”

Thus, Reagan massively cut taxes on rich people and raised taxes on working-class people 11 times. For example, he put income taxes on Social Security and unemployment payments, and put in a mechanism to track and tax tips income, all of which had previously been tax-free but were exclusively needed and used by middle-class people. He ended the tax deductibility of credit-card, car-loan, and student-debt interest, overwhelmingly claimed by working-class people. At the same time, he cut the top tax bracket for millionaires and billionaires from 74% to 25%. (There were only a handful of billionaires in America then, in large part because of previous tax policies; today’s democracy-destroying explosion of billionaires followed Reagan’s, Bush’s, and Trump’s massive tax cuts on the rich.) Reagan declared war on labor unions, crushed PATCO in less than a week, and over the next decade the result of his war on labor was that union membership went from about a third of the American workforce when he came into office to around 10% at the end of the Reagan/Bush presidencies. It’s just now beginning to recover from its low of 6% of the private workforce.

[thatstormygeek]

How many fucking leftists do y'all think there are in the US? If it's a significant enough voting block to always swing elections (or maybe only when dems lose...) maybe we deserve some sort of representation in our government?

But I think the people posting shit like this really know, deep down, that leftists aren't actually powerful enough to do all the shit they attribute to us. But it sure does make them feel good to blame us.

It's especially lovely as a trans leftist in a red state to once again see a bunch of fucking blue state cishet white libs patting themselves on the back with one hand while punching left with the other.

[nando161mando]

Rehabilitation, not Devastation. Fuck The Police.

[thatstormygeek]

This is why so many of us are on the Dems to DO SOMETHING even if the GOP will roll it back or fight it or whatever. ACA was so difficult to gut because conservatives LIKE not having pre-existing condition carve-outs. Once they had the benefit, there would be hell to pay if their reps took it away. So the GOP had to promise to repeal "Obamacare" and replace it with something "better" without taking away all the cool shit people like about the ACA.

So yeah, give people student loan forgiveness. And make college free. Start up UBI. Whatever it is that y'all keep saying "but the GOP will kill it immediately when they get into power" as an excuse to NOT EVEN TRY.

It's much, much more difficult to take something back than to avoid giving it in the first place. In theory, people might be willing to go without so the folks they hate will be more miserable, but in practice? People like their shit.

I spend a lot of time keeping track of right wing media figures for work, and to be perfectly honest I'm cautiously optimistic. The Limbaugh era was turbo-charged by a combination of organized evangelical voting blocks, post-9/11 patriotism, and once-in-a-generation media personalities, that are all running on fumes now. They've got momentum, but it's coasting.

While on the other hand, the resurgence of union power is seeing people actually working with their community to materially improve their lives. That's the concrete for a strong foundation.

I don't really have a point here, I'm just sharing some guarded optimism.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Until they find a way around it.

[beauty-funny-trippy]

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said President-elect Donald Trump may seek to withhold federal disaster aid to California because it is a blue state, as multiple wildfires rage in and around Los Angeles. "He's tried to do it in the past," said Newsom. "He's not just done it here in California. He's done it in states all across the country." Former Trump White House official Mark Harvey said that Trump refused to authorize disaster aid for California in 2018 because it leans Democrat, but finally, with much convincing, reversed his position after learning that the affected area was in Orange County, which for generations had been a GOP stronghold. "We went as far as looking up how many votes he got in those impacted areas … to show him these are people who voted for you," said Harvey. Trump also withheld wildfire assistance for Washington state in 2020, and severely restricted emergency hurricane relief to Puerto Rico in 2017 because he felt these places were not sufficiently supportive of him. “It was clear that Trump was entirely self-interested and vengeful towards those he perceived didn’t vote for him,” said Kevin Carroll, a Trump administration official. “He even wanted to pull the Navy out of Hawaii because they didn’t vote for him." Olivia Troye, who was Trump's Homeland Security adviser, said “It was shocking and appalling to us to see a president of the United States behaving in this way. Basically if it doesn’t benefit him, he’s not interested." Trump is so cruel, vindictive and petty, he delights in punishing Americans while they're in the midst of dealing with devastating natural disasters — simply because they did not vote for him. He is clearly unfit to lead the nation. Trump's vengeful abuses of power are not the acts of a U.S. president. They are the acts of a tyrant.

[thatstormygeek]

The push is to make gender affirming care bans into the new “Hyde Amendment,” an amendment commonly added to funding bills that bans federal spending on abortion. These amendments would do similarly, banning all federal spending on gender affirming care. These amendments could target everything from Affordable Care Act insurance plans, which fall under the regulation of Health and Human Services, to transgender people in the military, who must get their care through the military. The military would then be banned from providing such care - a defacto trans ban for servicemembers. Collectively, these amendments would seek to enact national anti-trans bans that would reach even people in deep blue states who have fled anti-trans policies in red states.

And yes, there has been an ongoing wave of trans folks fleeing their homes for "safe" states.

My bestie's partner jokingly calls her the "trans-porter" because she's the one their mid-Missouri trans friends come to when they need help getting moved.

Now is an excellent time to tell your Democratic Congress Critters trans Healthcare is important

If you can't safely contact them in person, here are some other options:

Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to the representative of your choice.

Here is one that will send your reps a fax: https://resist.bot/

[thatstormygeek]

This is ridiculous and shows the inherent inhumanity in our immigration policy. Unfortunately, it often takes a more privileged person getting caught up in it - this time, a white backpacker from the UK - to bring attention to a wider audience. I'm sorry for Becky Burke and I hope that her experience serves as a catalyst for the US to change our ways.

If our system was built with good faith and sustained in good faith and imposed with good faith, this would not be happening. A person doing a few chores in exchange for housing as they travel would not be a world-ending deal.

But our system is as far removed from good faith as it is possible to be. Every level is built to impose the most cost on those with the least. And so we can't allow informal work exchange like this because people will exploit it (e.g., demanding excessive work for meager accommodations) and rather than actually intervene when necessary, we make blanket policy after blanket policy and pretend things work.

What is happening to Becky Burke has been happening to BIPOC for decades. ICE has been disappearing people for years under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

The United States is a shithole nation.

[izooks]

Trump (more) lies

Largest tax cut in history - LIE

Job creation- LIE

Job growth- LIE

Crime - LIE

Migrant crime - LIE

[thatstormygeek]

I wonder what's behind this incessant push to declare loyalty for a candidate in an election still nearly a year away. It's almost like some folks have a vested interest in squashing the only possible leverage people have when trying to get their elected officials to listen.

Vote, y'all. I'm not saying not to (and maybe pay attention to your local elections because you probably have a few in your area this year. I know we do) but declaring you will vote for Biden no matter what in an election that is not until November and demanding others do the same is saying you value your comfort and think it's more important to guard against potential future harm for yourself than to stand up against our government supplying weapons to commit genocide right now.

Standing next to the trolley lever and yelling "vote blue no matter who" at every person you see is doing fuck all to help anyone, on the tracks or no. Especially when some of Team Blue is helping tie folks to the tracks.

You know I used to think "tumblr's absolute refusal to actually engage with the Trolley Problem in favor of insisting that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is just a short-sighted idiot is really fucking annoying, but I guess it's not actually doing any harm".

Anyway that was before we asked tumblr at large to decide between "guy aiding a genocide but making progress elsewhere" and "guy who would actively and enthusiastically participate in a genocide and would also make everything else much, much worse for everyone elsewhere" and the response was that there must be a third, morally pure option that doesn't require them to make a hard decision and that anyone who asks them to make a binary choice is a short-sighted idiot.

[purple-dragon]

to everyone who voted for trump:

i hope you get hit with a case of adult acne that never clears up. i hope the only hair ties you find are the shitty rubber bands that rip your hair out. i hope a bird shits on your car every day. i hope you never find your keys in time to leave home. i hope you never have correct change. i hope you always run out of a key ingredient so you can never make what you were planning to cook. i hope every time you try to zip up your clothes, the zippers break. i hope that the next time you drop your phone, it's at the exact angle to make the screen shatter. i hope target is always out of your preferred soap. i hope you stumble over your words at your next important presentation. i hope you drop your toast jam side down. i wish you every possible inconvenience. please have the day you deserve.

[houseofbrat]

Mike Johnson might hold on as speaker until 2026. He might.

But I'm beginning to think he won't be in Congress after 2026, which used to be unthinkable for his district.

2026 mid-term election looks like it's going to be a Republican shellacking more and more...

[newslink7com]

🚨 Massive NOAA Layoffs Spark Public Safety Crisis! 🚨

Hundreds of weather forecasters fired from the National Weather Service—just as the U.S. faces peak wildfire, hurricane, and tornado seasons. Experts warn this could cripple disaster response and put millions at risk. ⚠️

👉 Read the full story at NewsLink7.com

[thatstormygeek]

Did you know that there is a Tomahawk missile on display in the National Museum of the American Indian? It’s true. This is America’s power at work—the power to wipe out a population and then repurpose their culture to name weapons to wipe out the next population.

We are the world’s greatest machine for building wealth at the expense of everyone else and now we are leaning into that tendency with more naked immodesty than ever before. We want the machine to run in the background with no interruption. In the foreground we have placed a television clown to live in the White House and entertain us all. Folks, look at this ten year old child with brain cancer—we’re making him a Secret Service agent, tonight, with a genuine badge and everything! America loves you, young man, and we dislike your brain cancer although we are eliminating all of the environmental regulations that might have prevented it. And over here, folks—this young man wants to go to West Point. Well guess what, young man: You’re in! Everyone cheer! We are handing out rewards, like a game show, for the rubes! You get a tax cut, and you get a tax cut, and you get a tax cut! And all of the sex criminals and evangelical zealots and money launderers who used their car dealership revenue to get themselves elected stand and cheer. In response, our unfortunate opposition party harrumphed. Its elderly leaders gripped their canes and slouched on their benches and tried to shape their wrinkles into an expression of disapproval. Some waved signs, and some walked out, and one Congressman was brave enough to get himself ejected, but as a group, as a unified force, there was nothing. For their official response to a two-hour celebration of Fascist Pomp and Circumstance, the Democrats had a former CIA agent decry the fact that Trump is not living up to the hallowed standards of Ronald Reagan, a man deserving of great respect. The Democratic Party is an exhausted and empty shell, a corpse sucked to the very edge of death by moneyed donors, a pale jumble of consulting firms trying to sell unflavored broth at the Gumbo Festival. The president dons a neon suit and prepares for Live Televised Executions of EVIL GANG MEMBERS and the Democrats knit their eyebrows and issue press releases saying “While we all agree that crime is an important issue, the president’s methods are simply out of the mainstream.” One party is out to kill, and the other is waiting for its leaders to die.

As the president of the American Association for People With Disabilities gave an earnest speech about the need to protect disabled people of color in prison, it was hard not to think: Oh boy, everyone here is about to get fucked. The protest checked every “what we should be doing now” box—bringing community members into the streets, speaking out, remaining unswayed in our beliefs, taking action—but it was all playing out in an America where the mood to push the the kid in the wheelchair into the mud and laugh has taken hold. The mean spirit of nihilistic vengeance is momentarily unleashed. We will stuff it back in its box, sooner or later. But not yet.

[thatstormygeek]

Hmm.....so....an elected representative being barred from the floor is fine, but a speaker not being allowed to tell college students "why the Nazis were good people, actually" without being challenged is a free speech crisis.

The right is so deeply unserious it would be funny if they weren't so dangerous.

Montana residents, please sign: https://secure.ngpvan.com/f-IKNSPrKUGR_Db_LwHY5g2