#launch an insurrection

[jerzwriter]

Noah…

no cheating by looking but who do you think your Spotify top artist is gonna be this year 👀

[ladybugmania]

BE AWARE: HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF

Trump & Hitler Compared

Comparison 1: Nationalism and Scapegoating Minorities

Hitler (1930s Germany):

Hitler’s rhetoric emphasized an ethnically pure German identity and national rebirth, exploiting economic despair and cultural anxiety following WWI. He blamed Jews, communists, and other minority groups for Germany’s defeat and economic troubles. The Nuremberg Laws institutionalized racial discrimination, stripping Jews of their rights as citizens.

Trump and the GOP (2015–Present):

Trump has repeatedly used xenophobic and racially charged language, calling Mexican immigrants “rapists” and proposing a “total and complete shutdown” of Muslims entering the U.S. His administration instituted the Muslim ban, attempted to eliminate DACA, and enacted family separation at the border. Republican-backed state laws increasingly target immigrants and minority voters, using the guise of security or voter integrity, echoing exclusionary policies of the past.

Comparison 2: Undermining Democratic Institutions

Hitler:

After becoming Chancellor, Hitler manipulated the Reichstag Fire in 1933 to invoke emergency powers. The Enabling Act gave him the authority to legislate without parliamentary consent, effectively dismantling democracy. He repeatedly painted political opponents as traitors or enemies of the state.

Trump and the GOP:

After losing the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede, launched dozens of baseless legal challenges, and incited the January 6 insurrection—an unprecedented attack on the peaceful transfer of power. He and his allies have labeled political opponents as “deep state,” “communists,” or “enemies,” aiming to delegitimize dissent and create a hostile political climate. Many GOP figures continue to downplay or deny the events of January 6, paralleling historical patterns of rewriting or ignoring threats to democracy.

Comparison 3: Control of Media and Disinformation

Hitler:

Joseph Goebbels led the Nazi Ministry of Propaganda, controlling all media, art, and public messaging. The regime spread disinformation, suppressed dissenting voices, and crafted a narrative that glorified the regime while demonizing its enemies.

Trump and the GOP:

Trump labeled mainstream media “the enemy of the people,” a term used by authoritarian regimes to delegitimize journalism. He and GOP-aligned media outlets like Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN have been pivotal in spreading conspiracy theories (e.g., QAnon, election fraud), while vilifying fact-based reporting. This creates an alternate reality for supporters and undermines trust in factual information, similar to propaganda methods used by authoritarian regimes.

Comparison 4: Cult of Personality and Loyalty Above Law

Hitler:

The Nazi regime revolved around the Führerprinzip—absolute loyalty to Hitler. Personal loyalty to him was expected above all else, including law, ethics, or reason. Independent institutions were absorbed or dismantled.

Trump:

Trump demands personal loyalty from public officials, often attacking or firing those who disagree with him (e.g., FBI Director James Comey, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, or military leaders). Loyalty to Trump—not the Constitution or democratic norms—has become a defining feature of many in the GOP. Those who criticized his actions, including former allies, are frequently branded as traitors or RINOs (“Republicans In Name Only”).

Comparison 5: Militarization of Patriotism and Law Enforcement

Hitler:

The SA (Sturmabteilung) and later the SS were paramilitary forces used to intimidate opposition, enforce Nazi ideology, and maintain “order.” Hitler used them to blur the line between state power and partisan violence.

Trump and the GOP:

During the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, Trump deployed federal agents (often unmarked) to suppress demonstrations, particularly in Portland, Oregon. He encouraged violent responses to protesters, infamously saying, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Some extremist groups like the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and others that support Trump have acted as quasi-paramilitary forces—prominent among those who stormed the Capitol.

Conclusion:

While the U.S. remains a functioning democracy, the parallels between Hitler’s authoritarian rise and the tactics employed by Donald Trump and elements of the Republican Party are real and well-documented. They include:

Scapegoating and demonizing minorities

Discrediting democratic institutions

Spreading propaganda and disinformation

Fostering a cult of personality

Encouraging or ignoring political violence

These tactics, if unchecked, threaten the foundations of democratic society—just as they did in 1930s Germany. As history shows, democracies often crumble not from external attack, but from internal erosion.

Be Aware: History will repeat. This has happened in the past and it can happen again.

[charlesoberonn]

Trump has a "talent" of distracting from his failures with new failures, so I'm here to remind you of all of his greatest hits that are still relevant and ongoing:

Mishandled and lied about the deadly COVID pandemic, leading to millions of deaths worldwide and a million in the US

Launched an insurrection to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, including a false elector scheme and a violent riot on the Capitol. He pardoned the criminals he incited as soon as he started his second term.

Was found legally liable for rape in court.

Empowered the unelected Elon Musk to start illegally cutting funding to any and every government program he feels like based on a false claim of "efficiency".

Plans to ethnically cleanse Gaza to turn it into some fucked up resort. Removed the few guardrails the Biden administration put on Israel's conduct and urged them to "finish the job".

Betrayed Ukraine and hampered their defense efforts against Putin's invasion. Started planning the subjugation of Ukraine directly with Putin.

Unilaterally declared himself to have war powers to lock up and deport migrants with no due process. Has been keeping hundreds of Venezuelan migrants in a Salvadoran prison with no due process. Has openly defied multiple court orders to return them to the US

Has been illegally suppressing the free speech rights of anti-Israel protestors in universities by revoking their immigration status. Including kidnapping and detaining a protestor with no due process.

His administration officials have been holding high-level classified discussions on a public messaging app using their normal phones. Security was so lax one of them accidentally invited a journalist to such a discussion and none of them noticed.

And most recently: Started an unnecessary and extremely self-destructive trade war with basically the entire world, causing immense damage to the economy.

These are just the things I could remember off the top of my head. It doesn't include all the other fucked up stuff Republicans are doing. It also doesn't include any of his cabinet picks, all of which are awful and have and will cause damage with their conduct.

[porterdavis]

I'm going to post the entire dispatch in hopes more people will read it. It's a stylized version of how US media would cover events in America if they were happening in a foreign country. Chilling.

(Written by Garrett Graff)

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Musk Junta Seizes Key Governmental Offices February 1, 2025 By William Boot

WASHINGTON, D.C. — What started Thursday as a political purge of the internal security services accelerated Friday into a full-blown coup, as elite technical units aligned with media oligarch Elon Musk moved to seize key systems at the national treasury, block outside access to federal personnel records, and take offline governmental communication networks.

With rapidity that has stunned even longtime political observers, forces loyal to Musk’s junta have established him as the all-but undisputed unelected head of government in just a matter of days, unwinding the longtime democracy’s constitutional system and its proud nearly 250-year-old tradition of the rule of law. Having secured themselves in key ministries and in a building adjacent to the presidential office complex, Musk’s forces have begun issuing directives to civil service workers and forcing the resignation of officials deemed insufficiently loyal, like the head of the country’s aviation authority.

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The G-7 country’s newly installed president, a mid-level oligarch named Donald Trump, appeared amid Musk’s moves to be increasingly merely a figurehead head of state. Trump is a convicted felon with a long record of family corruption and returned in power in late January after a four-year interlude promising retribution and retaliation against foreign opponents and a domestic “Deep State.” He had been charged with attempting to overthrow the peaceful transition of power that had previously removed him from office in 2021, but loyalist elements in the judiciary successfully blocked his prosecution and incarceration, easing his return to power.

Over the last two weeks, loyalist presidential factions and Musk-backed teams have launched sweeping, illegal Stalin-esque purges of the national police forces and prosecutors, as well as offices known as inspectors-general, who are typically responsible for investigating government corruption. While official numbers of the unprecedented ousters were kept secret, rumors swirled in the capital that the scores of career officials affected by the initial purges could rise into the thousands as political commissars continued to assess the backgrounds of members of the police forces. 

The mentally declining and aging head of state, who has long embraced conspiracist thinking, spent much of the week railing in bizarre public remarks against the country’s oppressed racial and ethnic minorities, whom he blamed without evidence for causing a deadly plane crash across the river from the presidential mansion. Unfounded racist attacks on those minorities have been a key foundation of Trump’s unpredicted rise to political power from a career as a real estate magnate and reality TV host and date back to his first announcement that he would seek the presidency in 2015, when he railed against “rapists” being sent into the country from its southern neighbor.

In one of his first moves upon returning to the presidency, he mobilized far-right paramilitary security forces to begin raids at churches, schools, and workplaces to identify and remove racial minorities, including those who had long lived in harmony with the country’s white Christian majority. He also immediately moved to release from prison some 1,500 supporters who had participated in his unsuccessful 2021 insurrection, including members of violent far-right militias who promptly upon release swore fealty to him in any future civil unrest. Elsewhere, even as he released violent criminals onto the streets, Trump by fiat pulled longstanding government security protection from former military and health officials he felt had betrayed him.

Underscoring his apparent disconnection from reality, reports surfaced that the president had ordered military forces to unleash an environmental catastrophe and flood regions of a separatist province known as California that is led by a high-profile political opponent. The order underscored how the military, which had resisted Trump’s unconstitutional power grabs in his first administration, was now led by a subservient defense minister, a favored TV personality with no experience in management who faced an embarrassing series of allegations about his drunken behavior in the workplace.

Foreign allies who had long aligned themselves with the United States on the international stage were unsettled by increasingly destabilizing nationalistic and imperialist rhetoric coming from the president’s social media accounts—largely posted to a network owned and run by Trump himself—and worried in private conversations in capital embassies that he would mobilize the compliant military to fulfill heretofore unimaginable territorial ambitions that included seizing the country’s northern neighbor, which shares the world’s longest undefended border, and potentially colonizing Panama and Greenland.

Both the country’s defense minister, who has previously said he does not believe women should be allowed to serve in combat roles, and Trump’s new interior minister, who appeared on national TV wearing the paramilitary uniform of the border security force central to Trump’s political rise, spent much of their first days echoing and amplifying the president’s hysteria about racial and ethnic minorities. They and other government officials also immediately canceled all official observances of religious and ethnic minority holidays and launched efforts to scrub official websites and prohibit educating workers or schoolchildren about those minorities’ long, proud history in the country. Overnight Friday, hours after journalists had gone home, the defense minister’s office announced it would bar establishment independent media outlets from working out of the country’s military headquarters and replace them with friendly right-wing media organs.

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The administration’s propaganda minister also announced Friday, apparently with little preparation, that it would initiate an immediate, unexpected, and seemingly ill-considered trade war with the country’s two primary economic partners, a move that if implemented would upend the national economy, disrupt supply chains, and accelerate the return of an inflationary crisis that has roiled domestic politics over the last five years and had just seemed to be returning to normal. Ironically, it was that very inflationary crisis and Trump’s promises on the campaign trail to lower the price of eggs that paved the way for his unforeseen election victory in November.

The country’s other business oligarchs have watched Musk’s unexpected and rapid rise to power with trepidation, and leading media and technology companies who compete with Musk’s extensive business empire—like Meta, Amazon, Disney, Paramount, Apple, and OpenAI—have quickly lined up to negotiate and pay bribes to the president that would allow their companies to operate unimpeded; initial payment terms ranged from million-dollar gifts to the presidential inauguration to $15 million and $25 million payments, made by Disney and Meta, to fund the construction of a presidential shrine. The highest known payment was $40 million from Amazon, which was structured as a gift to the president’s wife in exchange for the media company having the opportunity to film a hagiographic biopic.

It was unclear, exactly, what deal terms any of those bribes and payments unlocked and when subsequent tribute payments would be expected, although on Saturday Trump moved to fire and neuter government watchdogs that had long bedeviled the country’s financial elite.

Throughout the week’s fast-moving seizure of power—one that seems increasingly irreversible by the hour—neither loyalist nor opposition parliamentary leaders raised meaningful objection to the new regime or the unraveling of the country’s constitutional system of checks and balances. A few members of the geriatric legislature body offered scattered social media posts condemning the move, but parliament — where both houses are controlled by so-called “MAGA” members handpicked for their loyalty to the president — went home early for the weekend even as Musk’s forces spread through the capital streets.

It was unclear what role, if any, Musk’s forces would allow parliament to have in the new governmental structure by the time it next returned to the national assembly known as Capitol Hill.

[fat-fuck-hairy-belly]

I'm starting to get so tired of seeing posts that are like "Well actually, that latest Trump executive order is not a real law, infact it's downright illegal so don't despair". Like brother, he launched an actual literal insurrection and got away with it, who cares if something else he does I also illegal? Who cares if his EOs are not laws when they are being enforced as if they are?! Sure his "ban all DEI" orders are illegal, that didn't stop all the corporations from complying with his orders. Who cares that DOGE is not a federal agency and doesn't have any legal power, they are acting like they have absolute power and no one is stopping them. I need liberals to finally wake up and realize that laws only exist if someone is enforcing them. You government, the entity that's meant to enforce those laws, is full of bloodthirsty fascists who are perfectly happy with everything that's going on. You are not "becoming a dictatorship", you've been living in one for the last decade. They just finally finished consolidating their power and stopped pretending.

[thereoncewasagirlnamedjane]

THIS BODY IS NOT MINE.

PAIRING — pietro maximoff x gn!reader

CONTENTS — one-shot; coarse language; angst; minimal fluff if you squint; hurt/comfort?; self-destructive tendencies; blood/injury; obviously not at all canon compliant but i honestly could not care less!

SUMMARY — your pain has made you reckless, and it’s getting harder for pietro to watch you bleed.

WORD COUNT — 3.2k

✩ masterlist ✩ library blog

Like with most other things, it happened suddenly and quietly. 

One minute, you were stepping off a quinjet and onto the tarmac back at SHIELD headquarters in Washington. Your fellow agent and your best friend followed closely behind as you shared a few laughs, still high off another successful mission. The Triskelion stood tall in the near distance, the sun’s rays bouncing off its windows as you crossed the runway. You lifted a hand to shield your eyes from the blinding light for only the briefest of moments. 

The next, Steve Rogers’s voice was blaring over the PA system and you found yourself staring down the barrel of a gun. Your friend, the one who’d taken you under her wing when you first joined SHIELD, who taught you everything you needed to know about being an agent, your most trusted and respected colleague, was the one pointing it at you. 

For a moment, you thought it was all just some kind of sick joke. You told her to stop messing around and boldly pushed her hand away, your stomach dropping when the weapon fired and the bullet struck the asphalt just inches from your feet. You looked up ahead and saw the rest of your team split up, facing each other with their weapons drawn, in the exact same predicament. 

Then Steve’s speech began to register. 

SHIELD is not what we thought it was. It’s been taken over by Hydra. 

They could be standing next to you. 

If you launch those helicarriers today, Hydra will be able to kill anyone that stands in their way. 

Unless we stop them. 

And just like that, you were embroiled in a life or death struggle with the woman you’d fought side by side with for the last decade, who you would have been proud to call a sister, who turned out to be a fierce lieutenant of Hydra’s insurrection. 

You remember it all in perfect detail. The stench of gunpowder in the air, the distant sounds of explosions and falling bodies, the weight of your concealed weapon against your own hip a grim metal promise of more violence to come. 

The iron grip on your left wrist as your other hand pushed against her, trying to stop the tip of her blade from piercing your throat, her gun having been kicked out of her hands just seconds earlier. 

The desperation in your exhausted muscles as you fought back against the sharp sting of betrayal and heartbreak. 

The terrible knowledge that if you wanted to live, if you wanted the others to live, there was only one viable choice. 

Even though you ultimately emerged triumphant, the student having bested the teacher as it was always meant to be, you didn’t feel particularly victorious. 

She just looked up at you with her face split into a wide bloody smirk, like the friendly smiles and affectionate looks from your memories had been a figment of your imagination. 

And because she just had to have the last word as you raised your service weapon and aimed the muzzle at her forehead, “Hail Hydra.” 

You wake with a jolt, a scream trapped in the hollow of your throat. Your heart thunders almost painfully against your ribcage, a sheen of cold sweat clinging to your skin, and the snow beneath you stained pink with frozen blood. It takes you a few seconds to remember where you are. 

Right, the mission. 

You and your team had walked into a Hydra ambush, left with nowhere to run and facing heavy fire. In order to ensure maximum survivors, you broke away from the group despite their protests in your ear, creating a diversion long enough to allow your colleagues to pilot their jet to safety. 

You’ve managed to evade capture for now, but you didn’t escape unscathed. You feel around with trembling fingers, gasping and flinching in pain the moment they come across a wet patch on the side of your tac-suit. You lift your hand, cursing quietly when your fingers come away red, the sharp tangy smell of copper filling your nostrils. 

Your comms weren’t working. The nearest safe house, which should have a working radio, was still another two miles out, but you didn’t have the energy to get up. Your limbs felt too heavy and your head too light from the blood loss, and you’d collapsed on a frosty patch of dead grass and closed your eyes. With the trail of red droplets you’d left in the snow, it was only a matter of time before you were found. 

Whether it turned out to be friend or foe was but a flip of a coin, and, well, you’d never had much luck to begin with. 

Even as the semi-familiar contours of the surrounding forest begin to emerge from the darkness as your eyes adjust, the visceral images of your dream cling to your mind and continue to blur the lines between past and present. 

Despite a bright and full moon hanging up in the inky sky above you, a beautiful sight you hadn’t had the time or the heart to appreciate lately, something like fear courses through your veins. It’s hot and acidic, clawing its way up your throat like bile, as memories of everything you’ve lost and everything you’ve had to do that day flashes before your eyes. 

The aftershocks of your nightmare reverberate through your body, the pieces of your broken past barely held together by sheer willpower, dwindling by the day—as though a single touch could shatter you into a thousand irretrievable pieces.

Anger tears at your insides, a scorching reminder of the rage that used to fuel you through your search for order and justice. It was necessary back then, reminding you of what—and who—you were fighting for. 

Now, it impulsively propels you headfirst into whatever mission finds its path to your desk. Now, it blinds you to consequence, to remorse, to humanity as you leave no survivors in your wake. Now, that same rage leaves you feeling hollow and adrift in the aftermath. 

And despite the entire year that’s gone by since the fall of SHIELD, the spectres of your past continue to find you in the dark, waiting to drag you back into the depths of your own fears and regrets. 

What were you fighting for this whole time? 

Every single time you returned to HQ battered and bruised, every grueling hour you’d spent training your body until it screamed in protest, and every single drop of blood you’d ever spilt—whether it was your own or otherwise—what was it all for? 

You were not an agent of SHIELD, a name you used to wear like a badge of honour; it turns out you were just another unwitting, stupid puppet of Hydra. Your life’s work amounted to nothing, the name tarnished and forever disgraced. 

And now, you’re alone. 

Normally, whenever you wake up after a particularly vicious fight—something that’s been happening more and more often lately—you were at the compound, tucked away safely in a cot in the med-bay with someone sitting in the chair next to the bed, keeping moonlit vigil until you returned to the land of the living. 

A lot of times, it was Steve. He would be leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees with that all-too-familiar wrinkle between his brows, waiting for you to wake up so he could both breathe a sigh of relief and start admonishing you again without feeling too guilty. 

I have half a mind to put you on desk duty, agent. You’d long ago stopped trying to remind him that he isn’t your captain anymore, and you are no longer an agent. 

What are you, then? 

Other times it was Natasha, a painful and bright-red reminder of things that have come to pass, sporting her own bandages and bruises as she puts together her mission reports. She’s done better for herself post-SHIELD, an Avenger through and through. She has a place here, but you? You only have this job because she and Steve vouched for you, and even then there’s some constant need nagging at you in the back of your mind to prove yourself. 

Who are you? 

Every time someone’s indecipherable gaze lingers a little too long, or even so much as looks in your direction, something pricks uncomfortably at your spine. 

Whose side are you on? 

Sam. Jesus. He really has no idea just how alike he and Steve really are, does he? He would sit there with his back ramrod straight and his arms crossed over his chest, wearing Steve’s signature disapproving look as though he’d been trained to do it. But Sam would soften eventually, always, his warm eyes full of quiet worry in a way that only made it harder to face him. 

Sometimes it was Wanda, who would be tempted to use her powers to help stitch you back together. But she was still unpracticed and insecure about her magic; setting bones, staunching the free flow of blood, and suturing lacerations shut required a much more delicate touch than, say, tearing an army of robots to pieces. 

Or Pietro—

Oh. You swallow hard. That one hurts. 

Just like you, Pietro wasn’t all that intent on making friends at the compound. Wanda fared much better in that aspect, her smiles blossoming wider and wider across her gentle features the more she got to know the team. 

Her twin, however, would always brood from the sidelines, watching intently as though ready to pounce if anyone made so much as what he perceived to be a wrong move in her direction. 

He was protective, you knew; for a long time, Wanda was all he had. The two of them have been through hell and back together, but now her world was expanding to make room for things that didn’t always include him. 

The old you might have wondered if that made a part of him a little sad, but the new you—well, you couldn’t afford to worry about someone else’s sadness. His keeping to himself actually worked in your favour; you weren’t looking to be anyone’s buddy either. 

But despite the attempts at distance, being part of a team meant that he was watching your back out in the field, especially since you weren’t looking out for your own interests. One of Pietro’s strong arms would hook itself under your knees, his other wrapping around your shoulders, before he was rushing you out of the line of fire. 

He’d casually question whether you were trying to get yourself killed, not looking at you because he already knew the answer, even though you never gave him one. 

“Then do it on your own time,” he’d said as he set you back down on the ground, his voice void of emotion or warmth, but if you were to pay a bit closer attention, his brows were tightly furrowed and his mouth turned down at the corners. “The Captain is such a pain about paperwork.” 

“Was that a joke, Maximoff?” You’d rolled your eyes, not in the mood as you tried not to think about how his warmth lingered everywhere he’d touched. 

“Of course not,” he murmured as he took large strides back towards the proverbial battlefield, “is it a joke if nobody laughs?” 

And then he zipped out of sight and suddenly you were alone again, just the way you liked it. 

But the signature resentment and outrage simmering in his icy blue eyes, one you recognized all too well, didn’t seem to burn quite so hot whenever he took you back to the compound in the event your own legs wouldn’t, one warm hand on your waist and the other holding your arm around his broad shoulders. 

His calls of your name sure didn’t sound as detached and blasé as he might have liked them to, the lilt of his accent seeping into the edges of your subconscious, “Stay awake, we are almost home.” 

“Paper… Paperwork,” you muttered between laboured breaths with your eyes closed, trying so hard to keep marching in time with him. You heard him laugh—though it was more of a chuckle, so low and so brief—for the first time that night. 

His sharp edges didn’t seem quite so sharp when you searched his features for signs of deception, ones you should have recognized years ago, ones you might have ignored in the moment which ultimately cost you everything, and found none. 

Pietro would search you back, his face blank but his eyes almost like they were pleading, and you were always the first one to look away. 

Damn, it all happened so quietly. 

The tentative conversations that took place in the quiet of the med-bay—“does it not hurt?” followed by a “not at all” that really meant “all the fucking time”—him watching as you nursed your own injuries with a quiet stoicism that he couldn’t seem to understand. 

The late sleepless nights spent in each other’s silent company, sometimes staring off into space or distractedly at a series of flashing images on the TV. The closing distance between bodies, the soft brush of his fingertips over the swell of your shoulder, the lingering smell of soap as he sped back to his room without so much as a “good night”. 

The rush of joy when you boarded a quinjet and saw him already there, knowing that he was joining a mission with you. The thrill that shot up your spine when his hand closed around your wrist and he levelled you with a striking blue stare, a silent warning to be careful, a wordless plea to come back in one piece. The mildly triumphant looks exchanged after a mission successful, but only just barely—you knew he’d long ago clocked your growing reckless and wild disregard for your personal safety. 

Until you began waking up in the med-bay more and more, but Pietro was sitting in that chair less and less. He began asking Steve for reassignments whenever the two of you were grouped on missions together. He drew away, and it hurt so much more than having the pieces of you held together by nothing but strands of thread and rows of staples. 

“Some teammate you are,” you muttered sarcastically the next time you saw him for long enough to hold some semblance of a conversation. You meant for it to sound less like an accusation and more like a joke, like you did not care because that was the whole fucking point. You cared about nothing and no one now, so whatever they did couldn’t ever hurt or surprise you anymore. 

That pang in your chest as he kept his back to you? It meant nothing. 

That strike against a chord of longing stretched over your heart as he walked away? Inconsequential. 

And the heartache as the distance between you grew and grew, until it seemed so utterly insurmountable? What did that fucking matter? 

That, after all, had been ever constant since the Triskelion came down in a hailstorm of bullets and debris. 

But—fucking hell—you miss him, you realize. You close your eyes again, trying to fight the familiar sting of tears and the burn behind your eyelids. You miss him more than you miss your old life, your heart decides, the treacherous thing. What are you even supposed to do with that knowledge? You would never tell him, anyway. Not in a million years. 

But you are at the whim of the universe, because there’s the sound of an aircraft overhead. There’s a gust of warm wind that passes over you and it smells like jet fuel, recycled air, and slightly burning plastic. 

And then you feel it, a familiar warmth on your wrist as he presses two fingers gently on your pulse point. You hear it, the whisper of your name that sounds like it means something whenever he says it. 

You’re too tired, or maybe too afraid, to open your eyes. His warmth recedes as what sounds like the medical team takes over, crouching over you as they begin dressing your injuries and packing your wounds. The pain is less keen as sleep begins to pull you under, as they insert an IV drip into your arm, as they place you on a stretcher and wheel you back towards the jet. 

The warmth soon returns, however, lacing its way between your fingers and heating the skin of your palm, just before you fall back asleep. 

When you wake again hours later in the med-bay, you open your eyes and see the turbulent blues of a terrible sorrow. 

Pietro inhales sharply when your eyes meet, but he stays curled up in that chair, his lips looking painfully raw as though he’s been chewing on them all night. As always, his anger rolls off of him in quiet waves, and as always, it seems like he’s more angry with himself than with you. 

“You refuse help,” he finally says, breaking the silence. He turns away to look out the window behind him, watching as the snow continues to fall. “You disobey orders. You never listen.” 

You would scoff if you didn’t think it would hurt like a bitch. That’s a bit rich coming from him, since he fights Steve every step of the way almost as much as you do. 

“You’re scaring everyone,” he continues, but you know what he really means to say is that you’re scaring Wanda. He doesn’t give a shit about anyone else, after all. “It’s like you go out of your way to get hurt on every mission.” 

“Why do you care?” You snap back weakly, like a wounded animal that’s been backed into a corner. Pietro turns to face you again then, his handsome features stoic as usual, which frustrates and deeply unsatisfies you. 

“You think I want to? I didn’t!” He suddenly snarls, unfolding himself from the chair to stand, to reach out and place one hand on each side of your cot, caging you in and towering over you. “You seem so intent on dying, aren’t you? Well, I’ve had enough of watching people I love die.” 

“Oh, dear,” you lament out loud—the people he loves, he says, as if it’s not the most devastating thing—closing your eyes against the ache of an affliction you didn’t think you’d ever suffer again. “How unfortunate.”

“Yes,” he concurs, and he does sound rather anguished. “There is nothing we can do about it now, is there?” 

Not strong enough to stay and watch you put yourself at risk, but not strong enough to stay away when you bleed either. And then his hands are smoothing over your forehead, brushing away some stray strands of hair from your face. 

“Look at me,” he pleads in a whisper so soft, you can’t help but comply. So carefully, he leans down and brushes his lips against your brow, then your temple, the apple of your cheek. 

Each time he pulls back, you surrender a broken shard of your heart to him. He gathers them in his hands and begins the painstaking task of putting you back together. Each kiss he places on your skin comes with a silent appeal—live, live, please live.  

At least for tonight, you yield to his desperate request. 

Your sorrow can wait.

fin.

AFTERWORD — my first fic of 2025! how'd i do? 🤭

© 2025 by thereoncewasagirlnamedjane. do not repost, translate, or copy to third party sites. no part of this work may be fed into any AI software or websites. minors are asked not to interact with my blog; you are responsible for your own media consumption. followers with zero engagement, serial likers and blank/ageless blogs will be blocked.

[wilwheaton]

When Republican voters in 14 of 15 states on Tuesday went to vote for who they believed best represented their party and should run the whole of government, they chose the man who launched the most consequential insurrection against the government since the Civil War. Because that is who they are, and we all ought to be very damn tired of anyone who claims otherwise.

The GOP is about to officially coalesce around a seditionist for president

[saywhat-politics]

2 died of Ebola: They said Obama should resign.

4 died in Benghazi: They had Hillary testify for 11 hours, held 33 hearings, and launched a 4-year probe.

881,776 Covid deaths, an armed insurrection & theft of classified documents: They cheered, and want Trump as dictator.

[radicalgraff]

Radical murals seen around Oventic, an indigenous Zapatista village in Chiapas, Mexico.

On January 1st, 1994 the EZLN (Zapatista Army of National Liberation) launched an armed insurrection in Chiapas against the Mexican state and the NAFTA Free Trade Agreement.

The Zapatistas are a resistance movement of indigenous villagers in the mountains and jungles of Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest and southern-most state.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Look the other way

( Please come see me on my new patreon and support me for early access to stories and personal story requests :D https://www.patreon.com/NiqhtLord Every bit helps)

The rise of Gimrak the liberator, or “Gimrak the Bloodied” depending on who you speak to, was an inevitable outcome for his people.  

From humble beginnings as a slave, Gimrak would seek retribution against his oppressors. Not just his slave masters and beaters, but against the society that had allowed such evil to not only flourish, but thrive. Over the course of ten years Gimrak worked in the various deepest and darkest mines of his homeworld all the while creating an elaborate network of supporters and followers. Every mine he was transferred to he would leave behind an ever growing cell of supporters.

By the end of his eleventh year Gimrak had finally amassed enough of a following that he launched an open insurrection across every slave mining complex on the planet. Untold millions of slave laborers battering themselves against their beaters until their guns ran try and their shock batons went cold.

The guards and foremen were the first ones to die. Ripped to shreds by the frenzy of revenge. Some tried to flee to the surface and collapse the entire mine behind them. Many failed in their flight but some did make it and the entrances were sealed under mountains of stone. Yet their measure of safety was short lived, as Gimrak had accounted for this and had secret tunnels, miles long at times, dug between the different mines; and like a flood of rushing water the slaves simply poured through these secret tunnels and breached the surface.

From there the surface of the planet became a bloodbath of untold scale.

No one above ground was innocent. No one who had allowed their fellows to dwell beneath the soil for generations could claim ignorance to the horrors they had played a part in.

With righteous retribution in their eyes entire cities were put to the torch by the slaves and its citizens hung from every light post, building corner, and tree. The body count reached into the millions before the wider galaxy intervened.

Peacekeeping forces were dispatched by the Galactic Council and put a stop to the violence. They did not recognize the slaves as rising against their oppressors, but more as a violent mob enacting their own personal vendettas.

The slaves had been able to rise up against their oppressors, but they were not capable of matching the technological superiority of the peacekeepers. Thousands died at their hands before Gimrak came forward and surrendered himself.

Bound in chains of darkened steel, he was dragged before the galactic council. There he was treated more like a war criminal than a liberator by the council who cut him off at every chance they could. They further humiliated Gimrak by broadcasting his hearing universe wide as they berated the leader into insignificance.  

When it was humanities turn to ask questions of Gimrak he had expected much of the same but was surprised when for the first time he was asked why he had slaughtered so man. The other councilors cut in saying that the reasons why were irrelevant, yet the human insisted to hear why.

Gimrak retorted that they should already know why since they had dispatched peacekeepers. The human admitted that no fact finding mission had been dispatched prior given the dire need of the request for aide.

 Recounting his story, Gimrak saved no detail of his torture in the mines to the day he led his people to a new future. While the other councilors rolled their eyes with disinterest, the human councilor appeared to be following along with every horrific detail. When Gimrak finished he expected to be dismissed and sentenced to a life in prison at best, and a short death penalty at worst. Instead, the human presented a third option.

“After hearing your story, I can’t help but feel that this is an internal matter.”

Gimrak’s eyes went wide as the other councilors turned to shout their objections. The human held up their hand and continued their sentiment.

“Per the regulations of the Galactic Council, we may only intervene in matters of an external nature. Matters in which can damage galactic relations at large or risk the extermination of an entire species.’

“Exactly!” a Binar councilor interjected. “This is extermination plain and simple.”

“On the contrary,” the human countered, “this is a genocide being carried out by a people against their own people; with no external factors at play.”

The look of shock at the human’s words was shared by the entire council and Gimrak. “Are you saying the council should turn a blind eye to such slaughter?” the Binar demanded.

“You did not seem to mind when you looked the other way when the Binar’s forcefully relocated one of your colonies in favor of corporate interests.” The human countered. The Binar flushed red but kept silent as the human turned to another councilor. “Or when the Mintarks decided they needed to carry out purges within their own government to root out corruption with no oversight.”

Now berated into silence the human returned their attention to Gimrak.

“We would of course need certain agreements before we could withdraw our forces.”

“What sort of agreements?” Gimrak remarked as he looked at the human with a flicker of hope.

“First, the bloodshed must be limited within your home system. If the violence continued outside of the borders of your home system it would be regarded as a galactic matter.”

“Second, moving forward a system of trials would need to be held in which proof, either physical or by testimony, of an individual’s involvement before being executed.”

“Finally, any persons not of your species currently in your home system must not be targeted.”

Gimrak had never met a human before yet he could feel something lurking underneath the humans words. While he did not give an open endorsement of the uprisings actions, he had not denounced them either. In fact, through his diplomatic linguistics he had actually given Gimark the means to continue with his people’s liberation free from the interference from outside powers.

“If my people met your terms,” Gimrak spoke slowly, “then you would leave us alone?”

“If all of these terms were met, then this matter would indeed be an internal matter and outside the purview of this council’s jurisdiction. Do we have an understanding?”

It was almost as if the human had wanted him to continue with his retribution, Gimrak thought to himself.

Bowing slightly to the human, Gimrak acknowledge the terms.

Within the hour he was escorted back to the shuttle by the human councilor to return to his followers and inform them of the deliberations. Before he entered the shuttle he turned to the human and asked the only question left to him.

“Why?”

The human crossed their arms behind their back and looked off into the horizon. A wall of soft orange light cascaded over the horizon as the sun slowly set and the encroaching night crept closer.

“When evil presents itself so proudly and unashamed, its decimation must be swift and remorseless lest it spread its vile rot to us all.”

Gimrak took stock of the human’s words. “And how do you know that I am not this evil you wish to destroy?”

Turning back the human shrugged sheepishly. “Then we at least know where to find you, and what to put to the torch.”

With the meaning understood, Gimrak nodded to the human and turned to enter the shuttle; the doors closing slowly behind him as it rose once more into the sky.

In the coming months the bloodshed did not cease, but the savagery and directionless anger had been brought under control. The peace keeping forces withdrew to outside the home system’s borders while the vengeance of the former slaves played out. Some of the higher nobles were able to flee outside of the system, but many more never made it to off world; their bodies rotting in the darkened mines they once ruled over.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Nick Visser at HuffPost:

Former President Donald Trump participated in a town-hall-style event with undecided Latino voters on Wednesday night, facing a series of tough questions as Americans have begun casting early ballots across the nation. Ramiro González, a Florida Republican, gave Trump a chance to “win back” his vote after he said he was disturbed by the former president’s actions on and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“I am a Republican,” González, a construction worker, told Trump during the Univision event. “I want to give you the opportunity to try and win back my vote. Your action, and maybe inaction, during your presidency and the last few years sort of … was a little disturbing to me. What happened during Jan. 6 and the fact that you waited so long to take action while your supporters were attacking the Capitol.” He went on to voice concerns that some in Trump’s orbit, namely his former vice president, Mike Pence, no longer supported him. Trump rejected that any notable portion of his supporters had broken with him and then launched into a series of falsehoods surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection while claiming there was “nothing done wrong at all” and “nobody was killed.” “You had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me, they came because of the election,” Trump said, discounting his efforts to inflame his supporters after his loss to Joe Biden. “Some of those people went down to the Capitol — I said, ‘peacefully and patriotically.’ Nothing done wrong. At all. Nothing done wrong.”

Ramiro González, a Florida Republican, asked Donald Trump on how to win his vote back at last night’s Univision town hall. González explained why Trump’s despicable actions on January 6th, 2021 and afterwards was disturbing.

Trump responded to Ramiro’s question with delusional nonsense praising the domestic terrorist actions he helped incite on that date with his “stolen” election lies.

See Also:

BBC News: Trump calls 6 January 'day of love' when asked about Capitol riot

[thunderheadfred]

In the last few weeks of rulings, SCOTUS has begun to dismantle the administrative state, legalize bribery, and devastate the government’s ability to regulate corporations. Today, the conservative supermajority - two of whom should have recused themselves for obvious conflicts of interest - have ruled that a president has absolute immunity for “official acts” in office, which Trump’s team argued before the court could include assassinating political rivals and introducing fake slates of electors. Trump will likely not go to trial before the election in any of the major cases against him, not for leading an insurrection, not for rigging the election in Georgia, and not for espionage.

If he is elected he will dismiss all charges, pardon and release insurrectionists, and immediately replace everyone in Washington with sycophantic loyalists. The people who barely stopped him from launching nuclear missiles whenever he felt like it will not be around to stop him on a second go around.

Trump openly wants military tribunals and death sentences for his political opponents. He wants concentration camps for immigrants. His jet was just spotted parked next to Putin’s on an isolated portion of tarmac at Dulle’s airport for two days. He has stolen nuclear secrets and sold war plans to foreign nations. He has offered one billion dollars to oil companies and promised to overturn every measly environmental protection we have standing between us and planetary collapse. He is part of a vast existential threat to democracy worldwide, and that is not a conspiracy. It’s all right there.

I don’t care if Biden dies tomorrow and his corpse is hauled around Weekend at Bernie’s style by his cabinet. He’s still the better choice. Not voting is a vote for Trump. A vote for RFK is a vote for Trump.

We live in unbelievable times. Vote accordingly.

[whencyclopedia]

Nat Turner's Rebellion

Nat Turner's Rebellion (also known as the Southampton Insurrection) was a slave revolt in Southampton County, Virginia, between 21 and 23 August 1831. Led by Nat Turner (l. 1800-1831), an educated slave, the insurrectionists killed at least 55 White people before the revolt was put down, making it the deadliest slave uprising in US history.

Turner eluded a massive manhunt until 30 October 1831, when his hiding place was discovered by one Benjamin Phipps, and he was imprisoned at the Jerusalem jail the next day. While awaiting trial, he was interviewed by the lawyer T. R. Gray (l. c. 1800 to c. 1834), who has sometimes been identified as Turner's defense attorney but was not (James Strange French was to take the case, but Turner wound up being represented by William C. Parker). Almost all of what is known of Nat Turner comes from The Confessions of Nat Turner by T. R. Gray, published in November 1831.

In the aftermath of Turner's rebellion, at least 120 enslaved and Free Black residents of Southampton County were murdered in retaliation, and so, Turner's fate was sealed as soon as he was apprehended. He was found guilty of "conspiring to rebel and making insurrection" and was hanged on 11 November 1831. To the White community, he was a dangerous criminal who had been justly executed, but, to the Blacks and abolitionists, he was a freedom fighter and martyr, which is how he is regarded today.

There had been other insurrections and slave revolts before Turner's. In the Colonial era, Bacon's Rebellion (1676) and the Stono Rebellion (1739), among others, and, after the US declared independence during the American Revolution, Gabriel's Rebellion (1800), the 1811 German Coast Uprising, and Denmark Vesey's Conspiracy (1822), among still others. Denmark Vesey (l. c. 1767-1822) and Gabriel Prosser (l. c. 1776-1800) were both betrayed before their revolts could be launched and were executed.

Turner, on the other hand, although his revolt was put down, was able to put his plan into action and, although the legislation was eventually sidelined, his revolt encouraged discussions in the Virginia State Legislature of emancipation or colonization of the Black population of Virginia (and elsewhere) and added fuel to the fire of the abolitionists, both in the North and South, arguing for an end to slavery, which was finally achieved, after the American Civil War, in 1865.

Nat Turner's Rebellion was popularized in the modern era by the American novelist William Styron in his The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), and, most recently, Turner's story was dramatized by Nate Parker in The Birth of a Nation (2016), which, though it makes ample use of poetic license (as Styron's novel also does), depicts the life of a slave in 19th century USA accurately.

Life & Revelations

Nat Turner was born into slavery on 2 October 1800, the property of one Benjamin Turner. In his Confessions, he relates a memory that had a profound effect on him:

Being at play with other children, when three or four years old, I was telling them something, which my mother overhearing, said it happened before I was born. I stuck to my story, however, and related some things which went, in her opinion, to confirm it. Others being called on were greatly astonished, knowing that these things had happened, and caused them to say, in my hearing, I surely would be a prophet, as the Lord had shown me things that had happened before my birth. And my father and mother strengthened me in this my first impression, saying in my presence I was intended for some great purpose.

(7)

He tells Gray that he "acquired with the most perfect ease, so much so, that I have no recollection whatever of learning the alphabet" and that people, noting his natural intelligence, told him he "would never be of any service to anyone as a slave" (8). He was drawn to religion, prayed often, and read the Bible. As he says, the early estimation of him as destined to be a prophet, coupled with his interpretation of scripture as well as revelations by the Holy Spirit, encouraged in him the belief that he was destined for some great work and that this was nothing less than freedom for himself and all the others then enslaved in Southampton County. As he says to Gray:

At this time, I reverted in my mind to the remarks made of me in my childhood and the things that had been shown me…that I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was, I would never be of any use to anyone as a slave. Now, finding I had arrived to man's estate, and was a slave, and these revelations being made known to me, I began to direct my attention to the great object, to fulfil the purpose for which, by this time, I felt assured I was intended.

(9)

When Benjamin Turner died in 1810, Nat became the property of his son, Samuel, and was placed under a harsh overseer, from whom he ran away. He lived in the woods for a month before, as he says, receiving a message from the Holy Spirit that he should return. Sometime later, he received another message from the Spirit and a vision of "white spirits and black sprits engaged in battle" and understood his mission, devoting himself further to prayer and fasting in order to make himself worthy of his calling and "obtain true holiness" (10). Scholar Stephen B. Oates describes Turner as a young man at about this time (c. 1825):

Physically, the young mystic was a small man with what whites described as "distinct African features." Though his shoulders were broad from work in the fields, he was short, slender, and a little knock-kneed, with thin hair, a complexion like black pearl, and cavernous, shining eyes.

(27)

At some point, he married Cherry (also given as Chary), who was also a slave of Samuel Turner. The couple may have had three children (this is unclear), but at least two since they are later referred to in the plural. When Samuel Turner died in 1823, Nat was sold to a Thomas Moore while his family was sold to one Giles Reese.

Fugitive Slaves in the Dismal Swamp

David Edward Cronin (Public Domain)

By 1830, Turner had been sold to Joseph Travis, whom he describes as "a kind master" (11), but a "kind master" is still a master to a slave that is considered property, and Turner rejected this role for himself. Interpreting further 'signs' and revelations that the time was approaching for him to act, Turner revealed his plan to four confidantes – Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam – who brought in others. Turner's plan was to kill all the Whites, freeing the slaves, and then (perhaps) disappear into the swamplands of Southampton. Until they were armed and organized, he tells Gray, the understanding was that "neither age nor sex was to be spared," and they began the attack at the home of Travis (12).

Continue reading...

[centrally-unplanned]

VOR tend to be a good lens for a lot of evaluation of politicians imo due to how often 'great' leaders are just leaders who existed at chaotic times; its why I tend to be only lukewarm on Lincoln, for example, a poor military leader who was only able to abolish slavery because anyone could have at that point, all the pro-slavery politicians just launched an insurrection and quit Congress. (He does have his accomplishments ofc, he is good, just not great) Or say how Lenin is an S-tier world-historical figure in 1917, before collapsing into mediocrity by 1919, because he was a far more talented insurrectionist against the Russian system than he was a leader of a new one, and he was coasting on the weakness of the opposition and his past successes.

A lot of supposedly-great leaders fade away under a VOR lens, while you gain a new appreciation for others (My god is Genghis Khan's VOR insane, like what the fuck how is that possible).

[contemplatingoutlander]

The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information. [...] The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it. --Chris Quinn, Editor of cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer

THIS is the kind of attitude that journalists and editors should have regarding reporting on Trump!

Chris Quinn, the editor of cleveland.com/The Plain Dealer wrote this excellent column explaining to his readers why opinion columns on his platforms are so critical of Donald Trump. His response is a credit to his integrity as a journalist/editor, and should be emulated by others in the mainstream media. Below are some excerpts:

A more-than-occasional arrival in the email these days is a question expressed two ways, one with dripping condescension and the other with courtesy: Why don’t our opinion platforms treat Donald Trump and other politicians exactly the same way. Some phrase it differently, asking why we demean the former president’s supporters in describing his behavior as monstrous, insurrectionist and authoritarian. I feel for those who write. They believe in Trump and want their local news source to recognize what they see in him. The angry writers denounce me for ignoring what they call the Biden family crime syndicate and criminality far beyond that of Trump. They quote news sources of no credibility as proof the mainstream media ignores evidence that Biden, not Trump, is the criminal dictator. The courteous writers don’t go down that road. They politely ask how we can discount the passions and beliefs of the many people who believe in Trump. This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people. The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information. The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse. This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it. The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it. As for those who equate Trump and Joe Biden, that’s false equivalency. Biden has done nothing remotely close to the egregious, anti-American acts of Trump. We can debate the success and mindset of our current president, as we have about most presidents in our lifetimes, but Biden was never a threat to our democracy. Trump is. He is unique among all American presidents for his efforts to keep power at any cost. Personally, I find it hard to understand how Americans who take pride in our system of government support Trump. All those soldiers who died in World War II were fighting against the kind of regime Trump wants to create on our soil. How do they not see it? [emphasis added]

I encourage you to read the entire column. It is worth it.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The March 14 protest outside the White House wasn’t just a rally — it was an emotional battlefield. Veterans, activists, and public figures gathered to demand accountability, voicing their anger, frustration, and resolve. The air was heavy with exhaustion, but the crowd's energy was undeniable.

The day opened with Cliff Cash, a comedian-turned-activist who launched straight into a verbal brawl with Trump’s legacy.

"This coward draft-dodging bone spurs orange-faced traitor in our White House demanded that Capitol Police remove the magnometers so that his mob could get inside with their guns. Don’t ever forget that."

Cash’s fury turned to mocking when he reminded the crowd that the so-called “elites” were nothing special.

"If you think that they are some other echelon of people, they’re not... Lauren Boebert is not smarter than you... Mitch McConnell is sure not more courageous than you... and if you didn’t have a spine, your neck would look like that too."

Next came Jessica Denson, a former Trump staffer-turned-activist, who delivered one of the rally’s most powerful calls to action.

"We are going to demand, starting right now and never letting it go until it happens, that every constitutional means be used immediately to remove Donald Trump, JD Vance, and Elon whoever-the-hell Musk from power."

Her tone shifted to defiant optimism.

"We are going to shine so freaking bright that they won’t know what to do with all the light that we bring to this country."

Denson also addressed the mounting controversy surrounding Trump’s rumored KGB codename, ‘Krasnov.’

"We’re not going to let this squatter in the White House — Mr. Krasnov Bone Spurs — overrule the sacrifices of all of you for our Constitution."

But it was Harry Dunn — the former Capitol Police officer who stood on the front lines of January 6 — who delivered the rawest, most gut-wrenching speech of the day. He opened with an admission that cut through the crowd like a blade.

"I had a PTSD attack on the way in... The last time I saw everybody like this, they were beating the shit out of me and my co-workers at the Capitol."

Dunn’s grief shifted to anger when he reflected on the failure of institutions — and voters — to stop Trump.

"We had an opportunity, and you know what? We fucked it up."

Yet Dunn’s closing remarks weren’t just about regret — they were a plea for action.

"What we need right now is a lot of people — a lot of somebodies — to do something to save our country."

The next speaker, Big Sarge, the Sons of Liberty leader, opened with a blunt admission that set the tone for his fiery speech.

"I said I wasn't gonna swear... fuck it."

Sarge didn’t hesitate to address Harry Dunn directly.

"We all look like the people from the January 6th insurrection."

It was a jarring acknowledgment of how extremist groups had twisted the image of veterans and soldiers. But Sarge made it clear who was really to blame.

"Nobody is coming to save you but you."

Next came a Navy veteran whose words detonated across the crowd.

"Donald Trump, this is a message for you: Quit kissing Putin’s ass."

He didn’t stop there.

"You're a pathetic disgraceful excuse for a president... JD Vance, you don't belong there either, you eyeliner-wearing little bitch... And as for you, Elon Musk, take a hike. You’re just a rich prick that came from South Africa — get out of my country."

The language was raw, but the fury behind it felt earned.

Later in the afternoon, Michael Ember, a former VA policy advisor, painted a grim picture of the damage unfolding at the VA.

"The VA announced last week they want to fire over 80,000 employees — which would essentially gut America’s only public healthcare system... 17 veterans die by suicide every single day. We've gone through pains to get that number down from 22 a day... And now they want to rip the rug out from under us. We won’t take it."

Ember’s frustration boiled over as he voiced his own exasperation.

"They're really fucking with my pursuit of happiness."

Susan Schnull, a Navy veteran and longtime peace activist, brought the rally back to its core message — the obligation America owes to those who served. Her words were a call to conscience.

"Anytime a country decides to send its people to war, it has the obligation to prepare for those who return from war."

She closed with a vow.

"We will not be erased."

Days earlier, Richard Allan III, an 80-year-old Navy veteran from Charlottesville, Virginia, staged his protest outside the White House in stark and grim fashion. Wearing a faded blue jacket and gripping a steel pipe device fastened around his arm, Allan locked himself to a signpost and refused to leave. The message scrawled on the pipe was direct and chilling:

"KING TRUMP & PRES. MUSK ARE KILLING VETERANS."

There was no shouting, no dramatic declarations to the crowd — just the silent image of an aging veteran sitting alone in the cold, his arm secured tightly to the post with a bolted pipe. Police soon arrived, speaking calmly to Allan before cutting through the device. He was arrested without further incident.

His quiet defiance left a powerful impression. While other speakers raged on stage, Allan’s silent protest seemed to embody a different kind of fury — the kind that comes when words no longer feel enough. As he was led away by officers, the scrawled message on the pipe lingered as a haunting reminder of why they had all gathered in the first place.

The fury, grief, and desperation of the crowd fused into one singular message: America’s fight isn’t over.

(Fear and Loathing Closer to the Edge)