Just a reminder, anything you write here is a public record that could show up in an indictment which even if you can get it dismissed for 1st amendment activity, the ride to that point would neither be fun nor cheap. I know people are upset about the Medicaid cuts and SNAP cuts.
I’m sticking with wishing lots of people to perpetually step on Legos while working on how to appropriately intone “Bless your heart.”
Baud
We let just anyone read this blog?
David Anderson
@Baud: Dude, they let just anyone write for the blog
zhena gogolia
God, I really don’t want to have to live this way.
I guess I got a few decades in a free country. It was nice.
sab
@David Anderson: Thanks for the reminder.
Elizabelle
We live in a different country. Some of our fellow citizens do not comprehend history or its lessons. Sad!
They (and we) get to learn the hard way.
Trollhattan
I have a thing to share. Enjoy/do not enjoy, your choice.
Musical interlude for the moment.
https://youtu.be/9hQqzcTSwiM?si=bNNGOPNEahxhWBXK
Captain C
@Trollhattan:
“Spoke in tongues.” Yet another sign that certain retrograde denominations don’t give a single fuck (or even appear to know) what’s in the Bible. Speaking in tongues refers to the apostles (and other evangelizers, I don’t recall exactly) being able to communicate the Good News to people with whom they had no mutual language; the recipients understood things just fine. What Swaggart and others did and do is basically drunk-sounding babbling that they claim is a secret language for speaking to god that conveniently means whatever they claim it means.
Kind of like how Jesus always conveniently hates the same people they do (and wants them to get a mansion and about eight Rolls Royces).
HopefullyNotcassandra
Look what the democrats can do and all without violating your important warning, too.
https://houserepublicanpricehike.com/
Click on over to experience the new interactive tool that shows us just how much the blessed gop agenda is costing us so far.
Thank you for the reminder. Bless the GOP’s little hearts! They certainly showed up for work today.
Old School
@David Anderson: Thanks Richard Mayhew!
JerseyBeard
I wish no one dead, but I do look forward to certain obituaries with a healthy amount of anticipation.
There will be dancing in the streets one day. There will.
lowtechcyclist
@Captain C:
That did happen on the day of Pentecost. But lemme quote Paul from 1 Corinthians 14: “When a man is using the language of ecstasy he is talking with God, not with men, for no man understands him; he is no doubt inspired, but he speaks mysteries.”
I have no opinion on glossolalia. But if you’re going to criticize people for not knowing what the Bible says, it helps if you know what the Bible says.
Steve LaBonne
They should badly sunburn the soles of their feet, THEN step on Legos. For all eternity.
Melancholy Jaques
@Trollhattan:
Jimmy Swaggart is cousin to Jerry Lee Lewis and Mickey Gilley and I cannot believe that there has never been a mini-series or movie about their young lives.
Elizabelle
@Melancholy Jaques: True. Quite the family.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle:
For reasons that aren’t relevant in this discussion I’m re-reading and transcribing portions of my mother’s memoirs about her time in western Ukraine and eastern Poland in the years 1939-1944. History and its lessons are ugly.
Chetan Murthy
Every naturalized and birthright citizen of immigrants needs to remember that what happened to Mohammed Khalii could happen to them. We are not full citizens in the USA, and that is manifestly evident. The DOJ denaturalization priorities are crystal-clear: https://natlawreview.com/article/doj-civil-division-prioritizes-denaturalization-new-enforcement-memo
danielx
@Captain C:
Hell, I can do that!
BottaHondaShuddaBottaToyota
Haven’t worked up to the snake handling though.
lowtechcyclist
I bet you can find people in Columbia who can help you work on your intonation of “well bless your heart.” If not, one of these days my wife and I will surely visit your neck of the woods, given that we met and married at USC, earned three degrees there between us, and have fond memories of the place on that account. She speaks Southern like a native because she is one, and can definitely help you get that pronunciation right.
lgerard
Alexandra Petri
Dangerman
@Steve LaBonne: We are dealing with seriously selfish people. It would be let go of my Lego for Eternity.
Chetan Murthy
@Dangerman: haha, you’re around 60, aren’t you? I remember those commercials!
Maccheerful
If you live in the Seattle area, tonight, Tuesday, at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard
5213 Ballard Ave NW, Seattle, WA 98107
Ukraine’s celebrated rock band will be playing as part of their world tour.
Proceeds go to the Ukraine Defense Support, which provides medical and nonlethal military supplies to Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=luwledrtxRo
Did I mention that today the U.S. paused military support for Ukraine.
Good day to dance.
Baud
hueyplong
@Gin & Tonic: Anyone in that place and time who has preserved memoirs did well. I don’t know how anyone got through that.
Dangerman
@Chetan Murthy: 64. I’m just glad I’m needed and fed.
Maccheerful
@Baud: Converts sometimes see things more clearly.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: I was chatting with a friend (whom I knew well 31yr ago, but we fell out of touch): his people came from Lviv and a couple other places in Ukraine. The past isn’t past.
Chetan Murthy
@Dangerman: “He likes it! He likes it!”
Baud
@Maccheerful:
Also, pundits that don’t have to face actual voters.
But still, I’ll take it.
Steve LaBonne
LXXXVI XLVII
Hunter Gathers
All the chatter about ‘Rural America will gleefully accept all the loss of services because they are all a bunch of stupid bigots’ is starting to deeply tick me off.
I live in a very red part of eastern Illinois, working as a pre-K para. We have a high poverty rate and close to half our kids are getting some kind of assistance.
If you think the parents of these kids, the parents of kids with special needs getting services from Medicaid and the children of the elderly in the local nursing homes are going to gleefully accept the loss of these services and blame it on the ‘other’, you are deeply mistaken.
These parents, especially the parents of kids with special needs who are very, very educated about the services theirs kids need, are not going to take this quietly. They are going to inform everybody they can about why they lost services and who is responsible.
We are all not a bunch of moonshine swilling morons and I’ll be damned before I throw up my hands and cry uncle.
I am sick and tired of listening to people who would rather get down on their knees and beg for mercy in the face of adversity.
I’m staying on my feet.
Never been much for begging.
prostratedragon
Censoring my thoughts, like on Columbo.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m hoping that they are on a private plane charter and the low buck mechanic they pay to keep it up in the air forgot to tighten more than a few bolts in some important places. I’m hoping that they encounter armed, angry MAGA constituents whose lives they have destroyed, wherever they go.
I can hope for whatever I want but they have done more damage to themselves than I could ever do in passing this bill. The rubber band will have people going “Nothing is happening, it was blown out of proportion” to eventually shitting their pants when their lives are upended and there is no government there to help them recover.
Eliminating FEMA will be the final nail in the coffin and ensure that we become a complete shithole with wreckage strewn across the nation.
I can’t wait to see it. Really.
Baud
@Hunter Gathers:
I hope you’re right but words mean nothing. We’ll find out soon enough, although not really soon enough.
Baud
My posting this should not be construed as a suggestion that it’s credible.
Hunter Gathers
@Baud: If ICE comes for my preschoolers, they are going to get a lot more than words.
I’m a short guy and we fight until we are hamburger.
The Audacity of Krope
Shit, I hope I do get thrown in some gulag where I don’t speak the language for exercising my first amendment rights. It’s not fair to the others being treated that way that I should be excluded.
prostratedragon
Baud
@prostratedragon:
No Android version.
RSA
The entire DHS? I’m gonna guess Bill forgot that the Coast Guard has been part of the DHS for a couple of decades now.
different-church-lady
I am not saying anything here that I wouldn’t say to the motherfucker’s face.
Chetan Murthy
@RSA: As is the Secret Service. But hey, I guess -right now- I’m OK with defunding the USSS.
hotshoe
I want the Rapture to be real, as the Evangelicals have always imagined it to be, with their own washed-in-the-blood souls floating up to heaven and leaving the rest of us to live here on Earth (which they think will be so sad without them). God, if only they all vanished in an instant, we could finally have peace with nice neighbors. We left-behind could bulldoze their wrecked cars and their abandoned bodies out of the way, and then we could get on with living in a sane and decent society.
It’s impossible to believe in any part of the 1900s-fanfiction about the Tribulations and the Antichrist. I have nothing to fear if god is real and heaven is real (because it would simply be inaccessible for the likes of little-old-atheist me). All I want is to be left behind!
I have given up my unrealistic wish that Hell could be real and that Hell could be their destination. Every person who voted for any Red-Hat truly deserves 15 million lifetimes in Hell for the deaths they have caused and will cause soon. But since Hell cannot be real, I would joyfully settle for all them to be merely gone out of here.
different-church-lady
@David Anderson: see DeBoer comma Freddie
Chetan Murthy
[ahem, ahem, uh] HELLS TO THE FUCKIN’ YEAH!
Kirk
May their bathroom floors be tiled with d4s.
edited to use the more correct word tiled over
paved.jackmac
Stepping on Legos. Argh! It hurt and was quite common in my house when my kids were young.
Gin & Tonic
@different-church-lady:
Or don’t.
The Audacity of Krope
@hotshoe: As a believer in rebirth, I’m firmly convinced heaven and hell is just…the world…and the state we leave it in for posterity.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Would you ever share those? Wow.
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
Elizabelle
@RSA: I take it Kristol means pull it back to its component parts. Get rid of DHS itself as a behemoth.
cain
Most of my comments are relatively mild at least on mastodon. Of course, here I let my freak flag fly cuz you guys find it hot.
cain
@RSA:
We are living in wild times when some conservatives/neocons are turning more liberal than our elected dems.
cain
@hotshoe: You know, they’ll just be following the anti-christ and instead like lemmings go right to hell. Where they’ll have their own fox news telling them that the heat and torture they are going through is not as bad as it is for the libs.
cain
May the GOPs constantly have someone putting a feather on their ticklish feet every 2 minutes.
RSA
@Elizabelle: I’d be on board with that. We got by 200+ years that way.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle:
Absolutely not. Although I did summarize one story a month or two ago in one of Adam’s threads – that’s where I post anything historical if I’m inclined to do so.
TONYG
That’s right. I think that the real purpose of Trump’s executive order effectively ending birthright citizenship is that it places in the hands of the president and his thugs the power to decide who is and who is not a citizen. I have a copy of my birth certificate proving that I was born in New York City, but can I prove that my parents were “really” citizens? My father came to the U.S. from Italy in the early twentieth century. I have no papers proving that he was a citizen. Perhaps no such papers exist. My mother, of Italian heritage, was born in New Jersey — but, again, with no birthright citizenship how can I prove that she was “really” a citizen? This executive order — which the corrupt Supreme Court refused to overturn — effectively places the burden of proof of citizenship on the shoulders of the individual. And “proof” is effectively impossible in almost all cases. A person could have ancestors that came to the U.S. 200 years ago — but without “proper papers” how can the person “prove” that his ancestors actually came here “lawfully”?
Captain C
@danielx:
Just find yourself a nice mellow ball python or something, one that will groove on your body heat. No need for venomous snakes that are probably twitchy from being handled by too many weirdos.
NotMax
Is stepping on jacks more or less uncomfortable than stepping on Legos? (I have zero experience with Legos.)
//
prostratedragon
Farley Granger night on TCM. First up, Strangers on a Train. Later, Side Street and TheyLive By Night.
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: Jacks for the win because they have spikes.
Sister Golden Bear
And in today’s edition of They Don’t Want Trans People To Exist:
U of Penn caves to the Trump administration’s supposed “Title IX violations” and will strip trans athlete Lia Thomas of her records, titles, and recognitions, will adopt “biological definitions” for Title IX under Trump’s order, and more.
Now that Thomas has been disqualified, Riley Gaines can be proud that she’s the sole fifth-place finisher, rather than having tied Thomas for fifth. Still won’t make Gaines swim faster.
Jay
@Baud:
https://bsky.app/profile/bohemiangirl6.bsky.social/post/3lswhpg4nnc2e
ICE Block will not have an Android version because unlike iOS, the Android system is not completely anonymous and secure.
NotMax
@Captain C
We used to joke that, since importing snakes into Hawaii is strictly verboten, that particular religious fetish substitutes puppies for the snakes here..
:)
Josie
@jackmac: Almost as bad as toy soldiers.
Ohio Mom
@Hunter Gathers: My autistic son is 27 now and I still remember every para with great fondness. They were key to every bit of progress he made.
But i must tell you, by virtue of living in a Red suburb, I know lots of Republican special needs parents.
Yeah, they will fight with the school at every IEP meeting (oops, I meant advocate for their kid at every IEP meeting) but they all believe deep in their heart that “they wouldn’t do that to our kids.”
They really think they are immune. There’s a family in my subdivision with three DS kids — one biological, the other two adopted since they decided they were good at DS. Back in the day, they had a Tea Party yard sign, and I doubt they’ve softened up any since then (I would have heard about it through the grape vine).
I’m not looking forward to living through what is coming but I will take moments now and then to revel in schaudenfreud at their distress.
*DS = Down Syndrome
Baud
@Jay:
I don’t know the tech details. Android users will just have to continue using maritime flags to communicate.
Jay
https://bsky.app/profile/mehdirhasan.bsky.social/post/3lswnlsuddc2o
Kirk
@TONYG: Ironically, some of us can. Both from doing genealogy and from being assigned to the genealogy section for part of my time as a librarian, I have in my historical files the birth certificates of my mother, father, and all four grandparents. Heck, I have the birth documents (family bibles) for 6 of the 8 greats. But I’m a fluke.
I’m an experienced researcher with years of access and searching plus the advantage of being the third generation tracking these things and that’s the best we can do. As an experienced genealogy librarian I can tell you that the number of US citizens who can prove their grandparents were US citizens at birth (vs naturalization) is amazingly small.
The thing that’s ironic to me is that if people with immigrants two generations back are not really Citizens, then Donald Trump is not really a citizen. Not that it will matter.
Geminid
@hotshoe: I want to see the Crapture, where all the vicious evangelicals get whisked away to parts unknown. Then the rest could look around and say, “What was I thinking?”
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: The Ukrainian history of that period – and its lessons – is particularly ugly.
Still harrowed after all these years by Timothy Snyder’s “Bloodlands”.
NotMax
FYI.
Oh my. Amazing rescue at sea.
pluky
@Baud: Mr. Kristol, for all his faults, probably has a good understanding of exactly who Brown Shirts inevitably target.
artem1s
trust me it’s harder to prove ‘citizenship’ for those who came 200 years ago than recently. At some point the public records just aren’t there. There is no proof to be had. People got on a boat, got off a boat and started living their lives and having babies. There was no path to citizenship. Everyone was a 14th anchor baby except the indigenous.
Captain C
@NotMax: I could get behind a religion that was about puppy handling. Kittens too.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Understood.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gin & Tonic: is it already in print? You’re editing? This would be valued reading.
i read the excerpt you gave us. I’m sorry to hear you won’t be sharing most of it. It sounds valuable, illuminating, real. Even if it’s gritty.
mrmoshpotato
@Trollhattan: An obit to enjoy. Also, Rush Limbaugh is still dead.
Gvg
@Chetan Murthy: yes you are. The people saying you aren’t are breaking the law. I know that isn’t comforting now. I want them jailed though. After fair trials of course. Kidnapping, denial of due process, transport across state lines for felony, denial of civil rights, various property crimes, financial and emotional costs, lying to judges, and other crimes that vary by specifics.
don’t accept their framing. They are wrong and liars.
NaijaGal
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Ooh – I like this!
WTFGhost
@zhena gogolia: I think it’s more for “I wish X_Person would die in a fire,” which, while obviously ironic, would be sus if X_Person died as a victim of arson, and you couldn’t account for your whereabouts.
(Did I use “sus” correctly? I feel like I’m back in kindergarten sometimes, hoping I learned my word correctly.)
That is why I said “I think someday people will have a favorite Republican serial killer” and made absolutely no reference to any specific person, except vaguely generally, for after they are well and truly dead. It’s both obvious parody, as well as first amendment protected. I would not want to have an indictment reading “WTF, GHOST” because face it, that’s an embarrassing way to see your nym.
Chetan Murthy
You are wrong, Gvg. I wish you were right, but you are simply wrong. Those with the guns, make the rules.
Ramona
@Chetan Murthy: Got to call my lawyer who got me through the naturalization process!
WTFGhost
@Chetan Murthy: You know, I see two folks who might be in violent agreement.
One side could be saying “this is manifestly illegal, under the Constitution!” and be 100% right.
And the other could be saying “de facto, it’s legal as (massive expletive), because it will never come to trial!” and, yes, that person is also 100% right.
De jure = by law – and by law, ICE is breaking many laws. De facto = by facts/pragmatically speaking, and pragmatically speaking, they’ll only be tried if something like the Nuremberg trials are brought back. Trump has an OLC opinion saying this is all legal, and that will foreclose on most potential criminal charges.
(Why? The OLC’s opinions are considered binding law, unless a court expressly overrides them. That’s why no one could be prosecuted for torture; they were following the highest standard of legal opinion in the US, the OLC… but it was subverted by the Wadministration.)
Chetan Murthy
@Ramona: I was naturalized at age 17. At various times, I have worked on Office of Naval Research contracts, held an NSF postgraduate fellowship, and an NSF-NATO postdoctoral fellowship, all from the Federal Government. I have literally never been arrested.
We can look at what happened to Mohammed Khalil: we can all see. Sure, he fought back. But if he had other equally attractive options, would he have fought? Spent that time in detention? Why would he not have just left?
Back in November 2024, I was -distraught- after the election, b/c I had decided if things went south, I would make plans to emigrate. And I simply wasn’t ready for that. When I saw my doctor that week, he was so concerned that he insisted I return a month later: I suspect he was worried about self-harm. I was that distraught. Now, 8 months later, I -regret- not having gone thru with it back then. Today I did my Global Entry interview, and will get my card in 3-4wk. Time to start planning for trips overseas. Find a place to emigrate.
Saying things like “your rights are the same as any other citizen’s” when it -manifestly- is not so, is foolish. There’s an old law school joke I heard over at LGM:
Law Prof: Can anyone tell me the definition of “a constitutional law”
Student: a law that can command the votes of at least a bare majority of SCOTUS
The law is about -power-, and not anything else. Saying or thinking otherwise is foolishness.
hotshoe
@Steve LaBonne:
took me a moment :)
WTFGhost
@cain: Yeah, but so did Abel. No offense, I’m just saying.
@Ohio Mom: I don’t revel in it, but, sometimes it takes a Harvey Milk and a Matthew Sheppard to cause people to wake up. So: yes, I hate every bit of it, but, again, until we have the rule of law secured, I’m willing to let it happen, with only a good loud fight fought before bowing to the inevitable. Maybe they have to hurt – I would rather it be otherwise, but, I’ve dealt with addicts, and you simply can’t be reasonable, logical, rhetorically powerful (think Badger speaking to Toad!), etc., enough to change an addict, unless, and until, that addict has realized “holy crap, I have to change things.”
And these people are addicted to their hatred, even though they don’t recognize that it *is* hatred.
@Geminid: I’ve occasionally broken a few brains by having a bumper sticker that said “BEWARE: COME THE RAPTURE, driver MAY BE carless.” I doubt it did any good, though.
I gotta say, so many folks with the reverse bumper stickers… their cars were already POSes anyway, couldn’t they at least endeavor to be raptured in some primo wheels, for those of us about to be crushed by the tribulation? I mean, seriously, how greedy can you get, expecting eternal happiness, without investing just a bit in comfort for the oppressed!
evodevo
@Captain C: Yeah…the fundies usually cheat by keeping the snakes to be handled in a box/bucket in a cool place so they’ll be relatively inactive when gotten out during the service. (I know a lot of the details since a family friend who’s a herpetologist gets called in by the Staties to deal with snakes involved in fatal bites). If they are dumb enough to keep the snakes out in a warm room too long, bite rate increases, and sooner or later a fatality ensues and the State Police are called in. Copperhead bites are milder, while timber rattlers are more likely to be fatal, and they are also mean-tempered and easily pissed off. And all this idiocy is based on a passage in a Pauline letter that is widely thought to be a forged insert.
Xavier
Paranoia it strikes deep / Into your heart it will creep / And it starts when you’re always afraid / Step out of line and ICE come and take you away.
Kayla Rudbek
@RSA: Coast Guard should be in DoD in my opinion, if it’s military it should be DOD
Kayla Rudbek
@MagdaInBlack: and if the spikes are sharpened, the jacks become caltrops