#popehat

[kineticpenguin]

[bluesky-out-of-context]

[thatstormygeek]

Trump’s decision shows his tendency to vent his spleen. Appointing Gaetz owns the libs, humiliates the hated Justice Department, elevates someone who is a vulgar elbow-thrower like him, and is a thumb in the eye to the Republicans who hate Gaetz. It’s not a decision reflecting self-control; it’s a decision reflecting unconstrained anger and resentment. It’s like making your horse a Senator. The point isn’t that the horse will vote the way you want it to. The point is to humiliate the senate and show them you can do what you want. It’s bad, but it’s not smart bad. Many of Trump’s appointments so far seem to be made out of frailty and not out of calculation. Kristi Noem at Homeland Security is a lightweight whose dubious competence will interfere with plans to genocide immigrants. Pete Hegseth’s chief qualification to be Secretary of Defense is that Trump saw him on the teevee a lot and his tattoos are not, technically, Nazi symbols. Mike Huckabee is a wholly owned trademark of Jack Chick Enterprises Inc. All of these people are ostentatiously evil and shame the institutions they will lead and are a disgrace to the Republic and so forth but do they have the skills or patience to achieve their weird goals? Institutions are very difficult to change. The populist sentiment “send in an outsider and have them clean house” requires an outsider smart and disciplined enough to overcome the fact they don’t understand what they’re changing. Otherwise the inside stubbornly and passive-aggressively thwarts the outsider. You can burn the institution to the ground but that doesn’t leave you with an institution you can use effectively as a weapon.

[davidaugust]

#polio

[shinelikethunder]

iykyk

[infinitemonkeytheory]

Whether or not you agree that Israel is tyrannical or the Palestinians are unjustifiably oppressed, you can’t outlaw arguments that they are and pretend you’re anything but an absolute censor. The hearing was full of gripes like that — contentions that the slogan “from the river to the sea” should be outlawed and complaints that colleges had invited speakers with radical pro-Palestinian views. The crystal clear message was we think protecting Jews from antisemitism requires suppressing a broad range of speech from Them.

And many people bought it, and now it’s being used as part of the culture war against higher education, and too many of you fucking fell for it.

You might say I am being more than usually uncharitable in this post. That’s because I think people falling for Stefanik’s gambit have been more than usually gullible. They’ve become useful idiots for evil. 

[wordswithimages]

[solarbird]

What they’re burying with the push to remove Biden

I wrote this yesterday, before they pushed Biden out. All this is still true.

Here’s what the major/legacy press are burying with wall-to-wall coverage of the massive billionaire-fuelled push to remove Biden:

The sheer, raw, overt racism and white supremacy of the Republican base. Not just mass booing a non-white speaker at the convention, but condemning their own VP nominee for not having a White wife. They’ll shut up about the latter, but we really, really shouldn’t.

That this includes outright calls to remove 15 to 20 million people in an ethnic purge. That’s not implied; that’s pre-printed official signs at the convention.

It will require a mass militarisation; Trump has been readying his supporters for horrific images for the last few months at his rallies. Popehat discusses the inevitable result: “We’re going to be an occupied nation. Detention of citizens and lawful residents is inevitable and in fact clearly intended. Large-scale violence against immigrants, suspected immigrants, and bystanders is inevitable and clearly intended.“

Citizenship won’t protect you; they intend to strip citizenship from naturalised citizens, too. They already had a task for on how to do it, back in 2018; this time, they will implement, and the Republican Supreme Court will let them.

Christian Nationalist Speaker of the House Mike Johnson backs this ethnic purge, by the way. When people say it’s “just Trump being Trump” point them at all this reality.

White nationalist speakers at the convention? Check! Core MAGAts calling Vice-President Harris a “coloured” “DEI hire”? Check!

The near-unity of his campaign with Project 2025, and all it entails – including not just his announced plans to bring its contributors to his next administration but six members of his previous cabinet, and his own chosen VP, JD Vance.

Medium has a whole page up on how to track Project 2025 contributors and involvement in the previous and a possible future Trump administration.

Did I mention that JD Vance supports Russia in its imperial invasion of Ukraine? Russian domestic propagandaists are downright giddy with his nomination.

And that he considers rape an “inconvenience�� and that victims should be forced to carry and deliver their rapists’ babies?

And that police should be able to monitor medical records to search for possible abortions?

And that he praised Alex Jones and InfoWars as a “truth teller” – the same Alex Jones who directed hate and violence against parents of slaughtered children for years, until finally brought down in court?

The complete and open embrace of violence by him and his base – going back to 2016. The insurrection of 2020 was only a midpoint, not a culmination. From the national to the political to the personal, the GOP is a party of violence. So much so, that even a lot of old-line Republicans are talking about it openly.

Too bad that doesn’t include the legacy press. Too bad that doesn’t include the New York Times, or the Washington Post, or CNN, or so many others.

But it can include you.

That’s what’s needed right now. You, doing the job of that press, making sure everybody knows the real stakes of what’s going on.

Yes, there is some real support from Democrats for removing Biden. It wouldn’t be getting anywhere without the major donor and press frenzy, but some of it’s real. And I absolutely will back whoever comes out of this nonsense, as must we all.

No matter how mad we may and may not be about it. Am I clear on that? No matter how mad.

Because this Republican nightmare is what the press aren’t covering -it’s not even all of it, just some important highlights – all while instead going wall-to-wall 24-by-seven on this nomination fiasco.

Keep plugging away, team. It’s up to us to make up that gap.

And always remember – we win this, if we do the work. We win this, if we fight.

106 days remain.

[never-was-has-been]

Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy "Look, you can’t expect the cop to risk his life to confront the shooter, it’s not like the shooter is an unarmed black man with his back turned"Look, you can’t expect the cop to risk his life to confront the shooter, it’s not like the shooter is an unarmed black man with his back turned." https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:x4qyokjtdzgl7gmqhsw4ajqj/post/3kxbddk6tev2c

[eightyonekilograms]

Popehat and Vox both sound very dubious about the Trump indictment, and if that’s their assessment, I’m going to assume the truth is that it’s a total nonstarter and he’s going to have all charges dismissed. Oh well!

[kineticpenguin]

Many of Trump’s appointments so far seem to be made out of frailty and not out of calculation. Kristi Noem at Homeland Security is a lightweight whose dubious competence will interfere with plans to genocide immigrants. Pete Hegseth’s chief qualification to be Secretary of Defense is that Trump saw him on the teevee a lot and his tattoos are not, technically, Nazi symbols. Mike Huckabee is a wholly owned trademark of Jack Chick Enterprises Inc. All of these people are ostentatiously evil and shame the institutions they will lead and are a disgrace to the Republic and so forth but do they have the skills or patience to achieve their weird goals? Institutions are very difficult to change. The populist sentiment “send in an outsider and have them clean house” requires an outsider smart and disciplined enough to overcome the fact they don’t understand what they’re changing. Otherwise the inside stubbornly and passive-aggressively thwarts the outsider. You can burn the institution to the ground but that doesn’t leave you with an institution you can use effectively as a weapon.

[bluesky-out-of-context]

[thatstormygeek]

Apparently I'm just going to make this my whole substack issue dump post.

Here's a more libertarian take on the deal from Popehat:

And an older piece that clearly proves the company has had plenty of time to consider their stance:

So, after the day where a shitload of substackers posted an open letter against the platform hosting, profiting from, and promoting Nazi creators, Hamish McKenzie finally deigned to respond yesterday. This is (the first couple paragraphs of) what he said:

Hi everyone. Chris, Jairaj, and I wanted to let you know that we’ve heard and have been listening to all the views being expressed about how Substack should think about the presence of fringe voices on the platform (and particularly, in this case, Nazi views).  I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either—we wish no-one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don't think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away—in fact, it makes it worse.

Basically, what he said here is "we don't like Nazis, but we do like their money." And they don't find the views of Nazis so abhorrent they do not want their business associated with them and its resources used by them. So, really they don't mind Nazis all that much.

What this does is create yet another Assholes Club.

The comments in the image are in the responses to McKenzie's note.

Asshole. Club.

Substack said "Hey, everyone welcome!" Then some assholes showed up and started making more and more people uncomfortable. People were like "um, could you do something about these guys? They are kind of making this whole place suck?" And Substack said, "Yeah, they might be jerks, but we said everyone welcome, so they can stay."

The folks who were already fed up take off at this point. They had one foot out the door already and were only sticking around because their friends weren't ready to leave. Their friends watch them go and consider heading out as well, especially the more they see the club owners palling around with the jerks.

Naturally, this emboldens the assholes, so their assholery becomes even more pronounced and harder to ignore. They are shouting and taking up much more space than they need. The group is a little bigger because some of the lower-level bullies were encouraged by the warm reception the bigger assholes were getting. The club has gotten quite a bit emptier, but it's hard to notice because the assholes insist on being the center of everyone's attention.

It doesn't take all that long before "everyone welcome" turns into "asshole fans welcome" which functionally makes it an Asshole Club because it's full of assholes and people who enjoy assholery, which are, by definition, assholes.

And as we all know, the one thing the internet needs more of is places for assholes to gather.

So congrats, Substack. You've followed the well-worn path of every other fucking website. Such bravery.

[rectorredux]

The Shard

(Courtesy Ken White @Popehat@mastodon.social)

[not-available-for-comment]

Popehat on mastodon