As the Year 2025 Ends

The thing about New Year's Eve is that it allows you to say farewell to the previous year - 2025 - while greeting the incoming year - 2026 - with a certain level of cheer and optimism. 

So the best I can say about 2025 - all of the damage and disaster and human rights violations and destruction of national norms (and buildings) - is "What that trip really necessary?"

And the best I can say about going into 2026 is "Are we all ready to fight our way out of the bullshit storm trump and his lackeys are about to overwhelm us with, as they escalate their war on everyone who's not Rich, White, and Male?" 

I don't have much optimism or cheer this evening. I do have resolve and a willingness to stand up for myself and others when the Far Right thugs are going to come for everything - our freedoms, our communities, our love of people - that makes us true Americans.

Come at us, 2026. We're not going anywhere without a fight.

Say Hello to the Second American Civil War Between the Far Right Haters and Everybody Else

"Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not." - Aragorn, The Two Towers.

I want you to follow this link to Adam L Silverman's article at Balloon Juice. Silverman has been pointing out for YEARS the escalation of white supremacist terrorism in the United States and to him we are at the official point of all-out civil war.

It’s that simple. You’re either on the side of the Statue of Liberty or the side of the tiki torch neo-NAZIs and white supremacists. There is no Both Siding this. There is no “if my favorite candidate isn’t the nominee, I’m not voting because I won’t compromise my ideals and ideological purity”. Refusing to pick a torch, is refusing to take a stand. It is putting yourself and whatever your pet issue or issues are over promoting the general welfare and providing for the common defense. None of your high minded, ideologically pure agenda is going to ever get enacted if you don’t stand with those standing with Lady Liberty against the nationalist conservatives, the white supremacists, neo-nationalists, neo-fascists, and neo-NAZIs. Failing to pick a torch moves us one step closer to a white Christian herrenvolk democracy dictatorship in the US where everyone who isn’t white and Christian has their rights challenged, limited, and/or taken away.

I have been screaming "For the Love of GOD stop voting Republican" for years. Now you see why. I saw this end result, same as Silverman and thousands like us. All this rage and hatred the Far Right was stirring up for decades was going to lead to bloodshed. Well, now we're here.

Stand up for the children shoved into cages. Stand up for the families getting shot by terrorists dreaming of their "Turner Diaries" Whites-Only Utopia. Stand up for yourself, because you aren't safe from ANY of this, even if you're White Hetero Male. Sooner or later, these haters will come for you, because they can't stop themselves. Their hate can never be sated.

We've seen this before. It's happening again.

Stand up, dammit. The entire nation depends on it.

Four For the Fourth 2018: Four Things To Note (w/ Update)

We are still in a precarious and devastating situation with donald trump sitting in the White House.

1) trump is making plans to visit with his boss Putin soon... and wants to do it alone without any other staffer or observer in the room with him. GODS help us with whatever mischief trump wants to do behind those closed doors.

2) trump keeps making noise about wanting to invade somewhere so he can get his war groove on (the need of a bullying autocrat to prove his manhood through the blood and sacrifice of others). he wants a war with Iran but no other nation will back us on that (other than Saudi Arabia and Israel, and there's no guarantee they'll be of any help). he wanted a war with North Korea but Kim Jong-un played trump like a fiddle, and now trump is deluding himself into thinking his overtures to Korea will earn him a Nobel Peace Prize. So now trump is rumored looking at Venezuela, a bankrupt and starving nation on the brink of civil war itself, as a great place to invade except for the fact that our current standing in South and Central America earns us NO regional allied support and we'd be going into a situation that can quickly devolve into a Vietnam-esque jungle hell.

3) Rumors now abound that trump is looking at shutting down the Mueller investigations in the bluntest way possible, with support from EPA director Scott Pruitt apparently dropping hints he'd be more than ready to take the Attorney General spot from the recused Jeff Sessions. If trump tries this - by abusing a loophole to avoid a Senate vote (since even the GOP Senate would balk at any attempt to fire Sessions) - Pruitt would then simply fire Deputy AG Rosenstein and order Mueller to shut down and hand all materials to himself (but really to trump). This move would not only have the effect of gutting and politicizing the Department of Justice and the FBI, it would also put the most corrupt sonofabitch in trump's Cabinet - Pruitt makes trump look like a fucking choir boy - in control of our federal law enforcement: This is akin to putting John Gotti in charge of the FBI's Racketeering division. There have been corrupt men in charge of the DoJ before - Ed Meese, John Mitchell, Harry Daugherty - Pruitt has the potential of besting all of them as the most corrupt bastard ever. Okay, disregard this. It turns out Pruitt's headaches weren't worth it for trump after all. But a plan like this is likely in the works. Except now I fear it involves Jared.

4) We are as voters facing the likelihood of massive voter suppression efforts by Republicans to ensure they retain control of Congress this Midterms cycle. There is a serious need by Americans who aren't registered to vote to get registered, and there is a serious need by registered voters to get the damn vote out, and there is a serious need by the majority of Americans who HATE trump to vote every goddamn cowardly Republican official out of office. The only way voter suppression fails is when there's too many of us voting to stop us.

So that's where we stand tonight, America.

Get the vote out.

Your vote is your power. Your power is your freedom.

Out In the Streets, Fighting for Justice

I plan on being at the Families Belong Together rally in Lakeland this afternoon.

Pics to prove it happened forthcoming.

Stay safe at these rallies today, America.

It Should Be THIS Simple, America

Every American has a moral choice. One or the other, can't be both.

That moral choice is this. To be a Nazi, or to Punch Nazis.

Okay, I don't condone SHOOTING Hitler, but hey if he comes back as a demon or something,
you might have to.

The moral choice is clear, my fellow Americans.

You should not stand with Nazis, you should not agree with Nazis, you should not march with Nazis.

Punch a Nazi. It's what Americans have been doing since 1941 (ehhhh, maybe 1933 but not officially).