Enjoy today. Celebrate today. Take a breather today.
But do not let today become the start of complacency. Let today be what starts a fire for years to come to change the world into a better place.
Let’s dedicate all of the energy we used resisting Trump’s bigoted rhetoric and harmful policies to keeping Biden accountable for making decisions that move us forward.
Swedish university finds ‘dramatic shift’ in GOP under Trump, shunning democratic norms and encouraging violence
The Republican party has become dramatically more illiberal in the past two decades and now more closely resembles ruling parties in autocratic societies than its former centre-right equivalents in Europe, according to a new international study.
In a significant shift since 2000, the GOP has taken to demonising and encouraging violence against its opponents, adopting attitudes and tactics comparable to ruling nationalist parties in Hungary, India, Poland and Turkey.
The shift has both led to and been driven by the rise of Donald Trump.
This 1992 song is more relevant than ever today. In 2018 we got the KKK and nazis marching in the streets while a white supremacist president praises them as fine patriots, we finally believe the Anita Hills, and we got the youth revolting against the morally degenerate politicians who happily enable the proliferation of war machines and cheer on the hateful policies of a fascist regime. I admit that I was feeling resentful of young people who seemed complacent and indulgent in their privilege, but now after seeing the passion and activism of high school students across the country, I’m so damn proud of America’s youth.
On January 20, racists will feel emboldened. They will target the most vulnerable members of our community. Defend them, defend yourself. Let’s look out for each other. Don’t be afraid, make them afraid! Confrontation is the solution.
Trump’s ‘Fight!’ Tweet Signals Time to Confront Mexican Scapegoating
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump went on Twitter this morning to incite violence against Mexicans. “I love the Mexican people, but Mexico is not our friend. They’re killing us at the border and they’re killing us on jobs and trade. FIGHT!”, Trump tweeted.
Calling on his Twitter followers to “FIGHT!” Mexicans marks a new low for the belligerent Trump. In doing so, he uses the threat of violence in an attempt to quell criticism and, we feel, as retaliation in response to the backlash he’s received over his original anti-Mexican comments made almost two weeks ago in announcing his candidacy.
Such hate speech leads to violence and death, as we’ve seen one too many times in our community.
Shown above are:
Brisenia Flores, 9, shot and killed by Minute Men in their Arizona home in May 2009. Her father Raúl was also killed. Her mother was shot, but survived.
Juan Varela,shot and killed in May 2010 days after SB1070 was passed in Arizona by a neighbor who yelled, “You fucking Mexican, go back to Mexico!” Varela’s family has lived in Arizona since before 1848 when it was still a part of Mexico.
Luis Ramírez,beaten to death by 4 teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, in July 2008. “Tell your Mexican friends to get the fuck out of Shenandoah,” one of Ramírez’s assailants yelled at him before he was attacked.
10 anti-Mexicanhatecrimeswerereported in the Port Richmond neighborhood of Staten Island, New York, in 2010. The victims were typically men on their way home from work. Almost all of the assailants were young black men.
Anti-Mexican hate speech can’t go unchallenged. The scapegoating of Mexicans ends today!
This was originally posted June 30, 2015. Time to revisit it as we approach a country of racists led by Trump.
On January 20, racists will feel emboldened. They will target the most vulnerable members of our community. Defend them, defend yourself!
Reminds me of that observation by Pelosi that she was struck by how swift and decisive her young staffers were, knowing instinctually to barricade the door, shut the lights and get under the table, because they had spent so much of their childhood doing active shooter drills.
sorry to be pedantic for a moment but this is important: those young staffers didn’t know what to do INSTINCTIVELY, they knew what to do REFLEXIVELY. the human instinct in confusing and scary situations is just to freeze up and look around for direction. untrained people in a group will almost always react to deadly situations by freezing up in confusion. this is why we have drills: to teach people over and over what to do when they can’t think of what to do.
gonna stress this again, those young people were reacting reflexively. not instinctively, reflexively. they had been drilled, over and over, until they were at the point where those reactions happened automatically, not because of an inherent human instinct, but because when confusion and fear shut their brains down, trained reflex took over, and they did as they had been taught.
active shooter drills in school are arguably really stressful and traumatizing to kids. it’s definitely fucked up a generation, though the blame can probably be put on our awful gun laws rather than trying to deal with the reality of so many awful people having so fucking many guns. but in this one awful situation, with all the awful people, and all the guns, where the worst did actually happen and a lot of unprepared old people just froze up, those kids’ drills went and saved a lot of lives.
this thread is so worth checking out - it’s actually pretty frightening how perfectly he mimics the language and tone of right wing/conservatives or basically the entire White House right now.
When you perfect satire to the point were it could pass as the original
1. The way he’s been able to continue functioning is a classic rich fuck tactic, in which if your business fails to the tune of, say, 15 million dollars, you can carry that loss forward across several years to avoid paying taxes. One massive loss can clear out your personal tax burden for several years, even as you bring in more money with new businesses and investments.
2. Trump is literally a national security risk. If he underwent the same background check other people need to pass to get clearance, he would have fucking flunked it. The NYT piece says there’s a mysterious foreign debt lender on Trump’s records, whom he owes half a billion dollars, and we don’t currently know who the fuck that is. But that debt is personally guaranteed to come due in the next few years, and he doesn’t have the money to even dent it. So, what does a man with no morals do when he owes a shitton of money and has no way to pay? Apparently he runs for president.
3. According to Dan Alexander at Forbes, the actual amount that Trump owes is spread across a lot of his properties and comes to around $1.1 billion overall. Same dude is trying to tally up how much income Trump’s properties bring in. So far, it doesn’t add up to that much.
4. Trump’s businesses are almost exclusively real estate, hospitality, and attractions. All of them were hit hard by COVID. This readily explains why he was so adamant about reopening the country as quickly as possible; his loan repayments depend on that income.
5. Also explains why he spends so much time away from the WH and at his own properties. When we talk about how much the taxpayer spends on Trump’s outings and golf trips, if that money is paid to the Trump Organization, it’s essentially an attempt to funnel money out of the US Govt and into his pockets to, again, prepare to pay off his massive debts.
6. He’s essentially using the IRS as a loan provider. That massive 72.9 million dollar tax return from the IRS that he’s being audited over, it’s essentially him taking out a ‘loan’ to try to pay down other prior debts.
7. Oh yeah and he stealthily wrote off a bunch of money in “consulting fees” that were paid to fucking Ivanka. Imagine using your own daughter to dodge taxes, jesus.
Basically, Trump has done the billionaire version of taking out a credit card to pay off other credit card debt, and the time is running out for him to make payments. His entire presidency is a money-making scheme of someone who is coming up on major deadlines on his loans and doesn’t have the money to pay.
There’s a lot of reading to do, but I personally suggest this thread from the Forbes guy, which outlines how much Trump is in debt for each of his properties, and then how much operating profit is allegedly coming in.
me, turning up to heaven’s requests department with my request forms all filled out: hi, i’d like to submit my request to the council of gods
woman at the front desk: alright, honey, just hand me your papers. (she reads them over) so…let me get this straight, your request is to have George Washington raised from the dead for the sole purpose of beating the absolute shit out of Donald Trump?
me, nodding: yep, that’s correct
the woman: i-i think i’m going to have to speak to my boss about this. i’ll be right back
me: take your time
the woman goes up the bureaucratic hierarchy until she gets to the council of gods themselves: excuse me your divine eminences, i have a request here that needs you to look over it
ares:hand it to me (she hands it to him) this is a request for raising George Washington from the dead for the sole purpose of beating the shit out of Donald Trump?
the woman: y-yes, sir, it is
ares, turning to face the rest of the gods (greek pantheon, christianity, paganism, muslim and all gods from other religions included, also buddha is there): am i the only one who thinks that this request is bullshit?
the woman, sweating but relieved:n-
she’s cut off by the rest of the gods: NO, IT’S NOT BULLSHIT! THIS SHOULD’VE BEEN DONE AGES AGO
ares, turning to face the woman again and handing her the piece of paper: get it done and have it televised
woman, returning to me in the requests department lobby: t-they’ve decided to grant your request.
