I was going to stop blogging, then watched Colbert and
I told you Melania was a spy
Based on a joke by Stephen Colbert last night; also read more posts about Melania the Spy here
https://cityofangels25.blogspot.com/search?q=melania+spy
***
First official use of “Gulf of America” was from Florida, a state that denies global warming, announcing a snow storm coming in from the west in January. (per Stephanie Miller) Right now New Orleans is having a blizzard. Snow blizzard same month California had fire during rainy season. And Trumpsters still deny climate change due to a heating planet, they want it to heat more. Ayayayaya
***
How Melania got dressed yesterday
***
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” says Trump.
Hmnnnnn... 
...
...Matthew 24:24
TRUMP'S PLAN FOR THE WALL
***
Wow. I read that Trump has already withdrawn USA from the Paris Climate Accords and a belch came up from deep inside that, I swear, made me taste gas, car exhaust, CO2 in my mouth. My first thought was I knew it, living in pollution is what has made me this sick in the first place. I also felt a kind of connection with Earth as the gases came up from my insides into my mouth. Our planet is sick too…
**
Elon Musk et al have read too many comics and not enough astrophysics
***
8 years ago this photo was my post on Facebook; oh how naive we all were
***
This really is happening
The Rachel Maddow Show 1/20/25 "This is not a drill"
TRANSCRIPT
Earlier in the day, we started seeing messages fly
from january th, defendants and their families claiming even before any
official pardons had been signed, that they were getting word that their
charges were being dropped or they were being processed for release from
prison. This is one of the earliest messages we saw today online. This man
claiming the justice department was dropping his pending criminal case. This is
a man who had been charged with beating police officers with a baseball bat.
That's him with the black bat there on the left side of your screen. That's at
the capitol building. Obviously, on january th, there had been word, including
from vice president j.d. vance, that nobody charged with violence against
police officers would be pardoned by trump. But this man today posted online
that he'd heard that his case was being dropped tonight. Within the past hour,
we got word that there appears to not have been a distinction made between
those convicted of just participating in the january th attack and those who
participated violently in the attack, including those who attacked police
officers physically. The list of people whose sentences were commuted by trump
today commuted to time served so they can be released. Released from prison
includes some of the people convicted of violence against police officers. It
includes paramilitary leaders who were sentenced for seditious conspiracy for
attempting to overthrow the u.s. government by force. You may have seen today
that the proud boys put on their full colors and marched today in washington in
advance of tonight's announcement, saying, free our boys. Well, now, their
leaders and their members convicted of trying to overthrow the government and
of violence against police officers, they are all being sprung out of prison,
people all together, either receiving pardons and commutations from trump
tonight, of all the possibilities considered about what trump would do with the
people who committed violence on his behalf on january th, this was the maximalist
option. Pardoning and commuting all of their sentences so that all of them are
released. This was the maximalist option, and, you know, like the blatant
transactional, open for business corruption, you know, founding his own
currency that you can buy to put money in his pocket the weekend before he
becomes president. Aside from all of that, just blatant open for business
corruption. What we're seeing here with the january th pardons, this kind of
thing does have the benefit of novelty, right? We've never quite seen something
like this before, but like with the corruption, the boring thing about it is
that we know exactly what this leads to. Authoritarian rulers all over the
world have always liked to have paramilitary, loyal, but unofficial perpetrators
of violence and menace to work on their behalf to intimidate and hurt anyone in
opposition, to make it too scary for normal people to participate in politics
or civic life. To make everybody who might oppose trump in any way worry about
the thugs that might turn up at their door. Trump pardoning and released from
prison the january th defendants, including the paramilitaries, means he is
effectively immunizing his followers from committing violence in his name. He's
making clear, you know, if you support me, the law doesn't apply to you. Not
incidentally, the people he's pardoning and their families will feel like they
owe trump everything and that they therefore should and now can do absolutely
anything for him. In authoritarian hungary, viktor orban's government pardoned
a far right agitator who had set fire to the homes of orban's political rivals
in turkey. Erdogan had pardoned the leader of a far right nationalist
paramilitary group that mobilized on his behalf and engaged in street violence
in zimbabwe. Robert mugabe pardoned hundreds of people who carried out election
related violence on his behalf. Pinochet in chile and fujimori in peru gave
blanket amnesties to their security forces. If you're on my side, the law
doesn't apply to you. Don't even ask me about the essay in germany. Don't get
me started. But this is day one, unfolding pretty much the way we expected it
to. And yes, this is novel in american history, but it is also knowable in
world history because it's the same stuff every other would be authoritarian
leader does. In every country that has had to contend with a leader like that,
and as americans, you know, we've had bad inaugurations before, including the
one where one of the principals was too drunk to stand. We've had blatant cash
in envelopes to the vice president corruption before we've had political
violence before we've had civil war. But before each of those things has been
treated as a calamity and a scandal. This time, it's a platform. This is
textbook authoritarian takeover tactics, which means today and literally over
the next few days, they're going to see what they can get away with and how
much they can cow people into not opposing what they're doing and not speaking
out about what's wrong with it. More than ever, this is not a time to pretend
this isn't happening. You're going to want to have a good answer. When you get
asked what you did for your country. When your country started to take a turn.
This radical. We are here. It is happening in our lifetimes.
***
Watch MSNBC video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2lMQ6pysAs&t=1s
***
Kay is still blogging
No comments:
Post a Comment