I found this image in a post from The Status Kuo.
I don’t see a name of who created the image below, but maybe Another Scott will chime in with the origin, as he sometimes does. :-)
I would love to see something similar for Chicago and for Memphis. Is it too much to hope that Governor Pritzker could post something like that on his BlueSky account?
I wish billboards weren’t so expensive!
Could something like these go on a sticker?
At this point, I’m all for some small collective action across our individual locations.
Ideas?
Open thread.
Jinchi
I have a real problem with the idea that sending in the brownshirts to violently attack protesters and terrorize immigrants in blue state cities is a distraction from the Epstein story.
WaterGirl
@Jinchi: Interesting. Really?
I think a lot of what they are doing is related to pushing Epstein off the radar
edit: What’s your take on the House “going on vacation” as soon as the 218 signature person was elected? Do you think that’s related to Epstein
edit 2: I also think they want to hurt people, so Epstein isn’t the only reason.
Another Scott
It’s hard to tell where the Portland thing came from. Maybe originaldvd.bsky.social from 9/28 (but I suspect s/he grabbed it somewhere else without attribution); something very similar is available as a T-shirt, so maybe it’s been out there a while. (But, since nearly anything can be printed on demand now, it’s really hard to know.)
I couldn’t find your image with TinEye.
Google gives me a list of exact image matches that are usually around a week old, but some claim to be 3 months old and point to FB anti-MAGA memes or locked down Indivisible pages or something else locked down.
Dunno.
HTH!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Jinchi:
@WaterGirl:
Doesn’t matter what their motivation is. What matters is how we respond.
Pushing Epstein back in their face, to me, shows confidence. Could it become too memeified and lose its potency? Of course. Just like anything else. But in moderation, it is good IMHO.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: Thank you!
WaterGirl
@Baud:
You make an excellent point – we can capitalize on Epstein, regardless of their intent.
Normies seem to care about Epstein, and they seem to care about health care.
WaterGirl
Does anyone know about Illinois lawsuits re: ICE and the National Guard? I am not seeing any reference to those in Pritzker’s twitter feed or in the articles I have seen lately, but I’m sure they must have lawsuits pending.
HinTN
Thank you, @WaterGirl:, for the amazing photo today.
WaterGirl
@HinTN: The color is amazing!
oldgold
How about releasing the September employment report? They have it. It was fully complete before the October 1 shutdown. The numbers must be bad. Otherwise, it would have been released.
Geminid
@Baud: Even without the Epstein files being released, new material about Epstein and his relationship with Trump keeps coming out. The new reports help keep the Epstein matter in the news, and I don’t think they’ll stop.
Jinchi
@WaterGirl: Use of state violence against people he considers his enemies has been the central plank of Donald Trump’s ideology since he was demanding the execution of the Central Park Five. This was always the plan. He was doing it during his first term, he just hadn’t put all the people in place to carry it off right. This is straight out of the dictator’s playbook and we should be take it seriously before more people get killed.
I have no problem with slapping Mike Johnson around for his nonsense, but honestly, what do you think is going to happen if every page, photograph and video of the Epstein files actually gets released?
Baud
@Geminid:
The House can’t stay on vacation forever.
M31
One cause of ‘the Portland thing’ was because Fox news had some stories using recycled footage from the George Floyd protests, and Trump thought it current.
huh
Baud
@Jinchi:
Same thing that will happen if Donald Trump invades and occupies every blue city in America. Nothing. The constituency for standing up to Trump is a small minority of Americans.
Jinchi
@Baud:
I’m happy to get every Trump scandal as much exposure as possible.
But I have a problem with the “distraction” language, particularly because Democratic leadership has also been playing this game and it trivializes the suffering of the people targeted by his abuses of government power and signals that no one will be fighting for them.
p.a.
Have not seen polling on the ongoing fascification of the USG, so judging by 11/2024 I assume that doesn’t resonate bigly- therefore Epstein, prices, layoffs, etc! Do Dems have a Cambridge Analytica to suss out successful narrowcasting? Although even if we did, we’d have the “payloads” but lack the delivery systems of Fox, Christofascist “churches”, supine mainline media.
Geminid
@Baud: My guess is that Trump and Johnson will persuade Nancy Mace and/or Lauren Boebert to pull their signatures from the discharge petition. Mace is running for governor and needs Trump’s help, and Boebert is a low-hanging fruitcake.
Hannah
Jamelle Bouie recommended this blog piece regarding the recent “compact” offer from the trump administration to several universities, including UT-Austin, Vanderbilt, UVA, and MIT. It’s long but good. balkin.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-art-of-replacing-law-with-deal.html?m=1
Librettist
@Jinchi:
Fitzmas!
Baud
@Jinchi:
I’ve always hated the distraction language, ever since Trump 1.
But it comes from the bottom up. Dem electeds didn’t lead the way.
It can be useful here to some extent because it’s clear that Trump and the Republicans don’t want to release the Epstein files, and want people to forget about them. OTOH, they’re quite proud of what they’re doing in blue cities.
Baud
@Geminid:
That’s my guess too.
MagdaInBlack
While the occupation of American cities may BE a distraction from the Epstein drama, I don’t think it is intended as such. Occupation and inciting reaction is part of a different plan (and boy ain’t Stephen Miller reveling in it.)
Once they consolidate their control, Epstein files won’t matter much, will they?
Joey Maloney
Well, how much do billboards cost, anyway?
M31
I had a small hope that some of these big city police depts would have some pride, resent these Fed thugs coming in and brutalizing, and get some hints from mayors that beatdowns of ICE thugs would be rewarded.
yeah, I know, ACAB, they’re on the same side, too bad
Baud
And it’s not like there aren’t Dems and others who are in fact speaking out against Trump’s invasion. AL has featured those voices too.
UncleEbeneezer
@Jinchi: It’s a both/and situation.
Obviously the Right (and Libertarians) have been fantasizing about taking us back to Kent State treatment of protestors, criminalizing any/all civil rights activism and rounding up immigrants for a very long time. But leaning into them heavily now, also serves as a distraction from the Epstein files, Trump’s age/dementia, and any other criticism of their side.
Jinchi
You and I are living in different worlds, the reason the Democrat’s approval numbers are in the gutter is because they haven’t caught up to the outrage in the country.
And regardless, “leading” is literally in their job description.
UncleEbeneezer
AL, not sure if you have posted about this yet, but thought you might be interested. I just started following this guy and his books look great:
RaflW
Along the resisting authoritarianism line, I’m thinking about a small postcard campaign. I know the Supremes view themselves as way above the fray, but they’re just politicians ultimately. As the radical six make this Court the most unpopular in generations, it’s time to let them know we’re well aware of how they enable unconscionable suffering.
I tend to think of postcards because they don’t require (but can have) return addresses. They aren’t diverted for ‘suspicious envelope’ testing. Maybe a staffer glances at the image or text in handling. And they’re relatively inexpensive.
I think we should be making hay out of the absurd “Kavanaugh stops”. As in, he thinks only of himself and how he’d be released after being (cough) briefly detained. But we now know that US citizens are being rounded up, hounded, and released in way way longer durations than brief.
Here’s a skeet I’d consider printing 4-up on 8.5 x 11 card stock to send, with a short handwritten note on the address/message side (probably just the main text, not author or datestamp).
WaterGirl
@Baud: I think you’re wrong about that.
And I hope I’m right! :-)
WaterGirl
@p.a.: What is USG? U.S. Government?
WaterGirl
@M31: I do know that in Chicago they are keeping all these raids under wraps so the Chicago Police don’t know about them ahead of time.
I wonder if they could set up some sort of ICE hotline in Chicago where people can report immediately when they see ICE.
Baud
@Jinchi:
I’m talking about the “distraction” rhetoric. The electeds didn’t invent that meme. That came from the hoi polloi.
p.a.
@RaflW: If they’re admitting 50%, that means it’s 90%.
@WaterGirl: Yes.
WaterGirl
@Jinchi: Have you noticed a change in the past week or so? If you haven’t, then maybe look again.
Miss Bianca
@UncleEbeneezer: I think, in simple justice, it must be pointed out that NotAllLibertarians are cool with the violent suppression of civil liberties, seeing as how that’s actually inimical to the supposed ideals of Libertarianism. Shocking, I know…
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
I’ve always believed that about 10% of “libertarians” are actually philosophically libertarian.
WaterGirl
@RaflW:
Andrew Weinstein @andrewjweinstein.com
Boy, that is good.
WaterGirl
@p.a.: I should have expected an acronym from someone whose nym is p.a. :-)
Miss Bianca
@Baud: I always figure a self-described Libertarian’s stand on abortion is the litmus test. If they don’t recognize bodily autonomy on that level, then they’re just garden-variety authoritarians. (And yes, I have had these conversations… :/)
Anyway
@RaflW:
Wow, this is good. Every D in front of a camera should repeat this — the shutdown press conferences everywhere…
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Under Set Gelatin.
:)
Anyway
@Miss Bianca: libertarians are embarrassed RThugs .. or people who think they’re too cool to identify as Rs.
RaflW
@MagdaInBlack: I’m with the camp who think Stephen Miller’s increasingly agitated and overwrought blurts on X indicate he’s very worried that in fact all the attacks on blue cities isn’t working.
We are deep, deep into what’s known as competitive authoritarianism, and one of the key elements of that is a totally corrupted SCOTUS. But the efforts of this incompetent (but dangerous) gang of control freaks to consolidate are coming at a time when Trump is really, really unpopular.
I’m not saying it is impossible for Republicans to seal the deal and lock us into a permanent (whatever that means in longer timeframes) regime. But historically the consolidation phase rides a wave of popular support. That ain’t what anyone looking around sees right now.
mvr
@Another Scott: The main image is from an iconic Portland sign that is visible or was visible near the Burnside Bridge. I don’t live there anymore so I don’t know whether it is still there.
It is known as the White Stag Sign: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Stag_sign
Edit: Apparently it is still there though the text has undergone some changes over time.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jinchi: The Dems problem is that the majority of Americans* really don’t give a damn if Black and brown people are terrorized.
It doesn’t move the needle with the most important demographic.
But what does move the needle with that demographic is their money; and of course the sexual shenanigans represented by the very idea of Epstein Island.
You go to war with the electorate you have, not a better educated, more enlightened electorate you might get in future. (with NO fuckin’ apologies to Rummy)
MagdaInBlack
@RaflW: Several of the folks I listen to on independent progressive media are saying similar about both Millers overwrought shrieks and the ability of this incompetent array of pinheads to pull this off.
Whether they pull it off or no, they’re certainly leaving a fukd up mess in their wake.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: If they were, they’d be CIVIL Libertarians.
They don’t really believe in civil rights for all. I figured that out as a member of the Libertarian Party back in the 1980s.
Take them at their word about their philosophy and it sounds entirely reasonable and rational… but when you go beyond their soaring rhetoric you find just another flavor of white male supremacy.
(1 year. I was young and impressionable. I apologize for my younger, more gullible self. ;^)
M31
@WaterGirl:
ah, that makes some sense (from the ICE point of view) — if local cops are between ICE and protesters it’s harder for ICE to pepper spray them, might hit some cops instead, would mess up the video content
Professor Bigfoot
@Miss Bianca: THIS entirely.
If they cannot accept a woman’s right to bodily autonomy, all the rest of their “liberty” based arguments hold no merit.
”How is it we hear the loudest yelps of liberty from the drivers of negroes(slaves)?” -Dr. Johnson, 1774
Professor Bigfoot
@MagdaInBlack: My one deeply held hope is that Americans are just too goddamned cussed to roll over for this.
“Fuck you, make me” seems a profoundly American attitude.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I hope the weed was good.
Gvg
@Jinchi: I think some very rich donors of numerous republicans will turn out to be very bad people and not just pedophiles or human traffickers but serious financial crooks, which will make the politicians they funded who then tried to protect them look bad.
I think trump is a crook-well that is factual, don’t understand why his supporters didn’t notice before he was elected the first time,and somehow now more of them seem to be receptive to the news if it arrives again as if it was new. The timing and built up mystique of the Epstein files seem able to get into the minds of more people if they come out reasonably soon. It’s like their minds are finally ripened to be pollinated. I don’t get it. I just watch and try to guess.
it’s not just Trump resisting this. We should be trying to notice who is and isn’t stalling and tracing money and influence backwards.
Also when it does get revealed…what reforms in laws can we propose and maybe get out of public reaction that would be useful? Guessing what’s in them based on who we think doesn’t want them released-the powers behind the congressmen, helps plan. Maybe. I don’t know this stuff myself, I just think that it’s interesting some people changed their positions including Trump really and others that are normally conservative have not fallen in line, like Cato. I think there are different money and powers and it’s not all touched by Epstein.
Mike E
@Jinchi: I really like this take by a Buddhist journalist who goes by the handle Antifascist Dad. He gets to the crux of liberal ennui and subsequent pundit retreat, bargaining for a kinder/gentler capitalism/centrism (which is of course nothing of the sort).
ETA @Professor Bigfoot, ditto
RaflW
@MagdaInBlack: For sure. There is a lot of suffering. So many people’s lives are being disrupted, their safety and wellbeing wrecked, e.g. the deportations to places like El Salvador and other very dangerous nations is an endless outrage.
But this evil is also opening up a real possibility of huge reforms, if we can organize ourselves and lift up new leaders who have the vision and gravitas to focus us that way.
Trumper’s have broken a lot of shit in a short time. But also partly because everything was already so damn brittle. It’s really revealed how hollow many of our institutions were/are.
Fixable? With huge effort, after the big lift of ejecting this rancid Republican regime. But I don’t know if I believe in American mojo any more than @Baud.
RaflW
@Gvg: “I think trump is a crook-well that is factual, don’t understand why his supporters didn’t notice before he was elected the first time”
Oh, they knew. Certainly. But it was IMO a combo of the facile and false ennui of “all politicians are crooks” and the hopelessly naive “he’s the Robin Hood for our side”.
Chief Oshkosh
@Jinchi: Calling the city invasions a distraction doesn’t trivialize the suffering to me. I see it as one of several approaches to chip away at the regime’s power. The Epstein Files are the ONLY thing that gets a certain segment pissed off at Trump. So pound on it. Other segments react to other issues, like healthcare access or “the price of eggs.” Pound on those to the respective audiences where possible.
NotMax
@RaflW
There’s a word which has gone out of fashion: dastard.
Jay
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: It wasn’t. ;^D
Another Scott
@Mike E: Thanks for the pointer. A keen observer and he makes good points.
Best wishes,
Scott.
They Call Me Noni
@Geminid: Maybe have Litnik give more interviews, like with Joe Rogan.
MagdaInBlack
@RaflW: You and I and no doubt a lot of others, see the aftermath rebuilding as an opportunity to repair and make better.
They broke it for the sake of making it “better.” It’s just that they see “better” as a much different thing than we do.
Not arguing, just thinking out loud.
Interesting times……..
Heidi Mom
@Professor Bigfoot: On Facebook I offered what might be a variation on your theme: Eventually we’ll say “Oh for fuck’s sake this has gone on long enough,” we’ll throw the lunatics out, then we’ll go back to watching the game, slightly embarrassed that it took us so long.
They Call Me Noni
@Geminid: Trump is falling in the polls so maybe they’ll hang tight banking on the fact that they want to give the base the thing they’ve all been so adamant about.
Professor Bigfoot
@Heidi Mom: I saw a similar analogy— The Sleeping Giant is waking up, looking around, and muttering to himself, “what in the Sam Hill is a goin’ on around here?”
MagdaInBlack
Meanwhile, Cosplay Kristi is on Fox crying because she/they are denied restroom use in Chicago.
Priorities, people. They’re making things difficult for Ms Noem and her goon squads.
WaterGirl
@MagdaInBlack: I’ll bet she was a mean girl in high school.
Geminid
@They Call Me Noni: That’scertainly possible, but they both have vulnerabilities.
Mace’s worry is that Trump will endorse a competitor in the primary for governor. She’ll have an uphill battle as it is.
Boebert could be vulnerable to a primary chalenge as well, especially because she’s new to the district.
So Trump has leverage here. I guess we’ll find out how much in the next two weeks.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: OMG yes, the epitome of.
They Call Me Noni
@Geminid: Very true. I just want all the files released because they are going to reveal a lot. I am especially interested in the follow the money aspect. Many a criminal has been tripped up this way.
Geminid
@They Call Me Noni: I saw some reporting that indicates that the Epstein/Trump relationship was financial as well as social, that Epstein was a limited partner in the freewheeling Bear Stearns investment bank that helped finance Trump’s Atlantic City casinos. I’ll probably comment about this story in more detail when I’ve checked it out.