John Milton has entered the chat…
Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.
– Paradise Lost
[my emphasis]
Blurred racist imagery:
First image: “Alligator Alcatraz.” A far-right cartoon celebrating the new immigrant detention camp in Florida cheering for ICE as an alligator literally imprisoning brown people in its jaws. The caption: “Good job!”
The other images are vintage postcards from the early 20th century, sold as racist souvenirs. They depict Black children as “gator bait.” Literal “dainty morsels” alligator’s teeth. One is even titled “Free Lunch in the Jungle.” The gator is a stand-in for white violence.
This isn’t a coincidence. It’s a lineage.
White supremacist imagery has always used animals, especially alligators, pelicans, and storks to dehumanize, threaten, and terrorize Black and brown people. The point isn’t subtle: We are prey. Our children are food. We cannot protect them. They are an endangered species.
The old postcards were made to be funny. Tourists bought them in Florida. They’re part of the same culture that normalized lynching photos as keepsakes. Laughing at Black suffering was entertainment to be monetized and consumed.
The new cartoon does exactly the same thing. It’s supposed to be “humor” about caging migrants like animals. Notice the mocking detail: the shark in the swamp is laughing and pointing at them. A bird gives ICE a thumbs up.
This is how racist propaganda works. It evolves, but it doesn’t change.
Florida is literally building a concentration camp for undocumented immigrants on a remote island surrounded by gators and pythons. They’re calling it a “processing center.” The cartoon calls it Alligator Alcatraz and celebrates locking brown bodies in a predator’s mouth.
Just like the postcards, it’s meant to amuse white audiences while reminding everyone else of the threat. They want you to see these people as animals. Criminals. Intruders. Vermin to be caught in a trap.
Because if you see them that way? You’ll accept inhuman policies. You’ll justify cruelty. You’ll vote for it. You’ll turn the other way and say that’s not my problem.
I was sure the Epstein paranoia/pânic was one of the conspiracy/defamation campaign spawned by QAnon.
Gee, I wonder how those clashes came about?
At Glass House Farms’ property in Camarillo, masked federal agents appeared to use crowd-control measures including teargas to curb a protest, which was responded to by thrown bricks.
Ah, I see.
“I am giving Total Authorization for Ice to protect itself, just like they protect the Public,”
So they’re going to attack and kidnap each other?
If they want to deport each other without due process, who am I to complain?
I guess they’ll be no more line crossing ceremonies for the Navy. Something probably every Sec of the Navy has been part of since colonial times.
Make me! ASs.
Teh age of s4Il is w0k3!!! /s
Ugh.
…
“Texas Republicans are increasingly opposed to the idea that climate change is man-made, and therefore there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Calvin Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “They see climate issues as requiring more taxes, more regulation, more spending – and as a party of small government and deregulation they don’t want to deal with it.”The combination of small government ideology and climate crisis denial has distorted the politics of the state to the extent that basic decisions that might bolster climate resilience are shunted aside. The impact is seen at all levels, from the state capital in Austin down to local neighborhoods.
Almost half of Texas’s 254 counties have no mitigation plan in place to lessen the blow of environmental disasters, the Texas Tribune found.
Rob Kelly, a local elected official in Kerr county at the epicenter of the Hill Country floods, said that warning systems had been considered but were rejected on grounds of cost. “Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” he told the New York Times.
Wes Virdell, the Republican representative whose Texas house district covers much of the devastated flooded area, voted against HB 13, the failed bill which would have set up a siren alarm system. He told the Texas Tribune three days after the tragedy that his experience of such grief and suffering had shaken his confidence in his decision.
“I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now.”
This is what kills me: whether you “believe” in climate change or not, Texas still gets hurricanes, floods, tornados, heat waves, and other natural disasters, and has for centuries! Preparing for the inevitable is neither woke, nor accepting climate change. It is good governance……
OOOOOoooohhh….
Never mind.
Does it seem that the comment I made a day or two ago about ICE might be getting a tad more prophetic?
A choice to act within the law or break it.
And he committed blatant fraud.
(But, clearly, it has not been illegal to commit fraud for, oh, months? Years?)
TV host and inexplicably Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pulled the nomination of Rear Admiral Michael ‘Buzz’ Donnelly to lead the 7th Fleet over questions about a “drag show” that happened ten years ago. It’s actually a navy…
I’d say he has crossed the line there! 
(Well, I would say it, but which fucking line? There have been so many. And whichever one is ‘the line’, this utter fuckwit crossed it long ago.)
… that they stop accepting bribes from industries that drive climate change.
This was the cover story on Spy magazine, 32 years ago.
He’s using his hands to eat! He’s a savage!
