Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Saturday that if the U.S. were to get involved in the Israel-Iran conflict, the result would be “very, very dangerous” for everybody

Araghchi also claimed that Iran has “many indications” that the U.S. has been involved in Israel’s bombardments of Iran since “day one.”

Oh yeah, hadn’t even thought about that big beautiful wall (BBW) in a few years. Kinda got buried in the chaos. And

When I clicked on the link and saw the image of the wall that just abruptly ends, my mind auto played the music from Idiocracy

Exactly, especially when you look at how we got here.

The Real Origins of the Religious Right

This should be mandatory reading for all Democrats.

You’re competing with advertisement campaigns that were persuasive enough to convince most people to vote for things they didn’t even support.

Democrats picked up on the advertising part, but somehow haven’t realized that nobody is going to be persuaded by the moderate compromise bullshit. That is exactly what the Republicans were doing when Paul Weyrich got frustrated and started looking to civil rights organizations to strategize a movement to invigorate the right. It was quite successful.

How do you pursuade? You at least pretend you have fucking skin in the game. You worry about your donors and what they will think second to your principles. You at least pretend you care more about what is happening than holding on to a position for 40+ fucking years as the country burns around you.

Weyrich hailed as conservative pioneer

Joining his boss, Colorado Republican Sen. Gordon Allot, one day at a meeting with civil rights and other left-leaning groups, Weyrich watched the liberal activists strategize as a coalition and was inspired to create a parallel apparatus on the right.

“Here, before my eyes, was the whole panoply laid out,” Weyrich told reporter Ron Brownstein years later for a book on the rise of political partisanship in the capital. “I had seen the effectiveness, but I didn’t know the mechanics.”

In 1973, Weyrich co-founded the Heritage Foundation with Edward Feulner, creating what would eventually be the dominant think tank on the conservative landscape. Initially funded by the Coors family, Heritage helped provide ideas and issues to the many young conservatives who were running for office in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and who would eventually become the party’s leaders.

“In the early ‘70s, when most conservatives were reduced to wringing their hands and resigning themselves to life in the political wilderness, Paul just seemed to know what was needed to break the liberal stranglehold,” recalled Feulner.

This is exactly where the Democrats are over 50 years later. Reduced to hand wringing and afraid to step out of line.

There is a reason Weyrich partnered with people like Falwell and used fire and brimstone messaging. It gets attention. It refuses to compromise. It’s not worried about saying the wrong thing. It doesn’t really matter what you’re trying to get people to support. People are compelled to follow it based on the way it makes them feel. The feeling is what convinces.

Weyrich has been dead for almost 2 decades, but people in the White House are continuing to use this same strategy, and usually just recycle his old playbooks bc they’re not as smart or creative as this evil bastard was. Take back the fucking narrative!

Red-Letter Christians

Red-Letter Christians is a non-denominational movement within Evangelical Christianity. “Red-Letter” refers to New Testament verses and parts of verses printed in red ink, to indicate the words attributed to Jesus without the use of quotation marks.

The organization was founded by Tony Campolo and Shane Claiborne in 2007 with the aim of bringing together evangelicals who believe in the importance of insisting on issues of social justice mentioned by Jesus (in red in some translations of the Bible). They believe Christians should be paying attention to Jesus’s words and example by promoting biblical values such as social justice issues. These issues include the fight against poverty, the defense of peace, building strong families, respecting human rights and welcoming foreigners.

No shit Sherlock

Isn’t this all footage that we’ve known about for a long time?

Just to be clear, I felt like we shouldn’t be electing a creepy rapist that hung out with Epstein even before he got elected the first time. I never thought we would somehow do it twice, especially after he almost killed us all the first time around, but c’est la vie, I guess.

Just wonder how much of this is just a reality TV/wrestlemania style distraction IRL. Like what does it really change that Elon is reposting information we already knew?

Like there is other big shit going on with Israel, Gaza, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and the EU going on right now but nobody is really talking about it bc we are paying attention to Elon re-screening videos of Trump/Epstein that we’ve already seen.

Yeah I don’t trust this guy. He’s got no moral backbone or real ideology other than a desire for power. I seem to remember him being very vocal against Trump at points, then backing away from criticisms at important times during Trump’s first term. Putting a D next to his name now definitely doesn’t make me trust him. Even fucking Trump would have stuck with being a Democrat if he thought it would have made him rich and powerful.

If Walsh actually wanted to help this country he’d run as a Republican, but be vocal against Trump. Or better yet, just remain an independent. This country needs to start electing 3rd party candidates, especially with name recognition on his side, he might have a decent chance with the positions he’s taking.

We don’t need more people like Fetterman weaponizing the title of Democrat to keep putting a “bipartisan” spin on Republican policy, and move the party more towards the right.

If that’s where the Democrats really believe we should be headed then yeah now is the time (before we get any closer to midterms) to decisively say we’re going to need a new party for left candidates.

2019 viewpoints of Walsh

No Republican with any common sense or shred of decency would have this take: 2012 Republican Joe Walsh: abortions to save mother’s life never necessary

People can change, and I applaud him if he has genuinely changed,… but we also need to stop pretending like an older conservative with name recognition, is somehow the best way forward for the party.

There are younger progressive candidates who actually have the drive to make this country better than it was in the first place, instead of just returning us back to normal, only to keep compromising, and losing the little ground we managed to get back over and over again.

Pentagon boosts budget for Palantir’s AI software in major expansion of Project Maven

This was the same day the bill passed in the House

What’s going on there?

If you work for a corporation, sure why not?

If you’re just firing as a citizen absolutely not!

Also doesn’t hack what my city apparently quietly allowed as of 2022 when they rolled back previous bans on predictive policing tech and created a new ordinance with very bare minimum regulations (which the city still violated)

That provision could, for the first time, give the city explicit permission to use a whole host of surveillance technology in certain circumstances, including voice recognition, x-ray vans, “through the wall radar,” social media monitoring software, “tools used to gain unauthorized access to a computer,” and more.

Through the wall x-ray surveillance?! Oh yeah also created the initial ban after it was revealed they were secretly partnering with Palantir for several years, so probably not a coincidence

I just found this all out a few days ago, but if we all learn to shimmy and wear sheets of lead 24/7 maybe we’ll be able to get around it

It’s like a fucked up doctor Seus rhyme

States rights for me, and none for you, not if blue states might get them too

But if we all think about it you will see

On banning state regulations, we can’t agree

They say the only regulation needed is a federal light touch

Because these stupid assholes spent way too much.

They put all our eggs into one AI basket

Why trust them now that the economy is in a casket?

Our economy is fucked either way

But handing over our rights won’t make it magically ok

They’ll have to figure it out, like we do with tariffs and inflation

Tell them to eat our AI regulations

Well large or small be sure to cover your face at protests (or even anytime you walk outside) bc my state is now using facial recognition AI to track and profile people on a watchlist or even people that maybe kind of look like them

If this passes the Senate your state will be doing it too, and if my theory about why they are starting all this here in my city is correct, then when they use the various states national guardsmen to march across state lines and enforce Trump’s federal immigration laws, even the bluest state will be forced to comply

Blue cities within red states being used to test run full scale U.S. authoritarian takeovers?

This still has to go to the Senate so please for the love of god if you care about your rights and privacy tell your senator to vote NO!

My city is currently in the midst of an AI facial recognition/predictive policing thanks to a secret city partnership with Palantir, dystopian nightmare

Frankly I would be happy to see my state ban facial recognition completely, but they definitely aren’t going to, but please take this as a warning of what is definitely coming for you next!

We should have federal regulations and state regulations! There is absolutely no need for them to ban regulation at the state level other than the argument it will halt progress.

In reality they are invading your privacy and generating valuable data for these stupid AI data centers and they don’t want you to be able to decide this sucks and I want it to stop in my state!

Not only would it ban laws for the next 10 years, it would remove existing laws. Some places already have a facial recognition ban, and this would repeal it!

It’s nuts this seems to actually have some bipartisan support in the Senate, bc everyone is “so concerned” about America winning the AI race.

News flash, we probably won’t win it. It was a dumb fucking idea in the first place, and yeah they put all of our eggs into the AI basket and it’s probably going to tank the economy even more, but why TF should we be giving them even more control of our lives in the hopes that just maybe they can make a lot of money by further invading our privacy and doing some really evil shit with our data that will make the world an even worse place?

Here is an article about the May 8, 2025 hearing.

Altman, during the hearing, said that Texas had been “unbelievable” in incentivizing major AI projects. “I think that would be a good thing for other states to study,” Altman said. He predicted that the Abilene site would be the “largest AI training facility in the world.” But Altman also later cautioned against a patchwork regulatory framework for AI.

“It is very difficult to imagine us figuring out how to comply with 50 different sets of regulations,” said Altman. “One federal framework that is light touch, that we can understand, and it lets us move with the speed that this moment calls for, seems important and fine.”

Here is a quote from Peter Thiel protege, Michael Kratsios regarding AI regulation in 2019

“A patchwork of regulation of technology is not beneficial for the country. We want to avoid that. Facial recognition has important roles—for example, finding lost or displaced children. There are use cases, but they need to be underpinned by values.”

They have no values, I support a federal regulation too, but in case you haven’t noticed, the people who want you to vote to remove state regulations in favor of a “light touch” federal regulation are also in charge deciding what that “light touch” federal regulation will be and if it gets enforced at all.

Most of what we attribute to Elon Musk/DOGE including using protected government data banks full of our private data to train AI, can actually be traced back to Thiel and Kratsios, as early as 2018!

I cannot believe I actually agree with Marsha Blackburn on something, but she’s right! Why TF would you believe you don’t need state regulations bc there is the possibility the same party that just tried to sneak in this nightmare, might enact some federal protections.

Government deregulation has been in the works for a very long time. Do not let them keep taking our protections away!

Until then, his chair on the dais of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee had sat empty all year.

Mr. Fetterman does not enjoy participating in these hearings that he has sat through in recent weeks as he seeks to prove that he is capable of performing the job he was elected to do until 2028. In fact, at a critical moment for the country, he appears to have little interest in the day-to-day work of serving in the United States Senate.

In an interview, Mr. Fetterman, who represents 13 million people, said he felt he had been unfairly shamed into fulfilling senatorial duties, such as participating in committee work and casting procedural votes on the floor, dismissing them as a “performative” waste of time.

Ohhhh this mother…

k…,so this is the committee that determined fitness for Trump’s Science Advisor, Michael Kratsios. I literally begged for them to not approve his fitness. I wrote about this here, and fun fact even have a screenshot of me @ing fetterman and others on the committee on bluesky included in the article. Little did I know he wasn’t even bothering to show up bc he thinks it’s “performative…?!”

Quick summary: Kratsios is a protege of Peter Theil, who actually served as Chief Technology Officer during the first Trump administration. During that time, he helped set up all of the dangerous AI shit we’re now dealing with, making sure they wouldn’t be restrained by any pesky regulations.

Unregulated surveillance and facial recognition tech use by ICE, the FBI, and other LEOs, you can thank Kratsios.

Access and use of private government data to train AI, you may think that’s all on DOGE/Musk but that is actually something Kratsios mentioned back in 2018

Senate Dems knew how dangerous deregulated AI was, particularly facial recognition tech for profiling use. Yet, with a few exceptions, they either approved his fitness or they just didn’t show up like Fetterman

I guess it’s ok bc Kratsios is now agreeing maybe we should dial it back and start to regulate AI…

Lol jk, of course he’s actually saying we need to somehow further deregulate it so we will have even less protection for our privacy, rights and liberty.

Thanks Dems of the committee for taking your job so seriously 👍

And OF COURSE Fetterman showed up for this one. Not because he felt like his depression was being weaponized, it’s because he just weaponizes the D next to his name to help force through Republican policy

Here is an article about that May 8, 2025 hearing.

Altman, during the hearing, said that Texas had been “unbelievable” in incentivizing major AI projects. “I think that would be a good thing for other states to study,” Altman said. He predicted that the Abilene site would be the “largest AI training facility in the world.” But Altman also later cautioned against a patchwork regulatory framework for AI.

“It is very difficult to imagine us figuring out how to comply with 50 different sets of regulations,” said Altman. “One federal framework that is light touch, that we can understand, and it lets us move with the speed that this moment calls for, seems important and fine.”

Here is a quote from Kratsios about regulation in 2019

“A patchwork of regulation of technology is not beneficial for the country. We want to avoid that. Facial recognition has important roles—for example, finding lost or displaced children. There are use cases, but they need to be underpinned by values.”

🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

I am trying to enjoy it while it lasts, but the combination of federal policy and state policy, and the state trying to takeover my city, have already fucked my life up in so many ways, it’s hard not to stay angry.

I’m losing my job soon, everybody I know is struggling to pay bills, even groceries are becoming barely affordable, I love where I live but I’m probably going to have to move to find a cheaper place bc I can’t afford rent without a steady income, and no luck on any other jobs I’ve applied to.

I was the first person in my family to get a college degree and I was planning to go back to school this fall, but had to put that on hold. I have family and other people I care about who are dependent on Medicaid, and I am already watching them lose so much health progress they had previously made bc the hospital oligopolies in this state began implementing policy ramping down Medicaid acceptance long before the House actually admitted they would be cutting anything in the budget. They’ve already done so much harm to so many people, and it’s only going to get worse. All just to give wealthy people who already received an insane amount of corporate welfare even more of a tax break. I also know I’m not the only one in my state going through this, and I know I’m relatively privileged compared to many people right now.

Frankly, I don’t see much of a point in planning for the future bc there doesn’t seem to be one. They’ve fucked this whole country over, and I don’t believe there is even any money left for things like federal aid/emergency relief/funding for grants, because they have either stolen it all or flushed it down the toilet on AI.

They just constantly use disinformation and distractions to keep people from seeing what is actually going on, and then dangle hope that if you comply, if you pretend along with them that everything is ok, maybe you’ll be taken care of. I’ve never believed it, and I think more people are finally starting to understand it’s just another distraction.

I’ve said this before, but it’s like being in a burning building, and knowing the people that are supposed to be in charge of the building were the ones that started the fire. They’re not trying to put it out, they’re just stuffing as much cash into their pockets as possible before the roof collapses while screaming it was somebody else’s fault. Even if we can’t stop them, why not throw some banana peels for them to slip on as they try to run out the door?

The Louisiana National Guard has officially partnered with ICE so they will obviously be enforcing immigration, and depending on Hodges bill, potentially seizing property and parts of the city from anyone who the state AG can successfully argue is a foreign adversary or aiding a foreign adversary.

As far as not thinking they won’t be trying to take over other states, I feel like it says a lot that the bill the Rep from Washington introduced as a safety assurance, was modeled after a law that several of the states participating in the MS training drill already have in place. Kind of funny they would be so concerned about other states doing it to them, if it really wasn’t a reasonable concern to have.

The legislation is about maintaining the state’s autonomy and authority, Mena, a Democrat, told her colleagues during last week’s hearing. “Without this bill, there’s nothing on the books to prevent this.”

“Other states may take matters into their own hands when they want to enforce federal laws.”

Mena pointed out that Idaho, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas have laws that prevent other states’ National Guard troops from entering without permission.

This is the part that seems so telling bc Texas was the first state to agree to allow their national guard to be used for enforcing Trump’s immigration policy, and attended the recent National Guard training in MS along with South Carolina.

Louisiana is trying so hard to model itself after Texas, so of course the Governor would do the same with our own national guard, but it’s kinda funny we don’t have a similar law protecting ourselves from invasion by the National Guard in other states.

Given that so much of the strategy currently being used to divide the country and dismantle the U.S., seems to be based off of the same strategy that was used to dismantle the Soviet Union,(I also have some suspicions about why that strategy might be so similar given the role of the Heritage Foundation in post Soviet Russia) I wouldn’t be surprised to also see something like state secession from the Union, followed by the formation of new “state-countries.”

In our case, you might see states like Louisiana do a lot of work, thinking they’re gaining independence, only to then be absorbed into a “super-state” by Texas.

Idk about half the country, I would guess ~35-40%.

What’s funny about that 35-40% though, is that almost all of them can’t really wrap their head around the fact that a loss of constitutional rights isn’t something that you can force to only hurt the right people.

It means that if your house gets raided by accident, you would not be in the right to stand your ground in your own home. But yeah even if you tried it would almost certainly not end well against the government. Even if you somehow survived you’d probably end up on trial for defending your home.

Regardless of the reasons behind what led to Waco, that really should be enough evidence for anyone (left or right) to understand how that scenario is most likely to end.

I think a better bet is to use what remains of the law to your advantage. It’s just a matter of getting enough groups of people United together to take on something like a lawsuit.

I am involved in community activities, but the problem is that a bunch of small groups have less power than one large group. We need to remember this is still the United States of America and join in with people that remember what that is supposed to mean.

Several blue jurisdictions that were being targeted for sanctuary policy joined together in a lawsuit, but my city never had an official policy, it was the result of a federal decree (which is itself a whole other long story).

I feel like joining in on something like that would provide the most protection, but like I said, the city leaders aren’t doing shit except pointing the finger at each other and spreading Landry’s narrative about the recent jailbreak bc they’re all hoping to save themselves. It’s like he set a trap and they are all falling for it.

Given there are so many cities all over the country facing similar things, I feel like maybe we should even consider creating a giant lawsuit as blue cities, blue states, and all Americans regardless of location (community organizations, small businesses, and non profits, universities) to at least attempt to get back and rebuild federal protections for our rights and liberties from the people who are behaving like traitors to the U.S. constitution.

There is a reason the union is powerful, whether it’s a workers union or remembering we are supposed to be part of the Union not some neo confederacy.

Even if you’re not seeing it around you yet, if we as a country let them continue like this, you will eventually find yourself face to face with it and surrounded by it on all sides.

If he is allowed to keep these departments and agencies dismantled and empty, then that means there is nobody there to enforce protections. It’s kind if nobody is on duty at the weather center, then when a tornado comes in at 1 am, that means nobody is there to warn people of the danger. Pretty sure that actually happened recently exactly bc of these dumb fucking policies and cuts…

We’re sitting back and falling into the trap he’s laid for us by breaking apart and keeping ourselves isolated and then panicking once we start to feel the heat.

For example, Nashville is a very wealthy city (and we all know wealth=power). They actually sued their governor over trying to force his policy on the city, and they actually won! I doubt that’s an option for New Orleans v our oligarch Governor unless we join in with others that have more power and money.

Why couldn’t all individuals and organizations that were interested in doing so as citizens of the United States (I mean, I just realized corporations are people, right? So any businesses really) join together in a massive lawsuit and sue the President for something like threatening our rights and liberty?

The People v. The President of the United States?

I’m half kidding about the name on the lawsuit but very serious about figuring out how to do that. You already have hundreds of small lawsuits, why not offer something like a giant class action lawsuit open for all Americans as individuals, small groups, or businesses, etc., to join? Why the fuck should we be sitting back and handing over any of the rights we had to fight to gain in the first place?

If we’re going to devolve into a civil war anyway why not at least try to a lawsuit first?

Add to list of good ideas

The end is nigh when Giuliani retrospectively seems a wise oracle by comparison.