Priapus Rising (Signs Of The Times, Three.)

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.
...

[Cassian Andor and Kino Loy have successfully broken out of their cell block and took over the prison complex's command center]

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."

...

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

I keep seeing stuff like this lately.

And yeah, I admit it, I follow a whole bunch of accounts that post dumb weird shit that right-wing idiot dudes say on social media. Well, mostly right-wing idiots, at least.

But I also used to work in food service, in a casino, and "The Man's penis is that powerful, worship it!" is not exactly a sentiment confined to a few low-brow moronic edge-cases on social media. 

Plenty of real-life low-brow, moronic edge cases believe stupid shit like that, too, and not all of them are conservative. In fact, a lot of them aren't. Misogyny is hardly confined to the Right.

(For the record: Miley Cyrus's first sexual experience was with a girl, she's been pretty open about this.)

For these guys, none of this crap is about God...unless that god is Priapus, a minor Roman god of dicks and male fertility (among other things.)

I mean, I'm honestly starting to wonder how many of these dudes insecurity issues and mental problems could possibly be solved...or at least salved a little bit...by Polytheism? Insecure about your schlong? Pray to the god of dicks, yo.

(Not that I think most of these idiots would last five minutes under a Roman-style system.)

But of course, there's more to this kind of foolishness than that. It's not (necessarily) just about dicks and shit like that. 

(Dicks can also very much be a metaphor for ego.)

It's about intellectual and physical incuriosity...more so than just plain old stupidity...and it's about narcissism. It's about the fact that these dudes are literally being willfully stupid, on purpose, so as to justify misogyny and selfishness. And there's also the much-remarked-upon-lately point that These Fucking People are Weird. Or at least, that's my theory.

I mean, if you have a better explanation for why there's even such a thing as a Clitoris Denier, I'm listening. I mean, as far as I'm concerned there's no excuse for an adult to not know this stuff, and acting like this on purpose deserves only the harshest possible mockery, otherwise being beneath contempt.

I mean, I was younger than average when I had my first girlfriend, we were in the same age-group, but all else follows from that. Obviously, I have an ex-wife (and managed to keep her pretty happy at least that way) and for quite a few years there, I was pretty active.

If you haven't had sex, But you're literate or if not, can at least understand pictures and have ever so much as seen a biology textbook, a dictionary or an encyclopedia...or looked at any sort of porn involving women...this really, I mean really should not be that fucking hard, guys.

At least when I was coming up, by the time somebody was in like middle school, they'd at least know what most of the words meant...as much as anything else, simply from paying attention when older people talked.

For fuck's sake when I was a young person, I remember being curious about the world. Did these fucking people just manage to turn that switch off at some point??

I mean, the internet wasn't a thing when I was that age, but I was raised conservative and Christian. I knew what a conspiracy theory was and I knew what Fundamentalism, Superstition and Woo-woo were...and that those were generally bad things. 

(And for the record, it was conservatives who taught me this. They were not always what they have become now. This was a choice they made, and this kind of willful ignorance was a thing that was marketed to people.)

Of course, I knew people like that, almost entirely through church stuff. Those people have always been around, it's just more obvious now.

I also knew that those people were acidly held in a vast amount of contempt by the majority of the people around me. I'd get told not to talk to them, But, they were usually tolerated for some reason, maybe they gave money to the church or they had a bunch of kids whom their overall shitty behavior hadn't worn off on, or whatever. 

In all too many cases, their bullshit was excused by somebody simply because their ass showed up every Sunday and Wednesday night.

That was, very often, the reason cited by a lot of Pastors back when I was in Church...at least as recently as 20 years ago; "They always show up."

As if that was a good reason, by itself, for often-disruptive, problematic or toxic people being there.

And now? Now those fucking people are MAGA and the Pastors are very often afraid to call them out or kick them out. I've seen more than one church go belly up just because of regular fanatics in my lifetime and that's way more of a thing now than it was 20-25 years ago (But now the nuts are MAGA and Trump is the reason.)

I've written about it. This happened to a friend of mine who was a Pastor. A bunch of Trump supporters didn't like that he wouldn't preach about politics or (favorably) about Trump, so they bullied and harassed until the whole organization fell apart. But then, he wouldn't sell the building (which he owned) to that clique. 

There's not even a church there anymore, it's something else now.

And that's the thing with this Trump crap, and with the fanaticism, willful ignorance and stupidity. It's become an iron political law, as originally coined by Rick Wilson, that Everything Trump Touches Dies.

And the media has shackled themselves into a doom-loop with Trump and with Republicans more generally...for the base and simple reason that crazy-stupid and constant shenanigans makes them more money than decent government or a modicum of intelligence or wisdom on the part of politicians and various other public figures.

I mean, these people functionally destroyed Joe Biden for simply trying to go by the old-school way where the President wasn't on TV every goddamned day and it was supposed to be a big deal when he gave a speech or something.

And now they're hella mad that the general public doesn't trust them, both conservatives and liberals hate them...one for them not gargling Trump's balls enough, and the other for constantly trying to make themselves the story and/or trying to undermine Democrats. So of course, the Democrats got Influencers to do most of the convention coverage...and goddamn, but the media's mad about that too and refuses to see why it went down that way.

 I get it, everybody was trying to be FOX News for money and ratings...but that didn't even work out for FOX News for the above specified reasons. 

They couldn't blow Trump enough.

It's literally not possible to gargle Trump's junk enough that MAGA is going to like you.

But it gets worse.

MAGA themselves is gonna find out that they should've stopped blowing the narcissist a long time ago, because he's sure not going to appreciate it now. Trump is a narcissist. He has a personality disorder, nothing is ever going to be good enough for him by definition and he can't be "fixed."

Like, I know this from experience, the only way to win with people like that is not to play, to cut them off completely, to get the fuck out.

Which is exactly why both Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are as effective as they are. They never got on the Narcissist's Doom Loop.

And they're not weird, their personal awkwardness in certain ways and various quirks are things most of us can at least relate to, which is why none of the attacks are sticking.

Republicans are gonna find out that they could pour the whole damn world down that hole where Trump's soul was supposed to be and he'll still be thirsty for more.

And they set themselves up so that they'd get eaten first...because somehow something something Gazpacho, in their heads they thought he'd never do that to them.

That's what all this bullshit really is, just plain old hubris and narcissism.

And at the end of the day the reason Trump became these fucking people's "God" is simply that he jacks off their narcissism and makes them feel like they're in some sort of club with him, and they never even notice how much of their energy and time he consumes or how much of their money ends up in his pockets.

And at the end of the day he doesn't give a fuck about them.

At this point, if you don't know any of this bullshit, you deserve what you're very likely going to get.

This shit's all been out there, forever, and actively in politics of over a decade now. It's a sign of our times that people don't want to see what is plainly obvious, even when it's trying to kill them.

Get with the fucking program.

As for the rest of you?

You either believe in freedom, or you don't.

So you better show up...'cause they sure will.

Слава Україна!

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.  ~George Orwell, 1984.

Two

[trying to sell a new stereo system to a teenage couple] 

Ken: Check it out, my man! This is the Dominator X-10. Thirty inches of thigh-slapping, blood-pumping, nuclear brain damage!

Kid: Bitchin'! Hey, what's it fucking cost?

Ken: That's the bitchin' part about it! It don't matter! If you can't afford it, FUCKING FINANCE IT! [turns it on] 

Ken: So what if it's as big as a Subaru and costs as much? You'll never have to trade this in! This is gonna be with you for the rest of your life! And when you die, they can BURY you in it!

~From the film Ruthless People.

For Want Of A Nail (Signs Of The Times, Two.)

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. ~George Orwell, 1984.

...

Why, why, why, why is it that most of the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn't wanna fuck in the first place? Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren't they? They're all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don't want to know about you. They don't want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked. Conservatives don't give a shit about you until you reach military age. Then they think you're just fine. Just what they've been looking for. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. Pro-life... pro-life... These people aren't pro-life, they're killing doctors! What kind of pro-life is that? What, they'll do anything they can to save a fetus but if it grows up to be a doctor they just might have to kill it? They're not pro-life. You know what they are? They're anti-woman. Simple as it gets, anti-woman. They don't like them. They don't like women. They believe a woman's primary role is to function as a brood mare for the state. ~George Carlin

I saw this a couple hours ago.

People holding up signs that say "Donald Trump is NOT weird."

Yes, yes he is, and I've literally seen years of evidence to back that shit up.

I stood there in my living room with my roommate in June of 2015 and watched Trump say, live on CNN that he "Didn't need God's forgiveness." From the Christian, Republican perspective I started out with, it should've ended right there. My then-roommate and I both went off about that shit for days, he's an African American Baptist, I'm a former Christian who doesn't identify as anything, religiously.

I sat through years of watching this dude, despite the fact that he was the President and living in the White House and could literally eat whatever the fuck he wanted and get the best food imaginable from anywhere on the planet, he ate Big Mac's and shit like that. I mean, fucking WHY?? I'm just an old guy with a basic type job and health issues and I DON'T EAT THAT CRAP because it makes me sick!

I mean, this dude is disgusting and obviously fat and literally shits himself and even though with his alleged money he could probably get help with all that, or certainly apply himself and exercise and take care of himself, he doesn't. It's easier to just lie about it, or something.

And there's people dumb enough or drunk on cultic loyalty or partisanship enough that they at least pretend to believe all that crap, and I know some people just do it for attention and money.

Trump said, live on Howard Stern, that he wanted to bone his own daughter...I literally heard this said. I wasn't a Howard Stern fan, but my buddy was.

And a couple days ago the son of a bitch went to Arlington National Cemetery and did a (illegal, mind you) campaign event and made that shit all about HIM. Motherfucker literally stood there, on the graves of war-dead, doing that stupid thumbs-up bit that he does.

Yes, Trump is fucking weird.

And it needed to be said.

And since he slimed his way down the golden escalator, I've seen Christians and Republicans agree with, do their own damn selves, or simply tolerate shit they used to say would bring on the torments of Revelation...and they did that, simply because Trump gave them permission to be bad people.

Which was apparently all they wanted, all along.

Anybody else had it with this bullshit, or is it just me??

You know what I want? I want a President that there's video of them doing normal shit. I want a President that I know knows how to cook their own food, that I can see has healthy relationships and that does things that I know come from basic everyday American culture of some kind. As the saying goes "For want of a nail..." I see Kamala can manage a pretty snappy salute, too. Yo,

If somebody puts effort into small things, it scales up.

You watch this video for a few more seconds and it's pretty damn obvious that Kamala Harris's husband, Doug, is right there in the kitchen helping out. I get that, that kind of thing is how I was raised and what my Mom taught me and what various girlfriends, my ex-wife and assorted other partners expected. I come from "If you want food, there's the kitchen, get it yourself." Likewise, If somebody's cooking and you wanna eat too, you help out. It's how most people function.

Where's Trump's Slovenian immigrant Not-Wife, again?? You know, the porn-model arm-candy from a few years ago that you never, ever see anymore??

If we're being honest I see way, way more objectively foreign-to-the-American-experience weird shit from Trump and his ilk than I've ever seen from...well, pretty much every Democratic politician in my lifetime. 

I mean I thought Bill Clinton was an absolute scumbag but he never went that far...that is, as far as pretty much every day of the Trump administration or any of his campaigns went, Bill Clinton was an unfaithful husband, but he and Hillary still had something that could recognizably be called a marriage, they were seen in public on a regular basis together and sometimes observed to be happy, and they had normal Christmas decorations and regular house stuff and shit like that.

The only time Donald Trump ever smiles is when he's being mean to somebody, and I've never seen Melania Trump smile at all. And Republicans, by and large, seem to want to be miserable bastards.

Hell, I've never heard of a liberal or even 99% of conservatives who could even close to match Trump's "Mutant love child of Liberace and Saddam Hussein" decorating style, or for that matter his desire, while being the President of America...to be a sniveling toady to people like Vladimir Putin.

I mean, for fuck's sake, you get out of Moscow and St. Petersburg and Vladivostok and go out in the rest of the country, Russia is basically a backwards 17th Century shithole. No wonder "Conservatives" love the idea of Putin's Russia. 

Current Republicans want America to be a place where you're defined by what you were born as. Our founders and pretty much every American President or other political leader (including all other pre-Trump Republicans) before Trump wanted it to be a place where you were defined by what you have it in yourself to be...or at least they said they wanted that.

But I'll note nobody who has a choice seems to want to live in Russia right now, except for maybe Alex Jones...and for all their hatred of America as it is, I don't see Republicans having the guts to leave.

That, too, should tell you something.

They'd rather inflict Trump on all of us, and they're mad that Democrats have gotten it together and it looks like Trump is gonna lose...again, mind you.

It's a sign of the times that people would try and hold up signs saying Trump is not weird.

But we can see not only that he is weird, but that he's dragged the entire Republican Party right along with him.

I'm serious, if this is what the Republican Party has come to it should not be this much of a fight to get rid of these fucking people.

We're either what we say we are, or we're not, America. It's time to cut the shit and get a grip.

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

You're either a better citizen, or you're not.

Слава Україна!

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.  ~George Orwell, 1984.

One

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

Bonus Content

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 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, letter written following the Hajj.

The Anti-Americans (Signs Of The Times, One.)

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

...

Through me is the way to the suffering city;
Through me is the everlasting pain;
Through me is the way that runs among the Lost. Justice urged on my exalted Creator: Divine Power made me, The Supreme Wisdom and Primal Love.

Nothing was made before me but eternal things

And I endure eternally.
Abandon all hope - Ye Who Enter Here.'

~Sign above the gates of hell, Dante's Inferno.

...

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

I had to go to the store this morning.

Now, my route that I usually go cuts through two different neighborhoods, and passes an elementary school and the high school. On the way home, I went a different way, along US 23 and the shore of Lake Huron, which is where a bunch of the big expensive houses (and the Republicans who live in them) around here are located. You notice things, or I do, anyway. It's part inclination, part training because I'm a USAF Security Forces veteran, and I've worked in a casino and food service most of the time since then. Being able to catch it when something's not right is a survival skill. What people put in their yards or on their houses is very often indicative of other things about them.

And going both ways, this morning, I'm here to tell you that I've officially seen one Trump/Vance 2024 sign. There's more of just the regular Trump signs, but most people aren't getting new ones. I actually waited awhile before writing about this to see if more Trump/Vance signs would turn up...and they haven't. It's also extremely noteworthy to me that I've not seen even one sign for any down-ticket Republicans above the local, county level...only for Trump. Did I mention I live in Michigan's 1st Congressional district, which has been Republican since Bart Stupak retired.

Now, Republicans normally have a pretty good political sign game, not this year, I guess.

Yeah, I get it, part of that is that the Michigan GOP is broke and fighting against itself. Part of it is a conscious choice, and understanding that nobody else on a Republican ticket...from JD Vance on down, even matters, so long as Trump is at the head of the Republican Party.

Along the way, I saw around twenty Democratic political signs, mostly Harris/Walz 2024 and/or signs for Elissa Slotkin (she's running for Senate in MI.) Also, nearly all of these houses had flags...including but not limited to American flags, Pride flags, Ukrainian flags. One house that didn't have a Harris/Walz sign but did have an Elissa Slotkin sign had their entire yard peppered with small American flags. And, I saw a couple of "Stop Project 2025" signs in the mix, too.

And instead of upping their game and getting their shit together, Republicans are trying to act like Democrats somehow stole it all from them, as if there is only so much energy or joy (or simply giving a shit) in the world...and if that's true, they didn't want any of it...but now they're surprised that the other guys (and girls) picked that shit up, and got behind their candidate (like Republicans usually do) and they're happy about it??

I get it, Republicans are (and want to be) miserable bastards...and they want everybody else to have to be the same way. But come on, guys, what the fuck is in it for everybody else?? Who the fuck really wants to go through life being mad all the time??

I couldn't do it.

And then, yesterday, during some bullshit campaign photo-op stunt at Arlington National Cemetery (and such things are, by the way, illegal because the military and all spaces associated with it...including National Cemeteries...is by law and tradition, non-Partisan) Trump campaign staff apparently assaulted an Army civilian employee for trying to tell them they couldn't campaign and film there.

I shit you not

Don't take my word for it, click the link.

Fuck, I just saw this myself.

And yes, even a Simple Assault charge in a case and place like this will land a person in Federal prison. 

I saw shit like that happen both in the Air Force and in almost 20 years of working on a Reservation. Federal land is, well, Federal land...but an incident in a hallowed space like that is almost certainly gonna get all the books thrown at a motherfucker.

These fucking people hate America.

And honestly, I don't think these assholes are even campaigning to win anymore; I think they're trying to set up some kind of a bullshit justification for right-wing insurgency and secession, even though whatever they'll get is getting smaller by the minute. 

I'm serious, These Fucking People don't want to live in America. 

Republicans have become the Anti-Americans.

There isn't anything about America (or anything or anywhere else) that they value as anything other than a stick to beat mostly-imagined "enemies" over the head with. It's like the girlfriend I had once who only ever wanted to talk about Christ or Christianity when there was a chance to have some kind of confrontational argument. Needless to say, she didn't last and everybody but her found this to be laughable.

And the Signs of the Times, the Writing On The Wall, etc. seems to be saying that a majority of people have had enough of this bullshit.

And when, at best, they end up with some small, mean, poverty-wracked South Florida Banana Republic that's basically the Cuba of the newly Democratized New American Century where nobody has anything and in fact all they've got is Donald Trump and being the toehold on a Western lifestyle for Russian oligarchs and all they're living on is Russian tourism and whatever welfare package China and Russia cobble together to keep them afloat...Republicans will raise up both middle fingers at the rest of the world and call it a win.

And while Americans and American allies fight for freedom at home and abroad, and from the rise of Kamala Harris to the Ukrainian counter-invasion of Kursk Oblast in Russia, it's clear that the forces of freedom and democracy are finally punching back, Republicans...once heirs to Ronald Reagan's legacy...are busy basically fighting over who gets to be the weird alien courtiers of a bloated, failing, ugly-ass increasingly Jabba The Hutt-looking Donald Trump.

Think about that for a second.

Reagan Wept.

These fucking people believed in the End Times so hard that they've basically destroyed themselves.

But the rest of us? We have a choice. Freedom isn't free, and we can fight for it.

You either believe in freedom, or you don't.

And all I can say to those people that are still Republicans is, I can remember when we weren't this.

And I'll be writing about that, to remind you.

Слава Україна!

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

Last Post

Reporter: Mr. Said, how do you feel?

Kareem Said: How do I feel? I feel joyless. My brothers remain behind. Imprisoned, suppressed. I don't just mean my Muslim brothers, I mean every single man that will sleep in here tonight, that was cut off from everything that he loves. Cut off from his own self. You know, as the word went around that the Governor was gonna give somebody clemency, I saw a rift develop as each inmate wished himself to be the chosen one. The longing to be free became as palpable as the food that we eat. But it is a meal that I am being served right now. And I am Muslim. And Allah does not allow me to swallow certain things. Allah does not allow me to take scraps from the hands of a man such as this. A man who is corrupt and immoral. A man who denigrates the gift of clemency just as he violates the principles of justice. A man that gave the order that caused the death of eight people. And so, Governor Devlin, because even the cost of freedom can be too high, I refuse your pardon!

 ~Kareem Said, from the HBO series Oz, Season 2, Episode 8 "Escape From Oz."

Munchkin (Project 2025, Two.)

And Jesus answered and spoke unto them again by parables, and said,

The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,

And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.

Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.

But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:

And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.

But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

Then said he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.

Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.

So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:

And he said unto him, Friend, how came thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him in his talk.

And they sent out unto him their disciples with the Herodians, saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teaches the way of God in truth, neither care thou for any man: for thou regard not the person of men.

Tell us therefore, What think thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?

But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?

Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.

And he said unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?

They say unto him, Caesar's. Then said he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

When they had heard these words, they marveled, and left him, and went their way. ~Matthew 22:1-22

I'm working my way through reading Project 2025. The first chapter of this shit is an absolutely obsessive rundown of government agencies/organization from the White House on down, with a breakdown of responsibilities of each position and all type of stuff like that. And it reads like it was written by a policy obsessive who needed to go see a doctor for the huge purple priapism they had going by the time they got done with all that crap. Particular attention was spent on unelected and non-confirmed positions like White House staff, also. In case you were wondering how much input or oversight they want.

And I find it funny that this comes right after an intro that spent most of its time bashing "Government Bureaucrats" and basically claiming America would be a Conservative Utopia without them, like they thought nobody would notice that shit??

I'm a gamer, and I'll bet you ten bucks that whoever did the legwork on this chapter, at a minimum, is one of those freakish min-maxing Munchkin power-gamers who intends to "Win" at any cost no matter whether or not that's even the point of the damn game. 

Like, this is the kind of person who makes some Noble type character with an absolutely epic skill check in Bureaucracy and tries to kill your game universe with paperwork...and all they manage to do is make things extremely not-fun for everybody else until the other players finally manage to lock them in a closet with some nasty monster and then that guy has to bust ass and roll up a new character on the fly while everybody else is having fun, and you can just tell they hate every second of it.

I'm likewise here to tell you this shit is badly written...on purpose...like it reads like a Masters thesis written by a pothead who was deliberately stoned the whole time they were writing it...and if ever enacted, it sure wouldn't go far enough for the racists and religious nuts. 

People like Kandiss Taylor and Nick Fuentes don't read, and screwing over the entire country from the top down with legalese while Trump or some bellowing jackass just like him does their thing for the public isn't going to cut it as far as they're concerned. 

They wanna go straight to "Thog Smash!" 

And they're about as smart as that implies. 

Also, they don't care that such makes them easy to manipulate. There is such a thing as using Intelligence as your dump stat on purpose...I've done it building various characters, these idiots do themselves that way because if they don't know anything, they can believe whatever they want to.

Meanwhile actual non-weird people who are possibly intelligent or at least well-read enough to get a few of my references here are kicking their ass (And having a good time while doing it.) 

And oh my holy God are these fucking people MAD about it. I mean, like, holy shit.

I guess I just don't see the point of being an angry, joyless idiot who goes through life being pissed off all the time. But then, I've already had to beat addiction and depression, so I'd probably end up dead if I was acting like that.

Honestly it drives me a little crazy even having to witness somebody else doing that shit on a constant basis. 

I mean it, when I used to work at the casino there was nothing like getting stuck working in the breakroom or on any of the various associate dining equipment while seeing Tucker Carlson's sneering mug on one of the TV's half the night for making me want to punch somebody in the face. Usually, one of the people who'd turn that shit back to Fox News after I finally got sick of it and changed the channel to HGTV or something.

I mean, who the hell wants to watch that shit all night? (And yes, I know people who did it.)

Like, their whole damn thing is that America sucks and they hate it if they can't be in charge forever.

No reason given, hell, no reason needed. Like I said Yesterday it's like arguing with a religious nut about why exactly should you get the Jesus?? 

They fundamentally do not have a real answer to the question of "Why should they be in charge?" that's not rooted in their own narcissism and rock-solid belief that The Other Team Sucks for no better reason than The Other Guys/Girls/etc. aren't them.

It's part Narcissism, part Sports fandom generalized over to politics and I'm honestly fucking tired of this bullshit.

And now all these big-time "Conservatives" are enticed by Putin's offer of 'refuge from Western Liberalism' like they don't even remember the KGB, the Red Army, the Soviet Union or how Vladimir Putin got to be Vladimir motherfucking Putin in the fucking first place! 

This guy is not your friend, he's going to talk a bunch of obvious bullshit to your face and pat you on the head, and then a couple of his leg-breakers are gonna hand you a uniform and a rusty-ass AK-47 and shove you on a train to go fight under the Hammer and Sickle in Ukraine, and none of them give a fuck about you.

But the thing that gets me is there will be motherfuckers who take Putin up on this bullshit, because for them it's Anything But America.

Especially if the election goes the way it very much (and increasingly) looks like it's going to.

And I have absolutely no sympathy, Alex. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

And it's like, super telling, that they can't wait to fight against America, and against the global system their own forefathers created...because they were trying to prevent the next war...simply because things like exclusion, racism and segregation weren't sustainable in a changing, modern capitalist society that ultimately was going to need the money that Black folks or Latinos or LGBT folk would feed into the system once given full rights and participation and of course once they had buying power and political rights, they were obviously going to demand political power and full representation.

These fucking people would rather fight against America and face the full fury and power of American weapons in the Battlespace in the hands of irate Ukrainians than participate as free citizens in a free society where a Black woman has an extremely high likelihood of being President at all, much less soon.

Like I said, they're thinking "Thog Smash" and they're about as smart as that implies. They think having a gun and a bunch of macho bullshit is the same thing as actually being skilled in the Art Of War. I hate to tell you this, guys, but a hell of a lot of it is IT stuff now. Shit, it was heavily trending that way 30 years ago when I was serving. 

All the macho bullshit and Munchkin antics in the world ain't gonna save you from that skinny kid pushing a button in a Drone Control Center somewhere, and the sad part is, give that kid full battle rattle and a rifle and they'd still win because all the chest-thumping stupid in the world falls before even six weeks of Basic Military Training.

And it doesn't matter how good you can fight when you're up against an AGM-114 Hellfire missile.

What Project 2025 aims to do is take the edge off all that, and replace the United States Armed Forces with Trump's very own personal Red Army. Only thing is, look at how well the real one is working out for the Russians in Ukraine.

It's not and they just passed the grim milestone of 600,000 dead...in case you're wondering what they really want Alex Jones for.

Have fun in hell, idiots.

But please, remember to think a little about how you got there.

Same with Trump being all alone in a plastic box, still talking angry stupid but now he looks like an angry Gerbil in one of those plastic pet store tanks.

Of course for these motherfuckers, anything is better than admitting they fucked up.

Seriously, Y'all, how many times do I have to say it?

You either believe in freedom or you don't.

Слава Україна!

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

One

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night slanted against morning.

I turn this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.

I touch the name Andrew Johnson; I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman’s trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
~Facing It, by Yusef Komunyakaa, US Army Veteran

I Wanna Talk About Me (Project 2025, One.)

Yeah, yeah
That's right
We talk about your work how your boss is a jerk
We talk about your church and your head when it hurts
We talk about the troubles you've been having with your brother
About your daddy and your mother and your crazy ex-lover
We talk about your friends and the places that you've been
We talk about your skin and the dimples on your chin
The polish on your toes and the run in your hose
And God knows we're gonna talk about your clothes
You know talking about you makes me smile
But every once in a while

I wanna talk about me
Wanna talk about I
Want to talk about number one
Oh my me my
What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see
I like talking about you, you, you, you usually, but occasionally
I wanna talk about me
I wanna talk about me

~Toby Keith, I Wanna Talk About Me.

...

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

I saw this last night, and despite not feeling especially well today (Basic cold/flu bullshit I think I picked up at the store this morning) I've been following the DNC.

Some idiot CNN pundit is literally complaining that the Democratic National Convention isn't "White Enough."

Modern "Conservatives" have pretty much abandoned the American Revolution, they shit-canned Ronald Reagan at long last, and started confessing that they think a "Little intellectual elite" should make everybody's decisions for them.

So long as they think it's theirs.

And the first thing they do is accuse the Democrats (and government in general) of doing exactly the same thing they're doing.

Their whole bit is the "Left" is "Bad" and the "Government" sucks. You'll notice they never say how they think it's bad or what's bad about it, or why it sucks, only that it is that way or that's what it does. Hey, wait, aren't these people currently trying to be in government??

They don't even see that they're contradicting themselves, it's hypocritical and stupid.

That's what Project 2025 even is. I've read several summaries of it by other groups and today I started reading the actual Heritage Foundation PDF of the whole thing. It's a who's-who of abusive corrupt Republicans from the last 20 years with a large levy of ex-Trump Administration personnel besides.

It's the people who've trashed the Republican Party as it was and turned it into nothing but fuel for Trump's narcissism.

The entire prologue and mission statement of the thing reads like some idiot Evangelical garbage screaming "No, No, it HAS to be this way! You HAVE to believe exactly what I do! YOU HAVE TO!" No reason given. They don't have a reason. Because reason, conceptually, has nothing to do with this bullshit.

And the whole thing just oozes the idea that if you're not a Rich Straight White Conservative Christian Man, you should still have to act like one as best you can (or, in the case of women, submit to being their brood mare slaves) to do anything or get ahead, and they'll still hate you anyway. Even...especially...if it's not possible for you to be one of These Fucking People.

If you're the wrong Color, come from the wrong Culture or Religion, have the wrong Gender or sexual expression or simply don't Have any boots to bootstrap yourself up with to get so you could have any wealth in the first place, their whole bit is "Well, Fuck You, We've Got The Power, Forever."

(Unless you can overthrow them, and they can't ever imagine anybody could or would, until after it happens. Maybe we shouldn't let arrogant and unimaginative people who only care about themselves be in government??)

Yeah "...I've Got Mine" isn't enough anymore. This shit isn't about distribution of resources, or money, or social status in any conventional sense, it's nothing like that. 

They could reduce America to a Third World shithole where half the population is below that United Nations global poverty line of like $2 a day, torn apart by civil wars and religious strife, embargoed by half the world with them having to go about with large motorcades full of bodyguards (Pro tip: A couple of Trump administration officials got shit-canned for exactly that in 2017 and Trump is always doing this himself now, and filming the shit!) and as long as there are still a few Billionaires for them to suck off and get money from and they're in charge and Something something Macho Bullshit...all presided over by Donald Trump or some other simpering jackass just like him, well that's just America, being "Great Again."

You'll notice nobody asks "Great" for who??

Regardless of who you are, unless you're one of that small criminal elite of Trump-cocksuckers and religious toadies, the only correct answer to all that shit is literally "Not You."

And all they care about is that they have The Power.

If you're asking "The Power to do what??" You're already thinking about it more than they have, and the truth is all they want to have it for is to enrich and pleasure themselves.

And then they're always surprised when somebody fights back.

Even though it's literally human nature to resist, even though they do it too.

Part of it is, like I said, most of these people aren't exactly imaginative or intelligent and they always figure that because they can't wait to fall in line and get in their place and start backstabbing and scheming and sucking dick for power to replace the next guy up the line while hiding what they really are behind ideology and religion...everybody else must be that way too, and just claiming the wrong ideas.

This is why they can't handle either how Democrats (and a lot of everybody else) just got in line right behind Kamala Harris with no issues, nor how people like Barack & Michelle Obama and Tim Walz, among others, just show basic decency and humanity...not to mention humor.

"Conservatives" see America like some kind of Mississippi country club where they're the members. Oh, sure, they'll let the Black people be the dishwashers and the Latinos be the cooks and the grounds keepers but that's about it, and women "should" be the pretty baubles on the arm of the man, and the gays little more than a particularly illicit form of after-hours entertainment and so on and so forth, and no one should ever, ever challenge their power to make these decisions or step out of place without getting the money and power and social acceptance from them first. You see how this works?

I don't know why the fuck they think anybody else who doesn't already benefit from this system in some kind of way would even consider signing up for it, or voting for it, and I say that as both a former Republican and a white dude.

And they're mad that they're not a majority anymore...or at least not in a position to think they are...and certainly not one big enough to simply dictate to other people. 

Well, guess what? When I went to the store this morning (not to where I work, but the one just a couple blocks over) I stopped at the stoplight and a fairly well mixed group of mostly young people walked across the crosswalk in front of me, one that included Black kids and White kids, several Muslim people...both men and women in Hijab...of various ages and extractions and yeah, the obvious Christian kid too. 30 years ago, seeing a group of people like that here would've been like spotting a Unicorn in the wild. 

Now it's no big deal and nothing more than a pleasant surprise to people like me, who remember...as I've said before...when if you saw an Arab or Black or Latino person here, they were most likely to be an Airman at Wurtsmith Air Force Base or attached to somebody who was, or maybe National Guard, and here for training at the CRTC.

It's not like that anymore, and thank God for that. We still have those people, but they're only a part of this vibrant area and country!

Me? 

I wanna live in a world where the Vice President and major-party candidate can and does use American Sign Language!

The truth is these motherfuckers have never been the majority, but there were always apathetic people who'd just go along with whatever they said, because it was easy.

But in the last nine years Conservatives and Republicans have pushed too far and pissed off way too many people...including people like me. I'm White, I'm a former Republican, I have a church background and I'm a veteran. For the record, I'd never have been on board with something like Project 2025. I'm not a huge fan of "Big Government" almost especially when it's trying to dictate how I live my life, and even more so when it's trying to dictate religion and sexuality and social status...even if I was notionally in some of those groups, I knew enough people who were not and never could have been without giving up what they are. 

So yeah, this shit isn't easy anymore, it's mostly just aggravating to deal with, evil, and wrong. Also, now most of us are tired of this bullshit and especially of the fact that they tried to use Donald Trump as a battering ram and a figurehead for all this fucking Evangelical theocratic bullshit...a man who not only believes not a word of it, but delights in breaking the Lord's Word, publicly and right in your face, and then laughing at you if you try to say something. I'll never forget standing there in my living room watching Trump say live on CNN that he "Didn't need God's forgiveness." If these people were who they say, it should've ended there.

I find it pathetic that Christians and Republicans were all in for that, and were even fine with being routinely disrespected...by Trump. All because they thought they were gonna use him to create a world where everybody else exists to jack off their narcissism. I've dealt with people who had personality disorders, no, it doesn't work that way. They use you to get that narcissistic high and then you get thrown away like a bent Pepsi can they were using to smoke their drugs off of.

And for all that, they're gonna lose, but Republicans have still debased themselves.

Fuck them.

And if they try to fight about it, well, like I said, freedom isn't free. Sometimes, you gotta fight for it.

Слава Україна!

And so tomorrow, as we take the campaign South and West, as we learn that the struggles of the textile workers in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of L.A.; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people, we are one nation. And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can. ~Barack Obama

Prequel

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