Yes but you see, there are known knowns, and then there are unknown knowns, and unknown unknowns…
(While the actions of Shrub and Co. may seem quaint at this point, they used many of the tactics we’re seeing again now. I wish we’d learned to see them better, and remembered them for what they are.)
The fear mongering and cruelty to an undeserving human being is the point. These people are despicable. As Stewart noted: They are enjoying this.
The Supreme Court needs to come out and counter the knowingly false interpretation of their ruling the administration is spewing. If they don’t, then they are endorsing it.
Because that is simply not what FDAers will do. Might as well ask them to walk on the ceiling and eat lightbulbs like apples. It’s an alien concept to them. The administration would have to replace 100% of staffers to get to that point. Thus, the difference between near term and long term effects.
The Illiterate Dipshit in Charge really is laughable. Sucks that he’s also so powerful and dangerous.
I’m glad that Donnie is protecting Our Farmers Who Build Jets!
But this gives them plausible deniability, and a way to save face. They can pretend that their authority isn’t being flouted.
That Thought Slime video that someone posted a couple of days ago addresses another aspect of this: that the fascist (or antisemite or whoever) is engaging in argument not with the goal of winning the argument, but with the goal of having the argument and thereby legitimizing the contrary position as being worthy of argument.
Mildred gives a great toy example of the absurdity of this in the video: if you are hosting a party and someone walks in and starts saying bad things about your friend Amanda, you wouldn’t argue the point with them. Instead, you would tell the person to fuck off, stop insulting your friend, and get the hell out.
On the other hand, if someone walks into your party and starts casting aspersions about (say) all women, it would be an equally wrong move to try to confront them on the merits of their argument. All that does is suggest that the point is worth arguing, which it isn’t. And yet that’s what a lot of people in “the discourse” do when confronted with racist or sexist or antisemitic thought. The correct answer, as it would be if it were only Amanda being insulted, is to tell them to fuck the fuck off.
screaming into the void so hard the abyss is reaching to see if I’m okay
“Guy who runs prison tells guy who pays for him to hold prisoners there that he won’t release the prisoners he’s being paid to hold (at the prompting of the guy who pays him to do so)”
Gosh, yeah, there’s nothing this administration can do to get those prisoners out! At least they tried! (/s)
“We are not monsters,” the officer told her after she asked if she was safe. “We do what the government tells us.”
Oh, so you are monsters, then. (And she is most definitely not safe.)
Active duty soldiers and National guard soldiers activated for federal service fall under Title 10 USC and cannot perform any law-enforcement activity such as arresting or detaining people. National Guard soldiers who are activated by the state governor fall under title 38 USC and can perform law-enforcement activity.
The active duty soldiers can still perform patrols, man roadblocks, prepare meals, and can peform earthwork activity (but not construction).
It’s 2025. What are rules anymore? /s(?)
As Longfellow said in the poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride”:
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea [or air] from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch
Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal light,–
One if by land, two if by sea [, and three if by air];
And I on the opposite shore will be [there],
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”
There have been times recently when I’ve wondered if this is a reaction to global level environmental stress. When animals are kept in overcrowded, unhealthy conditions, they can start to exhibit some self-destructive behaviors, killing each other and even turning cannibal. While I don’t think we’re overcrowded as a planet, I do believe that much of our population is experiencing similar, albeit artificial, stresses, such as shortages of food, pollution, and other factors mostly created by greed.
Combine this with climate changes and I can’t believe we as a species aren’t going to have some irrational reaction on a large and ultimately catastrophic level. Hmm. I don’t know, maybe this isn’t the right thread for this, but it might begin to explain so much of the otherwise irrational behaviors we see.
