Free Speech, Responsibility, and a Caution

 

I take potshots at VP JD Vance, as is my right as an American, and I do so only with a little guilt that he's a barrel of fish--a target-rich environment. All the same, something about him irritates me right in the patriotism.  I have described him as being if chewing on tin foil with a mouthful of fillings was a person, and I am not backing down from that. 

Take today as an example--he weighed in on Margaret Brennan asking Secretary of State Marco Rubio (a man chained in a dungeon of his own making, performing Trump's foreign policy while I guarantee you knowing better at any instance) if there was anything amiss in Vance's Munich speech regarding the "enemy within" and meeting with AfD where "free speech" led to the Holocaust. 

I' m going to help everyone out by stipulating that the Nazis were not big fans of free speech. They banned books, you know. "Un-German" books regarding different races, people who were considered deviant, people who were liberal or Communist. They would have really hated DEI. 

Went Over Like a Lead Turd

 

You know, taking your weird-ass conspiracy-theorist Pizzagate asshole friend along with you on serious European business all by itself is a whole kind of offensive fuckup.  Oh, wait, maybe that was a Hegseth team fuck up.  The down with America, up with Russia dipshit horror shows were so boldly evident at this flea circus display from the supposed America First crowd I guess I got confused. Hegseth was the one who told everyone we ain't got no navy to speak of so don't count on us and we can bug out our military presence in Europe so don't get too comfortable. 

I say wild ass shit when I'm hungover too, so I guess the Fox News veteran's words aren't all that surprising to me. 

But JD Vance being a condescending and unpleasant pro-Putin scold with no sense of irony is also not surprising to me. He chided Europe for lack of freedom of speech while at home, AP was being barred from the White House and Air Force One because their style guide stays with the more (for 400+ years) appropriate "Gulf of Mexico". And while Tom Homan hates on people who want to use the First Amendment to tell undocumented people about the other rights they have under the Constitution. 

The First Longest Day

Some people will look at the above video and assume that the Ketamine Cowboy was just feeling very patriotic regarding the installation of his preferred candidate in his new-found home. I am not one of those people. Trump gave a very specific sign regarding what he was all about with the seating of his guests in the Capitol Rotunda--where just four years and a two weeks ago his thugs invaded and committed acts of vandalism and violence--he seated his billionaires in the front row. His Krupp, his Farben, his Siemens, his...

Frick. Do you see where I am going with this? 

The day of service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. was a day of disservice to the fight for equality.  On the day we mourn the loss of the formidable Cecile Richards, the reproductiverights.gov website has gone down, because women I guess don't have those anymore. We are being saved from "gender ideology" (never hurt me one day in my life) only to be left without choices for our own bodies. 

Elon Musk Goes Full Ford

 

It's not too soon to talk about Henry Ford being a whole racist who bought a newspaper just be extra-racist and who that reminds me of, right? Wow. But anyway, Elon Musk on the social media site he purchased to pretend to be a nonpartisan free speech warrior endorsed AfD which is pretty outstanding neo-Nazi stuff. They are pro-Putin and anti-NATO compared to the rest of Germany for the most part. The big thing is the neo-Nazi thing, though. They are even against climate change science, which I thought the head of Tesla would understand is crucial!

I don't think we should be so quick to define Musk. His own father tells us he isn't exactly what we think he is:

Guess Who Lauded a Hitler Enthusiast?

 

NEW:

Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club hosted a convicted Jan. 6 rioter and alleged Nazi sympathizer twice this summer, where he was celebrated and gave speeches.

At one event, Trump sent a video praising the attendees as “amazing patriots.”

At the other, he won an award. pic.twitter.com/g7EMJiIvfg

— Tom Dreisbach (@TomDreisbach) September 12, 2024

If I know my readers, you probably guessed "Trump" with a quickness and only wondered "Which Hitler enthusiast, though?"  But this is where Trump's "MAGA movement" is right now, with Trump clearly saying "we" when referring to the 1/6 insurrectionists during the very revealing debate (because he did want to be there--and also did not turn up and he did tell them to be there and they understood the assignment).  

But the answer is the guy who was most obviously Hitler cosplaying as if that was natural.  Which Hitler enthusiast even being a question, just like sitting down with obvious antisemitic clowns Kanye and Nick Fuentes, or cozying up to Laura Loomer today, or spreading a blood libel about legal Haitian immigrants in Ohio, is a hell of a sign that Trump has gone mask-off. Or maybe that needs to be: "hood-off"? 

Playing Footsie with Fascism

 

Trump posts a new ad foreshadowing a second Trump term that says he will create a “UNIFIED REICH,” echoing Nazi Germany pic.twitter.com/z4ZmMSWuRH

— Biden-Harris HQ (@BidenHQ) May 21, 2024

So, it feels like it's just Monday, right?  Trump posts a video to Truth Social proposing that his second term will be a "UNIFIED REICH"--look, I've been keeping track (here's a sampler from just one particular year) of the giggling "vice-signaling" that Republicans do--effectively winking "We're just playing at being Nazis, you're so silly" when the punchline is: "Oh hell yeah, we are doing totally Nazi stuff given the chance."  Rounding up and deporting people in quantities. Monitoring pregnant people for signs they have taken steps to end their pregnancies. Banning and burning books Culture war. 

With Trump, it's attention-seeking, and not. It's a show of what he can get away with. It's the sort of thing he does --just like his Goon army in front of the NY courthouse that undermines the rule of law--and you never know who might show up:

Did Russia Pay a "Meaningful Fee?"

 

Russian Telegram channels reported that the interview with Carlson and Carlson himself was not to Putin's liking, and the interview itself was considered a failure:

"The Kovalchuk clan sharply criticizes the idea of an interview with the American journalist Carlson. They say… https://t.co/sCql6QuhkW pic.twitter.com/iyPZDTP2JW

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) February 9, 2024

Well, I'm just throwing this bit from twitter here without knowing anything more about it--would I believe Tucker Carlson accepted a fee for a friendly interview? Let me think about that; it would be very unethical, so I'm going to go ahead and say yes, I do believe Tucker Carlson would do that. I also think he would do it for free, but getting paid if you can is so much nicer, isn't it? 

It also appears that Putin wanted to just give one of his history lectures, about which he is weird and wrong. The idea that Poland was basically asking to be invaded by Germany (and I guess USSR was just standing innocently by like choirboys) is the kind of peculiar revisionism that goes so well with authoritarian states.  There's an analogy there for Ukraine, I guess (about which Putin has his own badly contorted self-justifications) but I just think, if I were Poland, I would like Putin not to be mentioning Poland so much.

I'm not sure who exactly is fooled enough to think Putin is stopping at part of Ukraine. I mean, people might vocally express their "doubts"--I just find it hard to think they are "fooled." 

The GOP Appeasement Caucus

 

This flag 🇺🇸 stands for the sovereignty and freedom of other democratic nations or GTFO. We stood with our allies against authoritarianism in WW2 and to not do so now is appeasement. Meathead Mike thinks isolationism is based. The reality is: it's impossible. Reality intrudes. https://t.co/Ff5tEuQm8M

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) September 22, 2023

I remember when the right wing was calling President Obama an "appeaser". They liked to do that, back in the day. They would compare someone to Neville Chamberlain. And along comes Russia, sponsor of their little Tin Godlet, Trump. And some of the biggest Trump fans are all about letting Putin and his desire for lebensraum cook. He'll only take Crimea. He'll only take Donetsk. He's just annexing Russian-speakers...

Lies. Actually, he's performing war crimes , and negotiating how he can keep any of the territory he's seized is...appeasement, politically demonstrating that if you are a celebrity, they just let you grab whatever territory you like. Deciding not to intervene is certainly some kind of moral choice, but I would not commit to it being the right one. 

Yeah, He's Pretty Much on the Nose

 

our dive into the social media accounts of Allen, TX killer Mauricio Garcia. online, Garcia shared content from far-right extremists. he also signed up for a major incel forum before the attack. me with @MichaelEHayden, @MeganSquire0, and rachel janik. https://t.co/efjAEXQtz5

— hannah gais (@hannahgais) May 9, 2023

So, like, this is me being on Twitter instead of having a healthy middle-aged lady social life, but I notice that Andy Ngo and folks of that nature like the proprietor of the Twitter bar where I hang out and drink and poast think that Garcia's bio is a little too on the nose. Like in "total false flag exactly proving all the shitlib points" kinds of on the nose. I don't know. I'm just saying, the SOB's massive Nazi tattoos really feel like a weird degree of commitment to a bit if the guy wasn't a whole Nazi admirer. 

I'm going with--this guy is a whole ass Nazi. Yep, also entirely buying the incel angle and the Libs of TikTok and Tim Pool follows. Not sure what the problem is--so, just asking questions:

Are the deplorables mad that a person who expresses admiration for Dr. Mengele is a mass killer because I have some seriously bad news for them about Dr. Mengele?

Are they mad he makes their movement look bad as in now we know what their movement is?

Were they kind of hoping it was supposed to be a mass murder attributable to a POC and therefore one they could pin on libs?

Are we supposed to believe Libs of TikTok, and for that matter, cats like Walsh and Knowles, aren't encouraging stochastic terrorism when people like this exist, who are willing to do horrific shit because of what they sopped up online? How much exposure, clicks and likes and homicidal-oriented followers, should equal legal exposure?

Remember when MTG thought Texiera was a whistleblower and not a whole ass Nazi also too? Why is she always up for defending Nazis? Inquiring minds want to know. 

I wish right wingers wouldn't leap to their own defense so quickly before they tried to figure out why their side keeps being these guys. 

UPDATE: You know, this is the kind of guy who was at the 1/6 insurrection.  I mean, this was the kind of guy.  Aaaaanndd the type of girl.

Are we still confused by what we are dealing with? 

Tempest in a Very Peculiar Teapot

 

The discussion of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas' benefactor's unusual collection of Nazi memorabilia amongst his other bits of art are probably most charitably described as tacky and eccentric. Amusingly, he received vociferous support from a variety of conservative pundits, who he had also cultivated and collected over the years. 

In the words of Upton Sinclair, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."  If that doesn't describe a lot of right-wing media, I don't know what does. 

When I was a kid, I had an uncle who got me interested in numismatics, and I collected things like buffalo nickels and Mercury dimes. The little coin shop where I poured over affordable collectibles sometimes had antiques--small historical artifacts, like medals and patches from someone's grandaddy's old footlocker. Anyway, I remember one time there was a patch with a swastika, and I just wanted to see it for a minute. 

The owner asked me did I know where it was from, and I was all of ten or eleven and I knew. Would I like to buy it?  And I decided it was interesting, but I didn't want to own a part of what it was. I was fascinated that I could touch it and handle a symbol I knew was associated with a great evil. But actually bringing it into my parents' house would have felt like doing something wrong to me. I knew what it was; that was enough. 

A View of DeSantistan

 

“Leave our country go back to Israel”
“Heil hitler” “sir do you think you should be put in an oven”

These “GDL” nazi animals have been terrorizing & targeting Jews & Jewish communities with impunity

Police are refrained from doing anything. This needs to be stopped pic.twitter.com/WGJrt9GZjE

— Baruch Sandhaus (@BaruchSandhaus) February 22, 2023

While I could talk about how Trump threw hats at the good folks of East Palestine and offered them his brand-name bottled water, I am more interested in what is happening in the state where his chief rival is governor--his "home" state of Florida (since New York's fine but it ain't home no more). More than a year ago, I noted that Florida Nazis were a very bad sign. I think something is very rotten in Florida.  I understand this guy--I do. 

He looks like a little pouty potato, but he's always thinking about how to destroy the history he learned so that no one is ever troubled by it again. He's a clever spud who wrote his own book trying to ignore race and its impact on our history, He would rather no one was ever confronted by bad thoughts. So he's removing the libraries and the people who want to remember what libraries used to be. 

Sometimes Celebrities are Stupid People

 

Today, the artist currently known as "Ye" went on Alex Jones' show and made a man who owes about a trillion dollars in defamation money and has only ever doubled down on his assholery actually become very uncomfortable like "Okay Jewish space lasers and Jewish weather machines we can takl about, but this shit--this is too far!" 

And just like with the infamous dinner with notorious edge lord former president Trump, Ye brought Nick Fuentes, who the Balenciaga-balaclava'd rapper really seems to like. 

But not as much as he likes Hitler, amirite? I mean, we have known this, but he was just blossoming with love for the guy who apparently invented highways and microphones.  And whose culpability for the Holocaust is just, like, your opinion. 

Don't get too deep into this. Yes, this is a racist man who happens to be Black. This is a conspiracy theorist spouting nonsense. This is a disturbing glimpse into the faux-cancellation/Streisand-effect pipeline, where admonition raises a profile enormously among the exact people you would rather not be subject to 1) disinfo and 2) anymore reason to ignorantly pill themselves over some bullshit. 

But I don't think I'm reaching too hard to point this one idea out: Ye is obviously grasping onto fascism/Hitler/Trump as a way to express where he is right now--hating. He wants disapprobation. He wants revilement. 

And as for me, Wilco. 

But to get where he is, you have got to be astoundingly uninformed. Like mind-bogglingly dumb. Like flat-earth-accepting, how the fuck do magnets work dumb. 

And it's okay. the dumbasses walk among us all the time. It's when people live their whole lives and never read Clockwork Orange or know what the movie is about and decide it's about something it isn't and don't know Stanley Kubrick is Jewish. 

Or maybe he knows better and decided not to care. Fash aren't fans of facts. 

People can excuse what Kanye West is doing by talking about his apparent mental illness or divorce or whatever. I think he's just dumb and recognizes he gets attention for being dumb out loud and on purpose.

But this is really not a long-term pose and also, too, nice job giving up on Parler--after the careful cultivation by Candace Owens.  I don't think we need to see or talk about him anymore.

His Dinner With Kanye

 

When you put all the pieces together, it feels like the attention-whore trolling event of the season--Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, goes down to Mar-A-Lago with Nick Fuentes, the Groyper berk from AFPAC, pretty much as his plus-one. And Trump is going to conveniently forget that even he thought Kanye went too far in his anti-Semitic statements not that long ago. And he's going to pretend he doesn't know who Nick Fuentes is--just like he once pretended he didn't know who David Duke was.

 

Hint for Trump (who was allegedly "taken with" the young man's enthusiasm--he was one of the "very fine people" alleged to be at Charlotteville. 

Some people are aghast--the Groyper King? At the Once and Possibly Future Winter White House? Fuentes is a guy who thinks Charlie Kirk and Turning Point are RINOS. Who's vetting who shows up at Mar-A-Lago? Even Charlie Kirk can get Fuentes booted from places where he doesn't want him. Ben Shapiro can look past that fucker and not put up with his anti-Semitism.

But Trump can't say no. A man who was president, is running for president, and who did have multiple boxes of top secret stuff stashed in that very hotel. May still be holding some shit back, for all we know. 

Trump can't say no to Nick Fuentes. I mean really? Could he? Wouldn't that be "cancel culture"? And can you fathom the absurdity of Kanye West asking Donald Trump if he would be his running mate? The spectacle of two men darting their delusions of grandeur at one another. Yet, Trump has to impress. He can't say "No" to crazy Ye--a celebrity. He can't say no to the white supremacists, the neo-Nazis. They vote, after all. 

He's just a manchild who can't say no. He's in a turrible fix. 

There are conservatives who are still madly butthurt about Hillary Clinton calling some portion of them "deplorables".  Marjorine Tater Grease just recently thought aloud that they were owed an apology. Like hell they are, and this instant is the exact demonstration of what "deplorable" means. It means straddling the line between knowing Nazis are bad optics* and still wanting Nazi friends. It's when you are in a place where Milo Yiannopoulis (Ye's campaign advisor) takes shots at you and he's an apologist for pedophilia (well, so is Mike Huckabee, but whev).  This little dinner suggests what deplorable means. 

Trump still is one with the deplorables, but for Republicans who don't like the taste Trump is leaving in their mouths right now, removing oneself from supporting him is still and always was an option. 

*UPDATE: I feel sleazy about referring to the "optics" because morally, if you willingly dine with Nazis, what does that make you, whether you do it publicly or privately? But "very serious right wing people" (hmpf!) already doubtless know perfectly well what Trump is, and will bemoan only that he is not more circumspect.

Ron DeSantis and the "Florida of the North"

 

FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, running for his second term, came to Pittsburgh yesterday to help out another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, the insurrectionist, theocrat and anti-Semite, Doug Mastriano. Now, some people might think damn, why does DeSantis want to do that? Isn't he concerned some of Mastriano's bad political karma is going to rub off on him? After all, this is someone who clearly is intending to run nationally, but local faith leaders in PA. are out condemning this. He might not even be helping himself in Florida, right?

I genuinely don't think that's it though. He didn't come to Pennsylvania, one of the contested states in the 2020 election, to hang out with an insurrectionist theocrat in spite of the optics. He's doing it because of the optics. Remember, when there were Nazis running around Orlando, this is the man who was absolutely not going to baited into trash-talking them. 

TWGB: The "Raid" on Emperor Commodus

 

There's nothing like starting your damn dumb day out knowing you are going to have to post about your fucking Moby Dickless white supremacist whale, but when I cracked open yon internets this morn to finally unload about the weekend's vote-a-rama and how it demonstrates Republican fecklessness, I already knew I was committed to talking later about how the Trump presidency has gone down the toilet. Literally. 

It's been widely and accurately AFAIK reported that Trump tore up docs that were required to be preserved and may have even eaten docs he didn't care to be preserved, despite the presidential records act. For someone who derided and persecuted his 2016 opponent over records retention, it is astounding that this is the guy who presided over an entirely unaccountable wipe of DHS, DOD and Secret Service digital records. 

I mean, astounding for a value of being shocked when a chronic liar somehow does something the exact opposite of what he claims he finds important. 

What might get lost here is that today, the anniversary of Nixon's resignation announcement, Paul Manafort had admitted that yeah, he did give Trump Campaign polling data to someone he wants to pretend he didn't know full well was connected to GRU because why not? I mean, thanks, we have several volumes of Senate Intelligence Committee data on the various connections between the Trump campaign and Russia, but it's nice someone wants to skirt about copping to it in order to secret-boast about it. He's literally humble-bragging he does coups, you guys. Do you need an election fixer? Manafort is out here putting out feelers. He is broke and in need of the only work he knows-fuckery. Kilimnik, you guys, goes back to Ukraine shit, too. It all does.  Russia was always going to fuxxor Ukraine in Trump's second term, but they are fucked because they tried it in Joe Biden's first. 

I really wish MAGA so-called patriots tried to suss out where in their Daddy fixations they decided Trump or Putin were real men. They are baby-nard projectionists. 

Anyway, today we also got a glimpse of what an anti-democratic, pro-Nazi shit Trump is with respect to his relationship with the military and entire misunderstanding of the history of American service, which includes thinking Nazi generals were al loyal and this was somehow great (ok, Operation Valkyrie, and also, this dope heard of the idea of the "good Nazi" and thought it was a compliment?) and also there was a confirmation of Adam Serwer's most salient observation of the Trump presidency--that the cruelty was the point. We also learned Trump didn't want disabled vets at his military pride parade because he thought it would look bad. 

He thought heroes who showed physical valor in the line of duty was a problem, you guys. That their physical ordeal wasn't a visible reflection of sacrifice to a higher cause.

So how would I be shocked if Mar-a-lago was "raided"? (For a value of "raided" that means subject to a lawfully executed warrant based on probable cause because of due process.) This former president took 15 boxes of apparently classified shit out from the White House with him. 

We're supposed to give a shit that MAGAs are mad about it. Of course they are. They are conditioned to be mad because of a steady diet of mad-fuel. They believe a free and fair election was stolen with no proof at all--of course they are mad about their little God King. They literally don't know what due process is or appreciate that Trump is not inviolate but is still just a citizen subject to the same laws as anybody else. 

Literally any day could be the day when MAGAs decide to explode. They did on 1/6. It looks like for some reason some /Donald peeps thought 8/8 was some kind of big deal.  (88 stands for Heil Hitler in some Nazi iconography.) Who cares? Democracy isn't about the feelings of losers and bigots. 

And justice isn't about politics either. Sometimes, your boy is just guilty as fuck and you need to acknowledge it. The GOP is having problems with the basic idea of right and wrong. But the pursuit of the evidence and the facts matters. 

America First...Is Definitely Not That

 

I'm not ever not going to hammer home that the various iterations of MAGA hat mentality often display racist and actually anti-American (or at least, anti-Constitutional) vibes. Of the slogans that I've had the least use for, the worst is "America First". The America First movement I always think of was the Hearst/Lindbergh pro-Nazi wanks. And that is not auspicious at all.  And of course, I also think about the Klan. 

The funny thing about America First is that it never represents the actual America that we have, but the America certain people want. It isn't about the vibrant, culturally diverse nation united under the rule of law. It's white bozos wrapping themselves in a flag and casting shade on the Constitution. It's overtly hostile to what is best in us in favor of a kind of white, Christian identity politics and vastly decreased empathy and morality in favor of militant social control. 

Generation "Z" And Putin's War On Reality

 

Watching this video of saluting youths in a shopping mall in Kazan wearing the Z Russian army logo side and then looking at the photographs coming out of Mariupol and it’s hard not to feel sick. pic.twitter.com/7N6QGdiJlc

— Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) March 9, 2022

These young people are totally concerned about Putin's claims to be "denaZifying" Ukraine. They probably have no clue what any of that means. Totalitarian regimes often apply "memory laws" to rewrite the past, even the relatively recent past. Sometimes the throttling of information focuses on journalism--like Anna Politkovskaya, who reported on the war crimes of Chechnya. They do away with lines of questioning they find uncomfortable. 

I really want my readers to kind of marinate about that. Of course, we wouldn't do that here, would we? (Glares in queer and anti-racist.) But in a totalitarian regime as Putin seems to have wrought for himself, of course queer people and ethnics can be minimized. 

I'm going to be an asshole and break down that there are reasons for believing the bullshit. Patriotism--wanting to believe, if Putin is not better than this, at least Russia is. Stockholm syndrome: understanding that the penalty for breaking away from the source of punishment is high, one prefers to agree than disagree, and even identifies with the abuser/terrorist/source of aggression. Simple skepticism of mainstream media because it was called into doubt that one time, and woof, grievances. 

So um, Ukraine benefits from hitting themselves to promote an anti-hitting themselves narrative, because Russia says they are hitting themselves, but my god, no one should ever be this stupid. Of course, the Russian aggression is a wave of terror and genocide because the Ukrainians failed to give up. Russia (Putin) thought they would just knuckle under and they didn't. Now, this warfare is like Syria.

They are referencing schoolyard-level bullying. Why is Ukraine hitting itself?  Long story short--they aren't. They are capably decimating Russia's supposedly 21st century army. But they have to pretend Ukraine deserves this. They have to make it seem like its Ukraine that needs to stop doing something. They have reversed victim and offender as abusers always do.

And the "even the Nazis never" argument is just ignorant of history: the Coventry blitz was bad enough but the Polish blitz was also brutal.  

So the reason for the maternity hospital terror is obvious if you aren't predisposed to accepting Putin's lies. They threatened the children. Like attacking other hospitals or kindergartens or other schools. They are trying to tell Ukraine that they really are attacking the future of their country. 

And there will be swag from it.  These kids in Russia are being taught to be monsters, because in order to keep committing atrocities, you need to feed people absurdities. But reality has a way of catching up. 

Florida Nazis Are a Bad Sign

 

American Nazis were strutting their stuff around Orlando Florida this weekend (above photo courtesy Gretchen--tell you what, it's an actual phone number and I don't think my readership is liable to get turned onto National Socialism by calling them as much as prank yank the fuck out of them, so do as you will). It's a bad sign when the fash flash their shit around, but we do have a history of it in this country: your Skokie motherfuckers and a whole rally in MSG.  We've had these folks among us: they just fail to flourish, usually. 

What's messed-up about the Nazi appearance in Florida is the government response. The spokesperson for the Governor's office wanted to straight-up deny they were real. 

She's still in the midst of receiving an education about how to be in public, which is awkward for a person whose career is official spokespersoning. (Her whole deal may be more complicated than just being snotty and conservative, and I only link this because some of you can figure out what to make of it.) I only see fillers, bleach and strident hard-right apology, but that's not so entirely fucked-up for Florida, it's just that normal politicians would want to voice some kind of coherent "We oppose fascism and intimidation of local residents..." messaging, and here she is, not doing that. Probably because she doesn't oppose it and DeSantis is an entire open-face gutless sandwich. 

That doesn't mean he won't posture about it, late and lamely. It just means it wasn't a priority over "Don't Say Gay" bills and book-banning. I learned what bisexuality was in junior high because we did "say gay" back in the 1980s and it helped me know who I was. How in the hell is he and his fellow Republicans trying to roll back the clock to some Puritanical horror before my 1980s? What's next? Outlawing getting Footloose? Putting Baby in the corner? Getting us back to "School Ties" like bigotry over people being Jewish? But here the Republican concern-trolls are, finding a way to reinsert damaging homophobic and racialist nonsense into the schools that all the kids have to go through. 

DeSantis has let us know exactly who and what he is. (View his Broward fuckery.) Don't act surprised with whatever bullshit he coughs up next.

In the meanwhile, just as Trump once again encourages his thuggocracy, Canada had Confederate flags and Swastikas flying, and Trump gave that his approval as well. Because white supremacy recognizes white supremacy, I think. And I don't know if DeSantis is going to latch on, but that media teat won't last forever.

Fascists are going to fash, but what matters is how grown up politicians respond. And when they don't? That's the problem. 

UPDATE: Denouncing Nazis would be a political "gimmee". It's like a open layup. Just say "Nazis are bad." But DeSantis is very special and says mean Democrats trying to smear him (no one called him a Nazi, even if like, I sort of imply it a little) aren't going to bait him into talking shit about Nazis because, well, I guess that's how he rolls. And to prove it, he slammed Rep. Omar who has nothing to do with it. 

So there's your Ron DeSantis, too chickenshit to say "boo" about Nazis.

RFK, Jr. And Pestilent Ignorance

 

At the antivaxx rally in DC, RFK Jr. says that in the future "none of us can run and none of us can hide" because of Bill Gates' satellites and also 5G, unlike... the Holocaust.

"Even in Hitler's Germany, you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did." pic.twitter.com/bRtmDBTxZl

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) January 23, 2022

Imagine that the son of a promising Democratic presidential candidate and nephew of a president brutally slain could stand up in front of absolute conspiracy freaks and Neo-Nazis, espousing utter bullshit about the bold new frontier of...cell phone technology, which we have had for a wee while now, and absolutely appallingly engaging in Holocaust denial with a twist of cultural ignorance and illiteracy. 

Anne Frank didn't survive the Holocaust in Hitler's Germany, but was captured in Amsterdam (not anyone's Germany) and taken to Bergen-Belsen, where she died of typhoid fever (something vaccines have existed for since before she was born).  The Nazis didn't need 5G or GPS or chips to find her, they used finks. Human beings ratted out her family and subjected them to several horrors before they died. RFK, Jr. would know that if he was familiar with her diary, which is fairly commonly taught in US high school curricula (and should be, even if it makes anyone uncomfortable). 

Here's what we can't run and hide from: mortality. I'm so fucking sorry MWBS* sufferer Robert Kennedy Jr. has decided to rail against vaccines as if they were being used as a means of murder--but death comes for everyone, and most try and stop it. We get vaccinated for a dozen things before we're even really conscious because we have parents who love us. We take medicines when prescribed. We jog or do other positive moving our meat machine things. We eat vegetables and get our 6-8 glasses of water in. But we aren't staying here permanently any of us, we just don't know our check-out time. 

They've Got To Be Carefully Taught

 

When I was a kid, we got taught about the Golden Rule, and it was a pretty good rule as they go: Do unto Others as you would have them do unto You. You don't hit other kids or call them names or pick on them for being different or any of that, because if that happened to you, you would feel bad. You had to stop and think--is this how I would want to be treated? Would I want to be picked on for being different? Would I want to be teased if I was clumsy, or talked slow, or was fat or didn't have nice clothes? 

It was simple, and direct. It was about respecting others and the basis for good citizenship in the classroom and anywhere else. It wasn't new-fangled jargon, but time-tested and ancient religion-approved. 

Did I learn this concept found in scripture in a church--no. Your blogger never wandered into a formal religious setting before the age of ten or eleven. I learned it in public school, in kindergarten. Was I indoctrinated at the tender age of five to some startling multicultural program (I mean, my school was desegregated and I understood after this simple precept how racism was wrong because obviously--how would I want to be treated?) I still absorbed a lot of my culture's dumbfuck attitudes and I'm going to be sorting out the headtrip that whiteness is for a while, yet. I wouldn't say I was indoctrinated. 

Surely, not everyone who was in the same kindergarten class as me has come to my POV. We are individuals, not blank slates. We're not human Silly Putty pulling up cartoons from the Sunday funnies.