…it was a different professional grinning asshole that said that…no prizes for guessing which one…but…if I tell you the very next words out of his mouth were “I feel the hand of history upon my shoulder” or whatever…maybe you’ll guess…hard to believe anyone could make tony sound humble…but…having resolved none of the underlying causes that have found themselves to be at irreconcilable odds for a couple of millennia in some senses…& the better part of a century in the more immediately applicable sense…telling the world you’ve achieved an immortal peace is…some shit to say about yourself
* Over 20,000 Palestinians killed since January* 100s starved to death, including kids* Congress bypassed to send more & more bombs to Israel* US citizens murdered in the West BankI hope this ceasefire holds & I am glad the hostages are free, but this is Trump’s *actual record* so far.
…&…honestly…I don’t want to be mehdi…he looks like he has some fun with it but it has to be fucking exhausting…but…you know…maybe…suggesting you think there’s a lack of substance to the big thing the guy thinks he’s done once & for all sounds like you don’t think it’s an unambiguously good thing that there’s aid going where they were sending munitions…&…respectfully…you would have to be an actual moron to equate those two things…which…uhhh
Why the hell does Trump’s Department of War keep using RUSSIAN military images? This is by no mean the first time this has happened.
…maybe it wouldn’t be a thing these days…but back in “the war” people not “in it” learned the silhouettes of boats & planes so they could call them in if they spotted them in their neck of the woods…if you ever read “the machine gunners” you’d know that once passed as a working definition of actual child’s-play…so…they could tell their stuff from our stuff by their fucking shadows…& you’re telling me the “war” department’s PR division can fuck that up with a full color hi-res image that went through review before release?
Front page of Scottish newspaper The National today.
…&…I don’t want that peace not to hold…I don’t really understand people who wouldn’t any more than I understand the people that would think of pulling the sort of oct 7th shit that would provoke the last couple of years of moral & political reputational suicide on the part of a state that had enjoyed since its inception a leeway over defense more in proportion to the collective shame derived from…uhh…having collectively failed to make it impossible for an amoral ideologically-driven genocide to take place…sooooo…buttressed by the fact that the descendants of the people relocated to make way for them…sorta like the tribes getting corralled in reservations to make way for railroads & gold rushes & such…weren’t without voices inclined to say maybe it’d be great if that space were available to them again on account of them having got rid of all these recent arrivals…even the ones that have been there longer than the speakers have been alive…because when you’re really just your ancestors still being at war with their ancestors what else is a present generation to do with the present it’s been presented with…& those people had sympathetic people in all the places around there that weren’t the one place…so…if you didn’t want to get into enough to upset anyone at your dinner party…not too hard to evince some sympathy for the small, surrounded enclave & its historically maltreated founding occupants
one thing that has been obvious for a while is this aspect of the authoritarian internationale: they recognize that their allies abroad are not *countries* but *political movements* within foreign countries.time we liberals woke up and recognized this–because it's the truth.
Or maybe, just maybe, what was obvious in 2024 was correct: Netanyahu fully backed Trump and would not deal with Biden because Trump would give him a free hand to escalate the starvation, bombing, and do full ethnic cleansing. Which he then did, until Netanyahu embarrassed him by bombing Qatar.
…&…again…it doesn’t feel great to feel what seems cynical given the potential upside to there being even a few grains of truth to the claims the tangerine man is hawking about all over this shop…but…I simply do not buy that biden…after a lifetime’s commitment to israel the way people are to those everlasting flame things to represent the stuff its creation was supposed to when ol’ joe was all of five & a bit years old…wanted to let bibi be the bloodbath guy…or didn’t try to put some brakes on that…not saying he didn’t have either more brakes he ignored or more weight he could have put behind the ones he tried or even that I don’t think he had plenty of lines open to him that wouldn’t have broken faith with the stuff he was trying to protect or preserve because those might actually be a lot harder to argue with than his results…fuck-a-nobel-I-done-did-everlasting-peace-in-the-middle-east-all-on-my-own-now-bow-down-&-watch-me-re-develop-that-shit-into-a-despots’-paradise-with-my-literal-name-on-it-like-I’m-bucking-for-billing-as-the-god-damn-antichrist guy…wants you to buy a hat to remind everyone how about peace he is…while he declares war on the bits of his own nation that think he’s an asshole of biblical proportions
No, you don’t gotta hand it to him for possibly getting the third Biden cease fire eight months late after tolerating a mass starvation campaign and demanding a little ethnic cleansing and enormous bribes as a treat, and only because Netanyahu surprise bombed the chief bribe facilitator.
…I wouldn’t necessarily have phrased it that way…& that’s not mehdi…but…if I’m honest…I have a harder time finding fault with the logic of its claims than…pretty much…damn near all of the self-congratulatory rhetoric from the soundbite tour victory lap thing he’s doing to not be at home to any of the “yo – epstein, motherfucker…” going on while steve “I’m from the mirror universe but I got the goatee lasered off & now I have my own secret-not-secret-not-police & get to foment race war from the west wing” miller assures him he’ll keep those home fires flaring
Biden’s cease-fires got 135 living hostages released. Trump’s got 20 (which is less than it would have been had he enforced the continuation of the January cease fire).
I mean this round is getting 1,700+ hostages released? Even if nobody wants to acknowledge it?
I have not seen this number anywhere. Do you have a reference for it?
…way more stuff than actually says stuff I think someone knows what they’re saying about, for example
Police officers who publicly declare that they’ll quit if a mayoral candidate they dislike wins the election are (1) usually bluffing—sure buddy, toss away that paycheck and pension—and (2) exactly the sort of cops cities would be better off without, ones who don’t see themselves as public servants.
– It is legal to organize and fund protest. – That someone organizes and funds promotion of a protest does not mean most, some, or any protesters are paid.- Even if all protesters are paid, that is also legal- It is good to oppose kings and fascism- That's not what what "begs the question" means
Heritage president Kevin Roberts, in a truly revealing passage of his Foreword to the Project 2025 policy agenda, states that the project of “dismantling the administrative state” is not about the actual size of government at all:The goal is to cut “the secret lifeblood of the Great Awokening.”
the more I read about the promises OpenAI has made, the more disgusted I am. They've promised to deploy 10GW of Broadcom chips *by the end of 2029*, a chip that has yet to tape out, in data centers yet to be planned or funded or the power acquired. We are in a black hole of ethics and good sense.
In an AI-generated, dystopian vision of the British capital, a video shows Big Ben smouldering above piles of rubbish and London crowds dressed in traditional Islamic garb.Far-right leaders are seizing on such AI clips of European cities changed by migration to promote racist viewsu.afp.com/Smz4
I don’t understand why U.S. reporters so regularly seem to let politicians get away with ‘I haven’t seen that’ about stuff a) they obviously know and b) is directly relevant to their job. Did they sign some kind of agreement never to ask a follow-up question?
REPORTER: We know the president moved forward with mass layoffs. We're also learning there were significant cuts to staff at special education services. Are you comfortable with those cuts?MIKE JOHNSON: I haven't seen the specifics of that and I don't know
They call DEI “discrimination” while pushing policies that eliminate inclusion. It’s nothing other than AUTHORITARIAN GASLIGHTING. They are hijacking the language of equality to wage war against equality, turning civil rights into a weapon for power.
When Aaron Fucking Rupar is doing more reporting than CBS News and The NYT
I think this was a plotline on the second season of The Newsroom
Trump's conversation with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is caught on a hot mic. Hard to tell exactly what they are talking about, but Subianto asks Trump about meeting Eric Trump and Don Jr, who supposedly have nothing to do with government while they run the family business.
…give it time…statistically p=1 that at some point some bunch of hackers will ransom the payroll deets of the entire thing along with their social security numbers & everything you need to steal their identity & ruin their credit for life…or whatever…less shoddy orgs have found themselves in that hole without the fly-by-night compromised aspect being inherent rather than introduced by the hijackers…so…really…it’s not even a high bar…it’s not like you’d need the president to let you take a bunch of easily bullied interns with rudimentary understanding & technical abilities to hook a bunch of poorly secured starlinked data channels into the wide open ether while they bore into some of the world’s most highly sought “secure” personal data just generally much less among the sorts of state-level actors that port-scan secure facilities for form’s sake…because…c’mon…nobody’d be *that* fucking dumb…that’s just preposterous…you’re gaslighting, man…get the fuck outta here they let someone do that with secure US facilities…not even in a movie…with will ferrell in…played for laughs…& anyway…I’m sure something like that would have stuck in people’s memory?
The AI trade: do geopolitics matter? on.ft.com/4q1ULA1 | opinion
Not nothing, not enough: is the Paris Climate Agreement working?Ten years after the landmark Paris Agreement, major polluters are wavering on action and doubts remain whether it can survive in an era of fracturing global alliances and economic uncertaintyu.afp.com/SmDC
…tbh…actually asking questions doesn’t need another term…because it literally is just asking questions…which is what we call that…& genuine polite disagreement also wouldn’t be sealioning…sealioning is called that for a reason
It has been suggested that the couple in this comic, and the woman in particular, are bigots for making a pejorative statement about a species of animal, and then refusing to justify their statements. It has been further suggested that they be read as overly privileged, because they are dressed fancily, have a house, a motor-car, etc. This is, I suppose, a valid read of the comic, if taken as written.
But often, in satire such as this, elements are employed to stand in for other, different objects or concepts. Using animals for this purpose has the effect of allowing the point (which usually is about behavior) to stand unencumbered by the connotations that might be suggested if a person is portrayed in that role — because all people are members of some social group or other, even if said group identity is not germane to the point being made.
Such is the case with this comic. The sea lion character is not meant to represent actual sea lions, or any actual animal. It is meant as a metaphorical stand-in for human beings that display certain behaviors. Since behaviors are the result of choice, I would assert that the woman’s objection to sea lions — which, if the metaphor is understood, is read as actually an objection to human beings who exhibit certain behaviors — is not analogous to a prejudice based on race, species, or other immutable characteristics.
My apologies if the use of a metaphorical sea lion in this strip, rather than a human being making conscious choices about their own behavior, was in any way confusing.
As for their attire: everyone in Wondermark dresses like that.
This week and for the next few weeks over at gocomics.com/wondermark I'm running some Classics from the earliest year(s) of Wondermark. Very curious to watch the commenters engage with what I consider a very different era and style in the strip's history.
…& if that doesn’t resemble a common denominator of some nominally-but-not-remotely-actually-genuine opinion-havers with the difference
https://bsky.app/profile/peipolitical.bsky.social/post/3m32syvxrk22k […ideally I’d have embedded the parody video clip that’s embedded in that but I haven’t had…or the world may not provide enough…coffee for me to have achieved that…so…hate to do it…but…let’s see if wordpress still knows how to embed twitter videos…& if not I’ll add in the “not your average liberal” tweet that’s the only other place google will currently admit to being able to find it?]
[…or…just imagine a series of homespun homilies about how free & safe the neighborhoods feel & how it’s nice they burned those books because the little schoolgirl’s backpack is lighter & state-run media has eliminated fake news & as long as we obey everything will be okay…which is more or less the strap line?]
…to you
Alexandra is among the people who lost their jobs for posting about the conservative influencer's death. She described the online mob that got her fired as "state-sponsored censorship."
so one of the things I’ve started to realize with having a notable following On Here is exactly how much of a reading comprehension problem we have in this country
like the number of quotes and replies I get where I’m like “but that’s not even what I’m talking about rn” is staggering
I need to track it down but somebody posted a description of the different grades of reading levels and the general consensus that the median reading level in this country being 5th grade absolutely makes sense
even on here, the text-based social media-which is wild!
…or mostly to avoid being guilty of
President Donald Trump has been employing a certain political two-step incessantly for years, conservative analyst David French wrote for the New York Times on Monday — and, ironically, it took a judge he appointed himself to stand up and unmask it.
“For a very long time, Trump and his supporters have gotten away with a double game. First, they’ll cheer anything and everything that makes him a thoroughly unconventional president — from his bizarre social media posts to his extreme use of executive power — as necessary, absolutely necessary, to save the country and drain the swamp,” wrote French.
“But when Trump’s unprecedented behavior meets with an unprecedented response, MAGA is aggrieved. How dare you treat him differently from other presidents, they say.”
In other words, said French, the pattern goes: “When Trump is on offense, he’s celebrated as a president like no other. But when he has to answer for his actions in court, he demands that he be treated as a president like any other.” […] The president, French continued, is “posting wildly false statements about American cities online, and then he’s directing that soldiers be sent to cities governed by officials he sees as his political enemies, even though none of the historic circumstances that have justified military deployments in the past — like widespread unrest — are present. The level of violence in Portland is a far cry from the multiple urban riots of the 1960s or the Los Angeles riots of 1992 — much less the riots that spread across American cities after George Floyd’s murder in 2020.”
Enter U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, one of Trump’s own appointees, who issued a ruling bluntly slapping Trump down and telling him he could not deploy troops to Portland.
“Judge Immergut is supposed to give the president ‘a great level of deference'” as to what constitutes a “rebellion” for the purposes of calling in the Guard, French wrote.
“But how much deference should you give a president who constantly lies?” noted French. “The right answer is that a president can forfeit judicial deference through his own conduct. In Newsom v. Trump, the Ninth Circuit also said that the president’s determinations must be made in ‘good faith.’ If there’s no good faith, there should be no deference.” […] At the end of the day, “the best way to evaluate the reasoning behind Trump’s actions is to examine Trump’s words, and Trump’s words reveal a man who isn’t just ‘untethered to the facts’; he’s also untethered to the law,” French concluded. “Dishonest presidents should be entitled to no deference at all.”
According to the victim's attorney, the body camera captured the officer saying, “Do something, bitch,” before leaping out of the car and shooting her multiple times. Another officer asked, “Hey, what happened?” The first pointed to his camera, “Hey, don’t speak. You’re good”trib.al/KhKsfSb
The Treasury Secretary declares himself to be pro-monarchy, and promises to punish the entire country if the people exercise their First Amendment rights.
Also she’s not reliable on anything, it is clear that 1 reason she is acting the way she is, not just on Israel, these days is because she was not given the blessings or the job offers from the trump White House in the past year that she wanted
…whether it’s with “ICE was here” signs on the ground…or with whistles like the peelers used in his day…or by bike-based flash-mob style intervention…or turning their teams into convoys with a jeering long-tail…or…whatever
I now realize that for my entire adult life, I've had a very narrow conception of what "supporting and defending the Constitution" means. Standing on business when armed agents of the State are knocking on your door is way more important, by a country mile, than anything I did overseas
…the something they’re doing is why you got the gaiter pulled up…ya goiter
[…I’m…10mins late for this to be visible but…I dunno how much more of what I’m inclined to wedge into the thing I’ll get around to before I dig up tunes & stop fucking about?]
…well…there went a chunk of today, I guess…most of the way to 12hrs after this was due & I haven’t found the time to find the damn tunes…I should probably feel ashamed of myself…so…about that…I know there’s folks it’s easy to say are the sorts of folks where to be them is to know shame…sometimes in ways or for reasons that misplace where that belongs between the meeting of two minds in the eye of a single beholder…but…while there’s the sort they made the tv show about…& the other tv show that was the one show but for another idiom…when they used to curse a girl for “shameless”…well…lots of those times they could go extramaritally-fornicate-themselves…but…the offense itself strikes me as a pretty fundamental one in terms of basic interpersonal interaction…that has been a de facto political asset for so long it barely makes sense to bother to mention it?
Thread. There is unquestionably toxic shame, to be fought; but societies cannot function without a shame-price for those who do wicked things. Shame is friction that slows the campaigns of evil, and the higher you make the shame-price, the more will be unwilling to pay that price of campaign.
…&…ok…before I take a run at the tune-age…on the one hand…might have to inflict the rest of that thread on this post because I thought it was if not on to something of its own at least adjacent to a whole bunch of stuff I’m actually managing to resist the temptation to let turn this into something even longer than that would be…but…even so…before I get to that…let me get to how I got to that?
…yes the crowd had[e] just erupted…& yes the Unipip[i]er is the bagpipes/vader mask/unicycle guy…who is real…but…also
Someone in my mentions is upset because these people haven’t suffered the worst at ICE’s hands and therefore they shouldn’t be praised for being out on the streets?Yeah, no. To push back on these people we need everyone — especially those with relative privilege — to get up and get involved.
Trying to remember where it was that MLK famously told white moderates not to support the movement because they hadn’t experienced the worst aspects of Jim Crow themselves.
The fact that protests now feature people who don’t normally have to worry about what might happen to them in an adverse encounter with security forces is a HUGE DEAL. It means that the “real” victims don’t have to suffer alone. It means that some people care about something more than themselves
protests against this government should include white Boomer grandmothers who meet for pilates class, get a pitcher of mimosas & walk together to the public space
we need people in the street who think everyone can talk their way out of a speeding ticket, they’re key to winning
…I don’t want the dude that hitched my sibling to their other half to take a pepperball to the head in or out of a dog-collar…but…kinda the point of 3.5% thing & the efficacy of the non-violent protest movements over the ones that wanna beat their way to a place they can only punch down from…so…also not about to tell anyone to stay home when the no kings are down to clown on some clowns…or play generation games…but…anyway
I’m almost 60 and I was one of the youngest people at the last protest I went to. Indeed I was annoyed there weren’t more younger people.
…these were all in the reply chain between kruse quote-posting the tim clip & the shame thread I aim to come back around to…in case that part is lost in translation
She got under my skin first thing in the morning. Oopsies.bsky.app/profile/klaa…
…&…go old folks…big ups…but also…retirement is another thing younger generations maybe haven’t got around to yet…along with other prior commitments & obligations upon their time
FWIW, I’m a “younger” person (30s) with three small children. I don’t feel safe bringing them, and babysitters have been hard to find. So you might not see me at a protest, but it’s not because I’m lazy or I don’t care.
…anyway…about here is where the streams get crossed
This is correct, in part – as the grim, military historian in me feels the need to note – it is psychologically much harder to get soldiers to open fire on people they view as 'respectable.'And I dread, with grim increasingly certainty, that we are headed to a point where that matters.
…that’s the “talk their way out of a speeding ticket” one not showing up there…&…I’d maybe say “people other people would believe could get away with talking their way out of a ticket” is the real demographic you’d be after out on the picket…but
I feel like Buford in those opening scenes of Gettysburg, seeing how things must play out and yet desperately hoping we can avoid them playing out.I see Trump invoking the insurrection act, without pretext, to avoid being blocked by the courts, so he can confront protests with troops…
…and eventually, I see him giving the order to use force to disperse protests and assemblies, lawful and otherwise. He wanted to do it in 2020.And I see Hegseth relaying that order forward, where other, better men – there are few worse – refused in 2020.
And if that happens, the fate of the republic may well end up resting on the decisions in the moment of some second lieutenant and his gaggle of tired, somewhat confused young – most of them will be terribly young – soldiers.Do they attack, do they beat down or shoot that grandma?
In that, dreadful, terrible moment, every black bloc protestor in the world is useless, but a line of concerned senior citizens, office workers and house-spouses is actually a 'harder' target.And 'the soldiers stood aside' is the sentence in the history book that goes before 'and the regime fell.'
Choosing to fire is not, of course, an 'I win' button for MAGA and Trump. It takes a lot of force to hold a country of 300m by arms alone and it is easy to imagine Trump swallowed whole by the outrage of people seeing that confrontation.But the country would never be the same either way.
So I sit here, puzzling through this thing, thinking – perhaps wrongly – that I can see, as if with the eyes of the fates – the field and the way the lines must go.And hoping I am wrong and the thing can be changed. Buford, after all, did change that vision. Maybe we can too.
But when it comes to it, if it comes to it, in that awful moment of decision, yes, you will want the old grandmas and grandpas at the front, as many of them as you can get, so those terribly young fellows with the rifles understand what a wicked, awful thing is being asked of them.
It also speaks directly to the officer class. Officers are, first and foremost, moral cowards. But, protests being very visibly members of the society that they consider to be of their class drastically raises the potential costs for them to relay orders to shoot.
…& that’s what gets you to the post the thread about shame quotes in its opening gambit…so…here’s how that continues
If you ever look at Himmler’s Posen speech, it is all about assuaging the shame. It’s murderers trying – failing – to talk themselves out of guilt. Even the worst of the worst had to try to twist morality to a place where they could offload the shame.
Gitta Sereny quite liked Albert Speer, and destroyed any defence he had against his guilt. She notes that the redeeming quality he had was that he suffered shame for his complete amoral failure in going along with murderers.Shame at what was being done motivated the July 20th plotters.
To do this is evil. It should carry a shame-price. Those doing this, are, however, in bubble where creatures like Jim Jordan proclaim this as “The Lord’s work” in order to buy off that shame-price that should haunt those doing it for the rest of their days. bsky.app/profile/iwil…
That MAGA bubble has the same role as the Posen speeches; justifying a massively lesser evil, but the same of assuaging shame at doing evil.Make an Other, tell yourself the Other isn’t Us, that you have to defend Us against the Other, so I’m not really doing something shameful, right? Right…?
It’s why putting priests, grandmothers and others at the front is so effective: you can’t lie to yourself about shooting at someone who could be your grandmother, at a priest carrying a monstrance to give communion. Those faces are your Us.They need to see the pricetag of shame before they buy it.
Part of the point is also for the few who feel no shame to be able to fool and bully the more normal population into creating a world where their shamelessness is a virtue.
…black is white…fire is cold…ICE is hot…& getting driven like it is, too…up is down…forward is back…left is wrong & right is might…of course vices are the greatest virtues of these soulless…what would al call ’em?
…ok…so…while I finally give up on the rest of what might have shown up if today went different & scare up some sonic scrapbooks from the stack I haven’t added to much lately…here’s one I had no hand in from the guy who always seems to be keeping his hand in anytime he can get someone to deal him a few off their deck to play with…for good people who do good work…so…that’ll be a nice change…& a change is as good as a rest?
…uh…let’s see now…how about
…riddle me this…how in AF is this still tuesday, anyway…that shit barely seems fair?
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Did you subtitle this “Ring any bells”?
Well, break out your best poly-nylon wrap dress and dance along. This thing goes on for over eight minutes!
…so…call it a quirk of irritation…but what he said rankled bad enough I broke the setup across the header/sub…& deliberately didn’t look up the verbatim quote…but…it went off like this
…so…some people might like to imagine that hand gives him a good poke in the ribs from time to time in the post-brexit customs limbo where you need kneecap to be the terrorists the way the narcocorrido thing goes…which…I dunno…maybe…there’s certainly some of that…pete & bas may or may not count…but lotta drill…some grime…artists who take the ICE route on the costumes front & not in a madvillain MFDOOM kinda way…or don’t but have the video mostly them running about banging off shotguns…like…whatsit & whosit…gimme a minute
…nine & dex…only…I was thinking of this one?
…but…them lads DGAF about a hard border that lies like smoke on the water betwixt two shores…so…lot easier to ignore that sort of thing…or say it’s an “urban” phenomenon in the sense of your less rural & more densely-populated places where people will remark upon it if a bunch of people wander about waving shotguns & such…horses…or indeed shetland ponies…for courses…&/or islands…& even tony will probably cop to each man being one of those…while he’s self-deprecatingly trying to up-sell the compliment he’s about to pay himself in a fashion I strongly suspect terry pratchett could have found a way to articulate as being self-evidently anti-british
…so…if the hand of history is groping the middle east this week
…& not last year
…or any of the many years before that
…you don’t need to be…fucking GBnews [if you read that as FOXnews you won’t be far out about much but the accents]
…or go as far as you can from that
[…it’s funny ‘cos that’s sky australia]
…fuck a hand of history…who has their fingers in which parts of this pie…& are they leaving sticky little fingerprints on money that shouldn’t be passing between those invisible hands that get their own section of the news…&…other questions that mostly didn’t get asked then & somehow still largely aren’t getting asked in the obvious places even when the same faces keep popping up as the flood sweeps us along
[ETA: …so…since this already resembles a second post hung under the first post I might as well wedge this in down here while wittering about what lost lineker his spot on auntie’s pundit bench…& how goalhanger is his production company…if not necessarily in the sense of being all up in all of its product…but…out of their modestly extensive “empire” series…let’s see if I can get the one that gets a star on that page for being “popular” to embed in this thing
…either that worked or I’ll turn this part into a link to the episode listing?]
PS: I read a scathing article about Tone becoming the American ProConsul in Gaza. If you don’t know what he’s been up to since he left Westminster you dont want to know. Former Soviet republics, now dictatorial kleptocracies, play a large role.
I wonder if he will bring Cherie along? Despite being famously Catholic she packs a lot of New Age woo nonsense in that little body of hers.
Imagine the oppportunities. “Wellness” centers up and down the Med, definitely for-profit, with each session costing more than an employed Gazan used to make in a month.
Who knows. Gaza might become the largest Russian-speaking region outside the old USSR itself. Of course there will be at least one Trump Resort & Casino™, it will become a notorious tax haven/dodge, and passports from a dozen small countries will be openly offered for sale in Gaza City.
Following the lead of other Arab states they will not be employing native Palestinians. No, rather, they will be importing slave labor from the Philippines and Pakistan, many of whom will die in the building process, as we saw (or learned about) during the 2022 World Cup runup in Qatar. Could FIFA be any more corrupt?
The low-angle shot and beatific lighting were apparently meant to make Trump heroic, but instead highlighted his jowls and revealed just how much work must go into making his hair seem so voluminous.
…also…since apparently I’m “having a right day”…& have yet to get to the tunes or decide if I’m done with the post…low in the daily beast thing you get this part
Kari Lake, a former Fox affiliate anchor who is the acting CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, accused TIME of using “the most unflattering photos of President Trump at a moment when they should be honoring him.”
She also posted a fake TIME cover, and encouraged the MAGA faithful to promote that one instead.
“Share this cover so that the world sees the strength of our great President Trump instead of the one the fake news Time magazine put out,” she wrote of the fake.
The fake cover shows the president staring straight ahead, his hair appropriately puffed, and features the made-up headline, “Trump’s Triumph: Bringing Peace to the World.”
…&…well…I know the internet ship has sailed…& nobody’s yet painted “titanic” on the side of the thing…& anyway the internet can melt an iceberg so the internet wins that game of rock, paper, scissors…but…since at present I “do not currently have access to this article”
FOR almost a dozen years German Propaganda Minister Goebbels was recognized as a master of his trade by those who fought and by those who acclaimed the Nazi state. This article, based on both the published and unpublished portions of Goebbels’ diary, summarizes the major propaganda principles which he followed. The author, who served as Policy Coordinator of the Overseas Branch of the Office of War Information during World War II, is Professor of Psychology at Yale University.
[Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda [Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 14, Issue 3, FALL 1950, Pages 419–442, https://doi.org/10.1086/266211 Published: 01 January 1950]
…a US Agency of Global Media…in a broadly post-USAID world…well…push our re-print of that time magazine cover?
…if that’s textbook stuff…because that’s what the textbook should have in it in the approved university course in how great the make it great guy is at the approved university with the approved funding & the approved students & the approved approval of the “viewpoints” that approve of looking favorably at the fortunes of the fortunate sons because history is written by the victors & they declared eternal victory…I mean peace…so you’ve nothing to protest about & shouldn’t miss not being able to protest it anyway…well…it…might…a little bit…a tad…a…smidge…suggest…that the textbook is…uh…drawing on something of a storied source?
Background: The Nazis had a large corps of propagandists at the local level, who needed training. Some of the best material for such propagandists comes from the Austrian part of the Reich, perhaps because propagandists there needed to be trained rather quickly after Hitler took over Austria in 1938. In any event, this is a translation of a small book published in 1942 that told propagandists what they needed to know. It was intended primarily for local group propaganda leaders, but notes that it will also be useful for anyone engaged in making party propaganda. It provides a detailed summary of what the Nazi propaganda system expected to happen at the local level, though as this book sometimes notes in passing, things did not always work as they were supposed to.
As background, the Reichspropagandaleitung was the Nazi Party’s central propaganda office. The country was then divided into Gaue, or regions. They were divided into counties (Kreise), which were further divided into local groups (Ortsgruppen). There were propagandists at each level.
The source: Franz J. Huber, ed., Propagandisten-Fibel. Herausgegeben vom Gaupropagandaamt Oberdonau der NSDAP (Wels: Leitner & Co, 1942).
…the…uh…preface reads
This handbook for propagandists was prepared by the following officials of the Gaupropagandaamt [Gau propaganda office] Oberdonau of the NSDAP: Leo Bauer, Robert Gessner, Ferri Hietler, Friedrich Koch, Walther Streitfeld, Karl Struckl, and Herbert A. Zieband. It was put together by Dr. Franz H. Huber.
This book is not available in bookstores, but rather exclusively at offices of the NSDAP.
…with flyleaf quotes from…uh…Reichspropagandaleiter Dr. Goebbels:
“Propaganda has no principles of its own. It has only one goal, and in politics that goal is always to conquer the masses. Any means to that end is good, and any means that does not serve that end is bad.”
…&…uh…Gauleiter August Eigruber:
The propagandist never asks “Why?” He needs no justification, but rather only this granite faith: “I believe in the Führer, I believe in the Reich, and I believe in victory!”
…calvin university will let you read the whole thing…which is not necessarily a sign of being the sort of academic concern that one ought necessarily to be concerned about on principle…but…gotta admit the resemblance…is…uncanny…like the valley…which that lake isn’t the only thing apparently native to?
It’s at least interesting that Fox is self-aware enough to realize how bad it could potentially look if (when) things go sideways. (They would also be howling about it for months if a Democrat asked them to do half of this, but whatever, that’s their life’s blood.)
Newsmax … you got me. This might be the rare time when class solidarity works out for us because they don’t want to go against their other press buddies.
Did you subtitle this “Ring any bells”?
Well, break out your best poly-nylon wrap dress and dance along. This thing goes on for over eight minutes!
…as the saying goes…don’t get me started?
…so…call it a quirk of irritation…but what he said rankled bad enough I broke the setup across the header/sub…& deliberately didn’t look up the verbatim quote…but…it went off like this
…so…some people might like to imagine that hand gives him a good poke in the ribs from time to time in the post-brexit customs limbo where you need kneecap to be the terrorists the way the narcocorrido thing goes…which…I dunno…maybe…there’s certainly some of that…pete & bas may or may not count…but lotta drill…some grime…artists who take the ICE route on the costumes front & not in a madvillain MFDOOM kinda way…or don’t but have the video mostly them running about banging off shotguns…like…whatsit & whosit…gimme a minute
…nine & dex…only…I was thinking of this one?
…but…them lads DGAF about a hard border that lies like smoke on the water betwixt two shores…so…lot easier to ignore that sort of thing…or say it’s an “urban” phenomenon in the sense of your less rural & more densely-populated places where people will remark upon it if a bunch of people wander about waving shotguns & such…horses…or indeed shetland ponies…for courses…&/or islands…& even tony will probably cop to each man being one of those…while he’s self-deprecatingly trying to up-sell the compliment he’s about to pay himself in a fashion I strongly suspect terry pratchett could have found a way to articulate as being self-evidently anti-british
…so…if the hand of history is groping the middle east this week
…& not last year
…or any of the many years before that
…you don’t need to be…fucking GBnews [if you read that as FOXnews you won’t be far out about much but the accents]
…or go as far as you can from that
[…it’s funny ‘cos that’s sky australia]
…fuck a hand of history…who has their fingers in which parts of this pie…& are they leaving sticky little fingerprints on money that shouldn’t be passing between those invisible hands that get their own section of the news…&…other questions that mostly didn’t get asked then & somehow still largely aren’t getting asked in the obvious places even when the same faces keep popping up as the flood sweeps us along
[ETA: …so…since this already resembles a second post hung under the first post I might as well wedge this in down here while wittering about what lost lineker his spot on auntie’s pundit bench…& how goalhanger is his production company…if not necessarily in the sense of being all up in all of its product…but…out of their modestly extensive “empire” series…let’s see if I can get the one that gets a star on that page for being “popular” to embed in this thing
…either that worked or I’ll turn this part into a link to the episode listing?]
…but…ah…I…uhhh…wasn’t getting started?
The older Tony gets, the more ghoulish he looks.
PS: I read a scathing article about Tone becoming the American ProConsul in Gaza. If you don’t know what he’s been up to since he left Westminster you dont want to know. Former Soviet republics, now dictatorial kleptocracies, play a large role.
I wonder if he will bring Cherie along? Despite being famously Catholic she packs a lot of New Age woo nonsense in that little body of hers.
Imagine the oppportunities. “Wellness” centers up and down the Med, definitely for-profit, with each session costing more than an employed Gazan used to make in a month.
Who knows. Gaza might become the largest Russian-speaking region outside the old USSR itself. Of course there will be at least one Trump Resort & Casino™, it will become a notorious tax haven/dodge, and passports from a dozen small countries will be openly offered for sale in Gaza City.
Following the lead of other Arab states they will not be employing native Palestinians. No, rather, they will be importing slave labor from the Philippines and Pakistan, many of whom will die in the building process, as we saw (or learned about) during the 2022 World Cup runup in Qatar. Could FIFA be any more corrupt?
Well, that’s it for me. Enjoy your Tuesday.
That picture.
Trump Melts Down at Unflattering Photo of His Hair in Late-Night Rant
…IKR?
…my new head canon is some genius sold it as “using lighting to imply a halo effect”
I dunno if you remember this but photographers fucking LOVED to put halos over W’s head all the goddamn time. That damn liberal media!
…also…since apparently I’m “having a right day”…& have yet to get to the tunes or decide if I’m done with the post…low in the daily beast thing you get this part
…&…well…I know the internet ship has sailed…& nobody’s yet painted “titanic” on the side of the thing…& anyway the internet can melt an iceberg so the internet wins that game of rock, paper, scissors…but…since at present I “do not currently have access to this article”
…a US Agency of Global Media…in a broadly post-USAID world…well…push our re-print of that time magazine cover?
…if that’s textbook stuff…because that’s what the textbook should have in it in the approved university course in how great the make it great guy is at the approved university with the approved funding & the approved students & the approved approval of the “viewpoints” that approve of looking favorably at the fortunes of the fortunate sons because history is written by the victors & they declared eternal victory…I mean peace…so you’ve nothing to protest about & shouldn’t miss not being able to protest it anyway…well…it…might…a little bit…a tad…a…smidge…suggest…that the textbook is…uh…drawing on something of a storied source?
…the…uh…preface reads
…with flyleaf quotes from…uh…Reichspropagandaleiter Dr. Goebbels:
…&…uh…Gauleiter August Eigruber:
…calvin university will let you read the whole thing…which is not necessarily a sign of being the sort of academic concern that one ought necessarily to be concerned about on principle…but…gotta admit the resemblance…is…uncanny…like the valley…which that lake isn’t the only thing apparently native to?
This is a pitch-perfect distillation of the right at this moment: Hagiography isn’t even good enough for them!
Hmmm, I wonder why they keep posting Russian military photos? Maybe because they get all their memes from Russian trolls, bots, & Putin.
…they…uhh…don’t look at the made-in-USA stuff…as much?
…sure…math very much appears to super check out…as do they…on the clock…apparently?
Journalistic integrity = at least we are not OAN!
https://www.wonkette.com/p/only-one-network-has-signed-hegseths
and I almost missed the opportunity to use this song for your goiter joke…
ONAN is the loneliest number.
It’s at least interesting that Fox is self-aware enough to realize how bad it could potentially look if (when) things go sideways. (They would also be howling about it for months if a Democrat asked them to do half of this, but whatever, that’s their life’s blood.)
Newsmax … you got me. This might be the rare time when class solidarity works out for us because they don’t want to go against their other press buddies.
How can Bad Bunny be expected to compete with the likes of Forgigato Blow?