Survivor: Republican Politics 2026 (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Five.)

Daniel Plainview: I did what your brother couldn't. I broke you and I beat you. It was Paul who told me about you. He's the prophet. He's the smart one. He knew what was there. He found me to take it out of the ground. You know what the funny thing is? Listen, listen, listen! I paid him $10,000 cash in hand, just like that. He has his own company now — prosperous little business — three wells producing $5000 a week. Stop crying, you sniveling ass! Stop your nonsense! You're just the afterbirth, Eli —

Eli Sunday: No...

Daniel Plainview: — that slithered out in your mother's filth. They should have put you in a glass jar on a mantelpiece. Where were you when Paul was suckling at his mother's teat, eh? Where were you? Who was nursing you, poor Eli? One of Bandy's sows? That land has been had. There’s nothing you can do about it. It’s gone, had.

Eli Sunday: If you would just —

Daniel Plainview: You lose.

Eli Sunday: — take this lease, Daniel!

Daniel Plainview: [yelling] Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy! Drained dry. I’m so sorry. Here: if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw — There it is. That's a straw, see? Watch it. Now my straw reaches across the room, and starts to drink your milkshake. I drink your milkshake! [slurping noise] I drink it up!

Eli Sunday: Don't bully me, Daniel!

Daniel Plainview: [throws Eli to the floor] Did you think your song and dance and your superstition would help you, Eli? I am the Third Revelation. I am whom the Lord has chosen. [throws bowling balls at Eli]

Eli Sunday: [dodging the bowling balls] Daniel!

Daniel Plainview: Because I'm smarter than you! I'm older!

Eli Sunday: I'm your old friend, Daniel! Help me! Help me, please!

Daniel Plainview: I'm not a false prophet, you sniveling boy! I am the Third Revelation! I am the Third Revelation! I told you I would eat you!

Eli Sunday: We're family!

Daniel Plainview: I told you I would eat you up!

~From the film There Will Be Blood.

...

Joe: For the last time, I'm pretty sure what's killing the crops is this Brawndo stuff.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave. It's got electrolytes.

Attorney General: "So wait a minute. What you're saying is that you want us to put water on the crops.

Joe: Yes.

Attorney General: Water. Like out the toilet?

Joe: Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be out of the toilet, but, yeah, that's the idea.

Secretary of State: But Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Attorney General: It's got electrolytes.

Joe: Okay, look. The plants aren't growing, so I'm pretty sure that the Brawndo's not working. Now, I'm no botanist, but I do know that if you put water on plants, they grow.

Secretary of Energy: Well, I've never seen no plants grow out of no toilet.

Secretary of State: Hey, that's good. You sure you ain't the smartest guy in the world?

Joe: Okay, look. You want to solve this problem. I want to get my pardon. So why don't we just try it, okay, and not worry about what plants crave?

Attorney General: Brawndo's got what plants crave.

Secretary of Energy: Yeah, it's got electrolytes.

Joe: What are electrolytes? Do you even know?

Secretary of State: It's what they use to make Brawndo.

~From the film Idiocracy.

I'm so tired of this crap.

RFK Jr. talking shit about Autistic people again, saying they won't work, go on dates, make art or even get to the bathroom on their own.

Excuse me? (Does this lady look like she can't take care of herself?)

My partner is Autistic, she works two jobs, she does art, she's never been a sports person but we played Pickleball a few times last summer if that counts. The Kiddo is Autistic, honor student, played sports last year, wants a job something fierce...and more than that, ferocity defines her. 

So what if she geeks out and hyper-focuses on Anime or video games once in awhile?! 

I'm sick of this garbage and I'm sick of these idiotic liars who are constantly talking shit about, for all intents and purposes, my family.

From daydreams on the road there was no waking. He plodded on. He could remember everything of her save her scent. Seated in a theatre with her beside him leaning forward listening to the music. Gold scrollwork and sconces and the tall columnar folds of the drapes at either side of the stage. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame. Now call down your dark and your cold and be damned.

~From Cormac McCarthy's The Road (Book.)

Note I say this as a former Republican. My partner is in the same boat. I mean, goddamn, how can you have any humanity and be a goddamned Republican at this point? These Fucking People have let Trump become their identity and take over their minds to the point where they're Okay with Trump (or anybody else) torturing kids??

It's all dishonest, it's all a lie. To call it a cult at this point is to understate the matter, unless you're calling it a Murder Cult like the cult of Moloch in ancient Carthage or the Thugees in India. These Fucking People want so very badly not only to discriminate against other people for no good reason, they want to pretty much create whole classes of people that they can do whatever they want to whenever they want. Like Orcs in some of the older D&D editions.

How "Christian" of them.

And if you haven't noticed there's a already a constant stream of sick shit coming out about *Checks Notes* These Fucking People. And there's a lot of these White, supposedly "Christian" freakish idiots who would let them torture even their own kids. Obviously, I have a problem with that.

And I'd have a big problem with that even if I didn't have a partner with a kid, come on.

It's called being human.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

I mean, the simple fact is a lot of these "Republicans" have forgotten what that word even means, and basically turned it into a cult of their own "Identity" which is itself largely founded in racism and simple ass being oppositional to Other People for no reason. I can't even talk the way these people talk.

And they're apparently expanding this cult shit. I mean, I could have told you years ago that Cory Booker was not a good guy, I just got that kind of vibe about him when I saw him on Roland Martin's show on CNN back in the day, but nobody wanted to listen at the time. He's butt-buddies with Peter Pan Theil. Stop and think about that for a second.

Cuz like it or not, you're probably looking at the list for the next Epstein Cult right here.

America needs an Elijah to call this Baal-worshiping bullshit out.

Sorry but I'm increasingly of the opinion that if you go to cocaine parties or get wrapped up in weird shit with creepy billionaires you not only shouldn't be in government or public life, you should probably be investigated like a common criminal. I want the bullshit stopped, the cliques and secret societies and weird shit broken up, term limits for everything, I don't give a shit if you're some bullshit-ass policy staffer or the Senate's fucking doorman.

And we have Representatives and Senators that have been in office until they died. Don Young represented Alaska for the entire first 45 years of my life. This should not be the case here. And Don Young isn't the worst one. Chuck Grassley has been in Iowa politics since 1958 and Federal politics since 1974. I was less than a year old when Chuck Grassley ran for office at the Federal level the first time and he was already middle-aged!

Nobody that's 92 years old and still has the values of 1958 or before needs to still be employed in 2026, much less be a Senator, dude should have retired 30 years ago...and easily could have.

America was not designed to have a noble or political class, let alone one full of demon-worshiping perverted murderers who keep trying to enslave everybody else!

And yes, that's exactly what all these attacks on women's rights are. I have a problem with this. Most of the people important to me at this point are women, because I'm a man and *I* pick the fucking Bear.

That's what all the eugenics crap and racism and rich people's secret "debate" society bullshit is.

If you're not there to do the job like it says on the side of the can, if you don't live where you represent, if you're just there to get rich or be buddy-buddy with rich weirdos...get the fuck out! Go work in the private sector. If you're older than the concept of the jet aircraft you should have to retire (and why you refused to quit should also be a subject of investigation. Call it ageist, I don't give a fuck, holding up progress is not a valid reason to do anything.) 

And if you're one of these freaks that, for all intents and purposes believes in Slavery? We had a war about this. You should be gone and so should everything your racist self-serving ass ever voted on. We'll start over without you and your creepy horseshit. Fuck You. And fuck these fucking people's voter-base that somehow thinks they're not on the list.

Because I'm here to tell you, White People, Republicans want to colonize and enslave you first, because you're the ones they haven't got to yet.

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50

And however bad you think it is, it's worse.

Because while these people play their fuck-fuck games, steal money and try to enact their prejudices into law, they've let America go to shit. 

These fucking idiots have turned the reflecting pool in Washington DC into a rather green National Swamp that looks very little damned different from the lake in front of my Mom's house. 

More to the point it only took a couple weeks to go to shit and turn green. And too much of America thinks that crap is funny, somehow.

These assholes have turned a place at the supposed center of our national life into a fucking swamp.

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

Too much of this shit ain't working and America is heading for, I believe, a Fyre Festival-like collapse if we don't turn things around, and quickly.

More to the point I think that's exactly what Republicans want to happen, so they can have a little banana republic somewhere and throw out all the people they don't like...which will in fact include a shit-ton of other Republicans.

There's a reason too many of these assholes saw shit like Survivor when "Reality TV" first appeared on scene in like 1999 and said "Ook! Ook!"

As I've said on here before I thought it was ungodly and wrong at the time.

My ex-wife watched that shit with an expression of absolute joy on her face. It was creepy, I still can't explain it.

Not legends, not myths, facts. I was there.

And they're already voting people off their own island. It'll be worse now.

You think the "Purity" Leftists were bad? You have no damned idea how much worse the Purity Republicans are gonna be.

Nameless One: “Shadow of this life?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “Yes, a shadow. You see, Restless One, this life is not real. Your life, my life, they are shadows, flickerings of what life once was. This life is where we end up after we die, and here we remain. Trapped, caged, until we can achieve the True Death.”

Nameless One: “True Death?”

Dhall, Dustman scribe: “True death is non-existence. A state devoid of reason, of passion, of sensation.” [Dhall coughs] “A state of purity.”

Nameless One: Sounds like oblivion, why would anyone would want that? 

~from the D&D video game Planescape Torment

America was not intended to be a Cult.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And either you're gonna fight for it or you're not.

Pick a fucking side.

Слава Україна!

Cassian Andor: Kino. Tell them what to do. It has to be you. Come on, Kino. You do this every day. Tell them what to do.

Kino Loy: [presses PA system] My name is Kino Loy. I'm the day shift manager on Level Five. I'm speaking to you from the command center on Level Eight. We are, at this moment, in control of the facility.

Andor: Is that the best you got?

Loy: How long we hang on, how far we get, how many of us make it out, all of that is now up to us. We have deactivated every floor in the facility. All floors are cold. Wherever you are right now, get up, stop the work. Get out of your cells, take charge and start climbing. They don't have enough guards and they know it. If we wait until they figure that out, it'll be too late. We will never have a better chance than this and [looks at Cassian, knowing he said it] "I would rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want." We know they fried a hundred men on Level Two. We know that they are making up our sentences as we go along. We know that no one outside here knows what's happening. And now we know, that when they say we are being released, we are being transferred to some other prison to go and die, and that ends today! There is one way out. Right now, the building is ours. You need to run, climb, kill! You need to help each other. You see someone who's confused, someone who is lost, you get them moving and you keep them moving until we put this place behind us. There are 5,000 of us. If we can fight half as hard as we've been working, we will be home in no time. One way out!

[Repeats it multiple times as he leaves the command center]

Andor: Come on! Let's get out of here!

~From the series "Andor" S1 E10 "One Way Out."

Four

We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. ~Ronald Reagan.

Beyond Chunderdome (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Four.)

Auntie Entity: And what did you do before all this?

Max: I was a cop, a driver.

Auntie Entity: Well, how the world turns. One day cock of the walk, next a feather-duster.

~From the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

....

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

...

We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. ~Ronald Reagan.

I saw this last night. 

Some ignorant racist motherfucker of a UFC fighter standing there first saying "Jesus is his Savior" and then in the next breath trying to say Michelle Obama is a "Man" or Transgender or some bullshit.

And Joe Rogan just stands there grinning like a goon. Fuck off, dude.

Yeah, couple things about that. These idiots were trying to say Obama was gay or paint him as some kind of sexual pervert for eight years and all I ever saw was the obviously-happy, normal-as-fuck wife and two happy, well-adjusted daughters that looked very much like their parents and I learned a long time ago to trust in what the Mark One Human Eyeball tells me over what comes out of the mouth of some idiot whose job is to get hit in the head for a living.

And compare and contrast that to the Trumps, father and son both obviously Coked Out Of Their Gourds, Wife very clearly trying not to look like a Wife or a Mom. 

I mean, Come the fuck on.

The fuck is wrong with you??

I mean, basically the first time I saw anything about that UFC dude, it was a video of him throwing up all over himself. So, perhaps we should have been calling this event Beyond Chunderdome?? I didn't even learn dude's name until last night!

And on top of that These Fucking People have turned the White House into nothing but the White Trash-A-Palooza complete with fights that the Capitol Police are having to break up and shit.

If these fucking people are so right, or so righteous, why are they all drunk or on drugs all the time and why are they ALL so fucking angry??

And if these people Believe? Why are they so desperate for something to believe in, for a "god" that they can see...that they'll tolerate this fucking garbage??

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Now, I don't know if you've noticed this, but the Anti-Black or Anti-Transgender rhetoric clearly isn't stopping in either place, not that it ever has before either.

That shit is getting used against any woman that doesn't fit some bullshit-ass patriarchal stereotype and since my Other Half clearly doesn't fit that and never has, I have a problem with that bullshit.

And, like my partner 20 years ago when ignorant motherfuckers we worked with used to call her a man, I'm just gonna go there and say that while Michelle Obama isn't a man, she's still more of a man than Joe Rogan or Josh Hokit is.

I mean, both are technically biologically Male. But neither has the conduct or mentality of a Man as I was taught that. I'll note that none of these fucking people works for a living or seems to care much for others or wants to protect anything but their own damn ass.

And about every word out of These Fucking People's mouths is a lie.

Again, this isn't how I was taught, and I started out as a Christian and a conservative.

Apparently those words meant different things back then.

If this is "Christian Nationalism" well then both of those words are lies.

None of this shit does anything in the service of either. This isn't conservatism, it's just bad behavior.

And I think it says some pretty bad things about modern American "Conservatism" that the whole edifice falls apart without all this garbage.

Imma say it again.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

And you're either willing to fight for it or you're not.

I'm sick of this bullshit.

Y'all need Jesus, America.

Again, not legends, not myths, facts. Not bullshit-ass secularized Trump Tent-Revivalism, sound doctrine and theology and care for the poor and needy and other people in general. Love Thy Neighbor.

And this? This ain't it.

Слава Україна!

 [Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

Three

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50

Who Run Bartertown? (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Three.)

Auntie Entity: And what did you do before all this?

Max: I was a cop, a driver.

Auntie Entity: Well, how the world turns. One day cock of the walk, next a feather-duster.

~From the film Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

...

As I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I take a look at my life,And realize there's nothing left,'Cause I've been blasting and laughing so longThat even my mama thinks that my mind is gone.But I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it.Me be treated like a punk, you know that's unheard of,You better watch how you're talking, and where you're walking,Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk,I really hate to trip, but I gotta Loc,As they croak I see myself in the pistol smoke,Fool, I'm the kinda G the little homies wanna be like,On my knees in the night Saying prayers in the street light..

~Coolio, Gangsta's Paradise.

...

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

I saw this shit last night.

On the feed of the Black Rifle Coffee Company...a veteran-owned corporation...some idiot called Trump's Idiocracy-Palooza at the White House "The Most American Thing They've Ever Seen."

Way to miss the fucking point, and I say that as a veteran.

Sorry, but I didn't serve for this fucking garbage and I also say that as a former Republican. Put that in your Keurig and brew it, asshole.

You either have standards or you don't. 

Standards and Truth are the basic preventative maintenance of a Civilization.

As I learned when I became a Senior Airman in the Air Force, you get what you tolerate. That's quite clearly a lesson that went way the fuck over somebody's pointed head.

And ya know, I get it. I knew plenty of people that were dumbass rednecks, or dumbass-whatever when they enlisted, but 30 years ago most of them learned a thing or two and ended up resenting the shit out of parents that didn't teach them anything and school systems that failed them, and came out of Basic Military Training and/or at least by Tech School actually valuing education on some level.

But then, 33 years ago in the United States Of America, being stupid was considered a bad thing.

Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator had come to replace water, virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the F.D.A. and the F.C.C., enabling them to say, do, and sell, anything they wanted. ~Narrator, Idiocracy

Fuck these motherfuckers. 

Sponsored by Monster energy drinks. Jesus Christ.

What the fuck is wrong with you??

But then, this is the same political party that brought a live Elephant into the convention hall of the GOP state convention in Texas and then was surprised when it pissed all over the place.

Of course, none of the idiots responsible were the ones who had to clean up that ungodly mess.

Also I can remember back in the 1980's when conservatives massively lost their shit over some idiot's art that included a crucifix in a jar of urine.

I never particularly liked the kind of people that got performatively mad about bullshit like that, especially since just cutting people off when they do that kind of tasteless shit is more effective. 

So what's the social penalty for letting an Elephant piss all over your convention, Republicans??

I'll wait.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.
~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Maybe, just maybe, we should stop listening to These Fucking People, let alone electing them??

I get that racism, misogyny etc. rotted out people's fucking brains, but come on. When is enough gonna be enough with this shit??

I find the Elephant thing and appropriate example. America in general and American conservatives in particular have pretty much pissed away all their credibility with the rest of the world. 

The day will come when we wish we hadn't and it really is that simple.

And then these fucking people have the balls to be surprised when nobody wants to date them??

A year ago, when I wrote this post, I was all of five days away from reconnecting with my partner, and seeing as more than just an observer the casual evil that a hell of a lot of "Men" can just do, without even thinking about it.

I'll be the first one to tell you I've done some bad shit, I've made mistakes, but not on the on-purpose and clearly with malice-aforethought level of shit that my partner had to put up with from other guys. Christ, that she had to put up with from guys I thought I knew weren't capable of doing shit like that!

And yes, the two of us have been plenty mean to each other over the years, but the difference between me and my former best friend vs. her is, I never thought it'd be that way if I'd ever used the phrase "Keep my balls empty" because my ass would have been dead.

Some things, you just don't do.

Hospitaler: One may stare into the light, until one becomes the light. I've done it many times.

Balian of Ibelin: [throws a rock at a bush that catches fire by the spark] There's your religion. One spark, a creosote bush. There's your Moses. I did not hear it speak.

Hospitaler: That does not mean that there is no God. Do you love her?

Balian of Ibelin: Yes.

Hospitaler: The heart will mend. Your duty is to the people of the city. I go to pray.

Balian of Ibelin: For what?

Hospitaler: For the strength to endure what is to come.

Balian of Ibelin: And what is to come?

Hospitaler: The reckoning is to come for what was done one hundred years before. The Muslims will never forget. Nor should they.

[the Hospitaler slowly walks away as a second bush several yards from the burning one catches fire. The Hospitaler is nowhere to be seen in the clear and open desert]

~From the film Kingdom Of Heaven.

And I'd have deserved it.

That seems to be the part These Fucking People don't understand: Cause And Effect.

Well, that and they seem to celebrate being a miserable bastard. This pretty much is the whole Republican bit at this point.

Of course this whole thing at the White House is going to be a soup sandwich and it's going to further diminish America, the Republican Party and yes, ultimately Trump, because it's stupid.

And I'd put money on most of the people going to this bullshit event end up complaining how much it sucks by the time I get up tonight.

Meanwhile in New York City, I'm not sure what the hell is going on but it looked like a whole bunch of people were having a good time last night.

I'd rather have been in NYC last night than in DC today, just from what I saw in this short little TikTok video.

And that's the thing, in an Apocalyptic situation like that in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, the safest person to be isn't Auntie who runs the place, or Dr. Dealgood, whose job it is to distract the masses, nor Master/Blaster who actually wielded the power (literally) until he was betrayed and Blaster got killed (and again, there's a message in the fact that it was the smart little guy who actually was in charge.)

No, you wanna be one of the working stiffs pushing the turbines to generate the electricity.

I've written about this before.

This morning, it's probably safer to be the guy who has to clean up the Elephant piss than it is to be the guy who ordered up the damn animal in the first place, because nobody's mad at the cleanup crew.

The thing about America is, really, it's we the Regular People that actually have the power, not all these rich fucks and temporarily politically powerful nincompoops.

Nobody's gonna give a shit about Trump in five years.

We were a serious country once.

Remember that.

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 [Cassian plays Nemik's audio diary]

Karis Nemik: There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this. Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this. The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this. Try. ~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E12 "Rix Road."

Two

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

Trillion (Not Legends, Not Myths, Facts. Two.)

And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.

And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.

Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double.

How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow.

Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning,

Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. ~Revelation 18:1-10

...

The Holy Quran says it, "Pilgrimage to the House [of God built by the prophet Abraham] is a duty men owe to God; those who are able, make the journey." (3:97) Allah said: "And proclaim the pilgrimage among men; they will come to you on foot and upon each lean camel, they will come from every deep ravine" (22:27). Every one of the thousands at the airport, about to leave for Jeddah, was dressed this way. You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know. Some powerful personages, who were discreetly pointed out to me, had on the same thing I had on. Once thus dressed, we all had begun intermittently calling out "Labbayka! (Allahumma) Labbayka!" (Here I come, O Lord!) Packed in the plane were white, black, brown, red, and yellow people, blue eyes and blond hair, and my kinky red hair -- all together, brothers! All honoring the same God, all in turn giving equal honor to each other. . . .That is when I first began to reappraise the "white man." It was when I first began to perceive that "white man," as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions. In America, "white man" meant specific attitudes and actions toward the black man, and toward all other non-white men. But in the Muslim world, I had seen that men with white complexions were more genuinely brotherly than anyone else had ever been. That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men. ~Malcolm X.

...

Brawndo the Thirst Mutilator had come to replace water, virtually everywhere. Water, the basic component of all life, had been deemed a threat to Brawndo's profit margin. The solution came during the budget crisis of 2330, when the Brawndo Corporation simply bought the F.D.A. and the F.C.C., enabling them to say, do, and sell, anything they wanted. ~Narrator, Idiocracy

So, apparently Elon is a Trillionaire as of yesterday

So, do you have to worship a Demon to get that rich, or is Elon just doing that part because he wants to? Or is that a prerequisite to try to turn this Neuralink bullshit into the Mark Of The Beast??

Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. ~Ezekiel 16:49-50 (NIV)

And while I'm at it, what's with these fucking people railing against women in every possible occupation or position, because I'm here to tell you most of the teachers I had in Christian schools were women, and that includes Catholic school and I have the scars on my knuckles to prove it. 

No, I don't give a shit what Joel Webbon thinks about that.

He obviously was never held to the same kinds of educational standards that I was in the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh grades nor subject to any kind of punishment for not meeting whatever standard he had, or he wouldn't be this goddamn stupid and he, along with all these other supposedly "Religious" Men (Keg-Breath, Wilson, etc.) wouldn't talk about women the way they do. Among other things I was raised conservative and religious myself and I was taught that was wrong.

We've got to take the neighborhood back. We've got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It's right around the corner. It's standing on the corner. It can't speak English. It doesn't want to speak English. I can't even talk the way these people talk. "Why you ain't where you is go." I don't know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. You used to talk a certain way on the corner and you got into the house and switched to English. Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't land a plane with "why you ain't…". You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth. There is no Bible that has that kind of language. Where did these people get the idea that they're moving ahead on this? Well, they know they're not, they're just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you're just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out. ~Bill Cosby, the "Pound Cake" speech.

Not that any of these CHUDs seem to know right from wrong, or care in the least, which tells me they're Christian in about the same way that my Ferret is an Astrophysicist.

Which is to say he's not, and if given a book on the subject his main contribution to that field of study would be to try and drag the book under the couch, if for different reasons that Joel might.

This shit isn't Christianity, it's the skeevy borderline-homosexual (but not in a "gay" way, keep that rainbow shit and any potential happiness off me) looks-at-women-as-"dirty" end of "Bro" culture, sacralized. These fucking guys don't read the Bible except to find ways to weaponize it against the people they don't like which is basically everybody, but especially women. These are the guys that used to mock my partner, but then 20 years later one of them tried to take advantage of her for being in a bad situation.

I wrote about that here.

And I wrote about how they treated me for *Checks Notes* liking her once they found out.

I have to say, again, sorry guys. I just liked her better than I liked you. I like women, and I'm glad I'm drawn to strong women, not doormats or manipulative pretend-doormats. If you don't like it, fuck you.

Seems like pretty much everything is "dirty" to these guys except for each other, making money and **Most Importantly** Taking advantage of other people.

Like that's why they all hit that Crypto-Bro stage in about 2020 and don't tell me that's not why.

You can take a lot of things away from a man. Cigarettes, the gym. You can take his freedom, his legs, but not his feelings. Not his feelings. A man loves a woman. Don't matter what kind of man he is, if he loves her, he wants her. He wants her body. He wants her to want his. So you say to him, "you can never make love again. You will never touch her in that way again. This is the last time. The last time. Forever." If that's not cruel and unusual punishment, I don't know what is. ~Augustus Hill, from the HBO series Oz, S1.E2 "Visits, Conjugal and otherwise."

These guys spent whatever time they spent in Sunday School not paying attention to the subject matter, and they were jerks so they couldn't get the cute little Latina girlfriend in high school so they're all trying to say that James Talarico is going to Hell for having one (and for actually practicing Christianity) as an adult.

Dan Patrick lost any credibility he had with me when he said old people should just die for the economy during COVID-19. You learn things from old people. So, Dan, like my Grandma used to say, be careful or your face might stick like that.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything. ~Umberto Eco

And they say all their crap is about Jesus and protecting kids and the unborn, but the truth is it's really just a cover for racism and they don't even seem to mind openly telling your ass exactly that right now.

You watch, after November if not before that (because this could very well blow up before then, and almost certainly will after) all these fucking people will be trying to deny that they said what they said if not also claiming that Charlie Kirk was killed because he wanted the Epstein files released (which I think is an actual possibility but it doesn't absolve these assholes of anything like they'll try and make it sound like.)

Unless they're more enthusiastically telling you it's about Homophobia and/or Transphobia each of which seems to have been sacralized all by itself on These Fucking People's side of the fence.

Like, bitch, nobody is giving up their right to vote, except you, voluntarily because you're a moron who thinks the mousy church-girl act is gonna fool anybody other than your husband, you think because you connive and manipulate, everybody should have to do that. 

No, my partner works for a living, she's an honest, strong woman and she has her own opinions...political and otherwise...and I love her for it. We don't have to agree, although in practice we tend to agree on end-goals but differ on how to get there more than anything.

Neither she, nor the kid, nor myself for that matter would be happy, successful or even survivable in the world these motherfuckers think they wanna create, which falls somewhere between The Handmaid's Tale and Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

The clocks stopped at one seventeen. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it's October but I can't be sure. I haven't kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. It is cold and growing colder as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived and all the crops are long gone. Soon all the trees in the world will fall. The roads are peopled by refugees towing carts and gangs carrying weapons, looking for fuel and food. Within a year there was fire on the ridges and deranged chanting. There has been cannibalism. Cannibalism is the great fear. Mostly I worry about food. Always food. Food and the cold and our shoes. Sometimes I tell the boy old stories of courage and justice - difficult as they are to remember. All I know is the child is my warrant and if he is not the word of God, then God never spoke. ~The Man, from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" (Film.)

But emphasis much more on the cannibalistic psychopaths.

What people like Keg-Breath don't realize is, if you remove the guardrails from what we call "Civilization" that means people rise or fall according to their own ability or ruthlessness, and it'd be an error, generally speaking, to assume that you (rather than some random person you least expect) are That Guy. Or that you would even survive.

Daryl Dixon: Hey kid, what'd you do before all this?

Glenn Rhee: Deliver pizzas. 

Why?

Daryl Dixon: You got some balls for a China man.

Glenn Rhee: I'm Korean.

Daryl Dixon: Whatever.

~From The Walking Dead S1.E4 "Vatos."

Just sayin.'

These Fucking People...all of them...have no idea what the hell they're doing by fucking with things to the degree that they have. Unintended consequences are basically a scientific law of this equation at this point, the way things are going.

When the shit hits the fan (and it will) about half of them, mostly the Proles and shit, are gonna look at Trump as their Lord and Savior and hope they can all lie or shoot their way out of the problem.

How'd that work with COVID-19??

The "Upper" half? They're gonna look at Elon as their "god" and hope the fuck he can pull some kind of a giant Mars-bound spaceship out his ass that'll whisk them away from the consequences of their own actions. But like the people at the end of Don't Look Up, if he has one at all, most of them? 

They're gonna find out they don't have enough money to be on that ship.

And for most of the rest of us? The "Bread and Circuses" routine is wearing out if we ever were the least bit interested in the first place.

Note: I wasn't.

I don't want a government that "Entertains" me, I don't find any of this shit entertaining and I'd really like to get back to the business of living my life without having to worry about what the government is doing or what the President is gonna fuck up this week or the next or worrying if I'm gonna have to protect myself and my family from some deranged racist religious fanatics or crunchy fake-hippies turned MAHA wannabe-SS.

And that's not a hypothetical.

Last week, Elon Musk and the British far-right instigated riots and attacks against immigrants and people of color in Northern Ireland in response to a (non-fatal) stabbing attack involving a Sudanese immigrant, who was arrested and (rightly) charged and is awaiting trial.

Northern Ireland's population is almost 97% White and 80% Christian, so I don't wanna hear it.

Part of it is the usual Ulster Protestant "Loyalist" assholes find some bullshit to riot about every damn year. There's a reason the Police Service of Northern Ireland has armoured vehicles, issues firearms to all its officers and looks more like a typical American police force than a regular British one.

But ya know, since These Fucking People and the American religious right are up each other's asses (and that goes way back) and Christianity among various Northern Ireland Protestants far more often quotes Revelation and has a similar apocalyptic bent to the American kind than to what Christianity throughout most of Europe usually does.

And, frankly, despite the fact that Northern Ireland is overwhelmingly White, it's also ridiculously racist.

Because That is the Point of this stuff as far as people like Dan Patrick, Elon Musk, and the Ulster rioters are concerned. Anything but "Love Thy Neighbor."

Here's the thing they didn't tell you in the Left Behind books; If there's to be a False Religion of the Beast and a New World Order dedicated to the Antichrist and some Demons or some shit? It won't be "Left Wing." It'll be Far-Right, and it'll be all about protecting the Wealth of some unaccountable Trillionaire like Elon Musk if not Musk himself.

And that's why these fucking idiots want to mythologize everything else, because the pure banal-ass sad-sack Truth of this shit doesn't make for good stories at all...and probably makes for even worse reading than Atlas Shrugged.

Accumulation of Wealth to the point of Stupid, talking about taking away people's Constitutional (among other) rights and abusing one's neighbors aren't "Cool" or even things Decent people do and these motherfuckers actually know it.

That's why they try to create mythological conditions to justify their bullshit.

You can absolutely argue (for or against) "Love Thy Neighbor" because it's a fixed point on a known spectrum of observable behavior with tangible results. That doesn't fit today's "Right" and its clearly post-modern ethic. Besides, it's much It's harder to argue with Aphrodite being born from the sea-foam, or perhaps more likely, Baal riding on clouds

The thing is, Truth is the only floor most of us will ever have to stand on to push back against Power.

If Elon Musk decides he wants to buy himself a country, the main defense the people there will have is the Truth. Trump is just the Golden Idol to distract from that.

Those who claim to be "Conservative" but in reality seek only to profit from licking Power's boots know that.

That's why they wanna turn everything into Ghosts and Goblins and Myths and Legends, so they can lie to their heart's content and there is no Truth.

As for the rest of you? You either believe in freedom or you don't.

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If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan

One

Cassian Andor: What? To steal from the Empire, what do you need? A uniform, some dirty hands, and an Imperial toolkit. They’re so proud of themselves, they don’t even care. They’re so fat and satisfied, they can’t imagine it…

Luthen Rael: Can’t imagine what?

Andor: That someone like me would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food, take their gear. 

~From the Star Wars series Andor, S1.E2 "That Would Be Me."