Look, all we're (I'm) asking for is a single sentence at the top of one of these Slog AM posts: "Mea Culpa: we were wrong about the whole Biden/Harris thing."

Thutmose II's tomb was emptied out long ago, so don't get super excited, kids.

Fuck MFer extorting Ukraine for minerals. Worst person in America, top 5 worst on the planet. Absolutely shameful.

Great round up Nathalie - you can relax about one thing though. Quantum computing is opening up the exciting field of quantum-resistant cryptography.

@1 Hannah's gone (for now?) so that'll have to do.

On a related note, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Slog AM for now embedding Bluesky links when discussing the cesspool of Twitter and its owner. TY Nathalie!

"If you want a city attorney who will defend our city against authoritarianism, remember that when your ballot comes for the August primary."

Just a reminder that TS is as much responsible for Davison being elected as anyone by endorsing someone who even liberals found so repulsive they literally voted for a republican. Many of us prefer a city attorney who will actually do the job than someone who will virtual signal while ignoring the issues of the city and actively working to undermine public safety.

Say, by “bootlicking Trump fan,” did the Stranger mean to imply the elected official in question actually campaigned for Trump’s election? Because that would be bad, right?

@1: I’d hoped dismissal of several liars from the Stranger’s writing staff might mean a refreshing change, but when even longtime writer Nathalie Graham cranks out such rhetoric as, “bootlicking Trump fan” to describe an elected official in Seattle, it’s probably better just to sigh and admit it’s going to be same-old same-old around here, at least for awhile.

@3:

Why do y'all insist on using plural or indefinite pronouns such as "we", "nobody", "everybody", etc., etc., when referring to something YOU - and almost always ONLY you - want or have a specific opinion about? I realize we now live in a time where people who aren't elected to office just feel free to take on any title or position they choose, but I am here to tell you, and all of the rest of you who think similarly, that you DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME. I didn't elect you to be my spokesperson, I don't NEED or WANT you to speak on my behalf. Give your balls a tug and at least have the courage of standing behind your own ridiculous racist, homo/transphobic, misogynistic, whatever, rantings and stop trying to hide behind this non-existent "we".

@6 Nathalie is correct, though. https://www.theurbanist.org/2024/12/07/davisons-extreme-agenda/

Also, Nathalie, you forgot one additional state of readily observable matter: plasma. I think, for the purpose of your article, there's no need to also include intermediate states or more esoteric ones such as Bose-Einstein condensates, Fermionic condensates, quark-gluon plasma and the like.

@6 Considering you have been shitting on the Stranger for decades now, it's surprising you still expect them to move to the "center" (aka corporate Democrat) or perhaps you should overcome your obsession and stop commenting here since you dislike it so much?

@6: I overlooked that. That is bad.
@7:

Thank you, Nathalie, for sharing another classic rock hit, Dream On by Aerosmith, with Steve Tyler on lead vocals.
Oh, the memories---I was singing right along to the song lyrics. It was just what griz needed and made my Friday. As usual, your music library consistently keeps on kicking serious ass! Don't ever stop. :)

Jesus WEPT! First, Mu$k'$ Mein Trump kills Bonneville Power Administration to fuck up our state's energy grid.
Then, it's gutting Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP to those among us who need these benefits the most. On with Heritage Foundation level misogyny, and ordering antidepressants off the market for women who need them. Now Mu$k'$ Mein Trumpf is out to kill our USPS mail system, too!? When will this dystopian fascist billionaires-run-amok nightmare ever END?? And this is only the first MONTH of this RepubliKKKan fascist reign of terror!!

@3 Phoebe in Wallingford: Down, girl, down. You don't speak for me, either.

Actually, it's not just NRA-fueled cops, but batshit RepubliKKKans who comprise the biggest gang in AmeriKKKa.

ROTFFLMAO!!! Yeah Phoebe you SUCK!!! See you next week dumbass!
Fuck Drumpf and Fuck the GOP. Fuck MAGA too. Fuckedy-fuckedy-fuck-fuck-fuck Fuck 'em!!!

O, Canada, say fuck off Mu$k and Trumpf......

@12: About what?

The new state of matter is called a topological state or a toplogical superconductor. A qubit is the fundamental unit of information used in quantum computing.

A 2022 study found there was no basis for to support the serotonin deficiency theory of depression. Another study found as many as 50% of SSRI users are unable to quit taking the drugs without withdrawal symptoms. The FDA labels these drugs with a black box warning due to their potential to increase suicidal thinking and actuation. And these drugs can have a significant impact on libido, especially in men. There are many good reasons for the FDA to conduct new reviews of the safety and efficacy of these drugs. That 33% of Seattle women use SSRIs is no surprise to me. Leftist women frequently show the greatest incidence of depression (more than leftist men and WAY WAY more than conservative men or women.) And that makes sense. Of course you are going to be depressed if you refuse to have children (fulfilling your biological imperative) or believe falsely that the world will end due to climate change, etc. Those ladies need to find a nice conservative man and get married. That will help far more than an SSRI.

The Post Office, in so much as it is called for in the Constitution actually should be a full federal agency. Semi-privatization certainly did nothing to improve it's competitiveness. As usual, Trump is right again.

$340 billion for border security and deportations is money well spent. Good job Senators!

And lastly, we won't be taking Canada. At least not if they vote the right way in their referendum to join the US.

Trump’s 0-for-2 on the two biggest sporting events since his inauguration. Hope he roots for OKC to win the NBA title.

@8: The Urbanist piece on Davison, insofar as it concerns Trump, merely warms-over the same rehashed guilt-by-association accusations which failed to prevent her election when they were first used. Essentially, it scolds Seattle’s voters for daring to elect a Republican, just as the Stranger’s endorsements of NTK blithely assumed Seattle’s voters wouldn’t dare vote Republican. As @5 noted, this line of thinking failed then; there’s no reason to believe it will work any better now, but I guess that’s the best the Stranger and the Urbanist have, so they’re using it.

Meanwhile, actually working towards Trump’s election does not suffice to justify criticism from the Stranger, at least for one former Seattle elected official. Speaking of which:

@10: Here we go again. Slog comments go back to 2009, so you should have no problem finding me “shitting” on the Stranger at least that far back, right? (Cue bluster about how you don’t need evidence, because your opinions hold the status of Fact.)

JFC… Nathalie… you are a fucking dumbass.

The state of Washington is already a party to the NIH lawsuit. Those other cities filed amicus briefs… look up what that means. They are not suing… the states already sued. Seattle doesn’t need “to sue” because the state already took care of that necessity. Seattle filing an amicus brief would be just legal theater. The states AG already had this… and the states are highly likely to win (thank god).

Seriously, do an ounce of reasearch to understand what you are complaining about.

Sad and sobering morning at the warehouse this morning. Found my Ukranian coworker "P" staring into the recycle bin with tears welling. Why? The Trump betrayal this week, of course. And also, remarkably, regret that P voted for him...even though a professed Ukrainian nationalist.

Cue the record scatch sound. P, it turns out, was not alone. P is a devout evangelical, and apparently WA state hosts a disproportionate number of evangelical Ukranians. Most of his congregation voted for the orange man. P told me they were planning on renting buses and driving across the country to DC in order to protest any unjust peace.

Why would evangelical Ukranians support someone who, if nothing else, had very suspect concern for Ukranians sovereignty? Well, it turns out the communists really had it out for evangelicals and agressively persecuted them more than Orthodox or Catholics. P's father led an underground church group that was eventually discovered. The adults were all arrested and imprisoned. When P arrived at school the next day, a party commisar was waiting for the class, announcing what had occurred, then humiliating the children by calling out their names, having them stand before the class and lectured about their parents errant ways.

These collective memories informed this population long after they emigrated and it created a lever for their political behavior in their new host countries. And tragically for them, rationalizing away Trumps affection for Putin was a consequence for fealty to a party seen as more faith friendly. Now...supreme regret.

My personal reaction to this? The country is truly a big and diverse place and it is virtually impossible to know the inner workings of any population. I'm also confident that our current political dystopia will not last long for the simple fact that every day this administration is making enemies even among erstwhile supporters. This week alone we have over a million enraged Ukrainian Americans. Next week it will be the families of postal workers. Trumps Carthaginian pillaging of the republic will continue but his movement will eventually find itself alone in a box canyon, and be slain, and P will and his family will be holding swords along with the rest of us.

@21: yet Biden was a practicing Christian and MFer breaks commandments every day. Dems have plenty of monotheists in their camp.

glad P(avel?) at least knows that Leopards ate his face.

@16 Phoebe in Wallingford: Was COMTE (@7) responding to another comment @3 that got pulled?
Otherwise, I find the overwhelming majority of what is rapidly emerging currently in technology alarming.
I am a fan of neither AI nor cryptology. Never needed either one and never will.
Mu$k, Bezo$, ad nauseum are out for profit$, profit$, profit$ and couldn't care less about the average citizen of this RepubliKKKan benighted country, let alone the very planet they are hellbent to destroy.
Please try to keep up.

@19 "Meanwhile, actually working towards Trump’s election does not suffice to justify criticism from the Stranger, at least for one former Seattle elected official."

What do you and all the other people desperately trying to blame Sawant for the loss by depressing turnout have to say about this:

"Ann Davison, an attorney and arbitrator, disavowed the Democratic Party in 2020, spending most of the year running for lieutenant governor as a Seattle-bashing Republican — and recording a video for a national pro-Donald Trump “#WalkAway” campaign of ex-Democrats."

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/seattle-city-attorney-rivals-face-blowback-over-anti-police-tweets-republican-affiliation/

What Davison did was at least equivalent, but strangely I don't hear a lot of anger directed at her from the Slog commentariat.

@21: they might be worried about a voter backlash if they had any intention of ever holding elections.

@10
danke.

“Bond
will receive
all his new tools
via Prime one-day delivery.”

Hell they’re gonna fly Jimmy
Everywhere a drone might
Go, and then some

plus his little
drone Ammamercenary
Crew: Well-armed quasi-Legal
shoot First & ask your questions Later

w/Bezoz
in his Mid-ocean
Hideaway, stroking his pussy
cat* ala Ernst Stavro Blofeld of SPECTRE infamy

wait’ll
Thedonolde
Steps in & De-
Mands HIS Share

*& all
Bond’s
galfriends
Amazonians™
Any color you desire

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9184687/How-Russia-began-grooming-Donald-Trump-40-years-ago-saving-financial-ruin-book-claims.html

Czar Trump

Re: 19: We've got a real doozy from Tense & Ornery today. First they blast the City Attorney's critics for their objections to her GOP membership and support for DJT; it appears they find Seattle voters overly doctrinaire when it comes party membership in their candidate choices. Next, in practically the same digital breath, they (backhandedly, natch) accuse non-DNC member, socialist former Councilperson Sawant of being the real villain - in short, of "actually working" for Trump's campaign!
Trapped inside such a delirious mental universe as they are, it's no wonder Tense & Ornery is so...well...tense and ornery. It looks like overconsumption of anti-depressants might not be a problem for Seattlites after all: it's underconsumption of antipsychotics. It's one thing to believe that/care about whether 3rd party candidates depress DNC votes; it's another to believe that they're actually operatives of the GOP. The first is stupid, a belief of gullible dupes; the latter delusional, a product of angry, violent minds.

@23: Cryptography and encryption are in use constantly to keep your private information and financial details safe from hackers. All without your explicit blessing. Even your Slog password is encrypted (I hope) and not just hanging out in a text file somewhere.

@28

had we ample
antipsychotics we'd
likely never Need antifa

great comment.

@20: That's good feedback, but at least she casts a wide net of morning items and, at least I, don't get the impression that she is annoyed by having to do Slog AM - like Ashley seemed to be.

@19,

Not sure what you're point is here, but your first ever comment posted to the site in 2009 is you shitting on the Stranger, in the first sentence of your first comment no less. Shitting on beloved best selling author Lindy West specifically, calling her a bad writer, sneering, and condescending, among other things.

https://www.thestranger.com/features/2009/10/01/2358440/news-flash-i-didnt-like-hooters/comments/133

You've got over 7,000 comments between your two profiles, the majority of which I'm gonna go out on a ledge and assume are shitting on the many writers the paper has employed over the course of the past 16 years. Not sure what you're getting out of it for your efforts, but I guess I hope it's bringing you some manner of happiness & satisfaction.

@32: "Not sure what you're getting out of it for your efforts, but I guess I hope it's bringing you some manner of happiness & satisfaction."

You're overthinking this. A large percentage of all comments over the years is pointing out inaccuracies in content.

"pointing out inaccuracies in content."

As opposed to say, baselessly disparaging the personal character of a local journalist simply because you dislike them, and know you can get away with it because you're just an anonymous troll, unlike the object of your derision? Like you did here?

https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2025/01/20/79881940/slog-am-inauguration-day-tiktok-whiplash-and-city-council-finalists/comments

I don't want to harp on a single comment and obviously know I obviously should (and will) just let it go, but this really struck me as a fucking shitty ass thing for you to do, and caused me to lose a ton of respect for you personally. You never clarify what "allegations" against Rich you were waiting for to be clarified because there aren't any. It's public knowledge that he spent a night with a council candidate while employed by The Stranger while employed as the paper's editor. The incident happened long after the paper published their endorsements, though it still arguably constituted a violation of journalistic ethics and could obviously be a sign of poor judgment on his part (though even this is highly subjective and subject to speculation with respect to the personal and relative motivations of both parties.) Absolutely none of this impugns his personal character or integrity as a person however, as you insinuated.

Honestly, the most logical takeaway from your comment there is either that you either disapprove of adults having interpersonal relations out of wedlock, or that you just hate him as a person and know that you can talk trash on his personal character online because you're anonymous and he's not. Both are incredibly shitty takes for which you should apologize (and FWIW, I can't imagine Rich reads the slog comments these days, though we should all strive for principled interactions, and I'm certainly guilty of hypocrisy on this front plenty often. Working on that.)

Alright, whatever and I'll drop it. Looks like the Mariners got off to a great start to the season with a 5-2 loss to open spring training. I'm gonna get drunk.

@32: Interesting that you opted to give your opinion of what I wrote, rather than quoting any of it. Ditto with the headline post. (Did someone above say something about presenting opinions as facts?)

Here's what your "beloved best selling author" wrote about a woman who dared work at Hooters:

'We enter the restaurant, seat ourselves in a booth, and meet our waitress, a truly sweet young lady who, in the spirit of Hooters Family Restaurants, I'm going to go ahead and call Professor Boobies. She is nervous. Clearly, she has been instructed to flirt with us. "So have you all eaten at Hooters restaurants before?" Professor Boobies asks, looking around the table expectantly. "Yes." "Yes." "Yes." "No." I have not. I am the only one. "Oooooooo!" she peeps. "Hooters viiiiiiirgin!" I prepare to lose my Hooters virginity. I hope Hooters will use a condom. "It's nice outside, huh?" Professor Boobies asks. "Yeah, it's sunny!" we reply. "And in September!" "It's almost October," I remind her. "HALLOWEEEEEN!" she cries, clapping her hands.'

This is the writing you're suiting up to defend, after fifteen years? Do you think it has aged well? What did you most like about it: the privileged writer snidely using the term, "Professor," to describe a working-class woman, or the use of "Boobies" for her name? Which was more feminist for you?

As I responded:

'If the wait staff has any brains, they'll pretend to like you. That goes for any restaurant on the planet. Had our writer referred to her waiter as "Attentive Working Woman", instead of the demeaning term she chose, how would the rest of the article appeared?

'Some of us get easy jobs, like typing about stuff. Others have to haul ass and hustle for tips. We in the former class should not denigrate our fellow humans in the latter class.'

Please feel free to tell me exactly what problem you have with my response.

@33

you're
Sanewashing
this wormmy's spent
the last 500 days as AIPAC's
Seattle rep telecommuting from PA?
having abandoned Seattle eons ago apparently

yet still with a troubling
Commitment to bash
tS and All Things
Progressive at
Every oppor-
tunity

here's his latest vile projection:

"Cue
bluster
[wtf?] about
how you don’t
need evidence, because
your opinions hold the status of Fact."

3 projections
in just One
sentence:

getting your
money's
worth.

@2 all Zalenski
had to Do was launch
an investigation of jbiden's kid
djt carries a grudge & Pooty Loves his lil djt

how
long till
Thedonolde
completely Cracks
I do hope he's hired a
Bill Murray for greenskeeper

head's Up
groundhogs

@34: Well I'm glad you got it off your chest after ruminating over it all this time. The slight was old fashioned and indeed a reference to the impropriety of an assignation out of wedlock. I said it a la Scarlett Ohara said to Rhett, it was tongue-in-cheek but it bombed.

I do like Rich. His poetry is intriguing. So...

If you should happen to read this Rich Smith, I am sorry.

so how’s bibi’s
Keep-outta-Prison
Gambit coming you ask?

from Caitlin’s Newsletter:

Israel Pushes
New Atrocity Narrative
Just As Ceasefire Deadline Approaches

A new narrative is being aggressively pushed by Israel and its apologists to justify resuming the Gaza genocide, conveniently just as an important deadline for ceasefire negotiations draws near.

The IDF is now claiming that the Israeli children Kfir and Ariel Bibas “were both brutally murdered by terrorists while being held hostage in Gaza, no later than November 2023.”

IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari told the press on Friday that, “Contrary to Hamas’ lies, Ariel and Kfir were not killed in an airstrike. Ariel and Kfir Bibas were murdered by terrorists in cold blood. The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys, they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities.”

Anyone who has been following the events in Gaza over the last year and a half will be unsurprised to learn that Israel provided no evidence to support these incendiary claims.

Benjamin Netanyahu released a video statement in his signature American English waving around an enlarged photograph of the children and talking about what savage monsters the Palestinians are.

“Hamas murdered them in cold blood,” Netanyahu says, while the camera zooms in on the adorable little redheads. “As the prime minister of Israel, I vow that I will not rest until the savages who executed our hostages are brought to justice.

They do not deserve
to walk this earth.
Nothing will stop
me. Nothing.”

This happens just as Netanyahu has been working to sabotage ceasefire negotiations by adding new non-starter demands that were not in the original agreement, just as sources in Israeli media predicted he would do upon his return from Washington earlier this month. The six-week-long first stage of the ceasefire deal with Hamas is set to expire at the beginning of March.

This is obvious babies-on-bayonets atrocity propaganda, being released at the most convenient of times. After Israel has been caught lying about beheaded babies and mass rapes and so much more, only an idiot would take any of these claims on faith.

--Caitlin Johnstone; Feb 2, 2025

more:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-pushes-new-atrocity-narrative

Thedonolde’s
got bibi’s
back.

will we
all get a
Share of
Our New
waterfont Golf
& Country Club
Park in Palestine?

a nice
Discount
at the Pro shoppe?

"The topological qubit will apparently help make quantum computers."
Don't worry about encryption or anything else related to Quantum Computing. From what I read, Quantum Computing, like commercial power from fusion, is just another way to scam investors & the government out of Musksize amounts of money.
From what I've read, there are at least 2 terminal problems (error correction & qubit decoherence. They're easy to Google) with Quantum Computing: first, the process is prone to error and nobody can figure out how to stop/find/correct the errors because it's inherent in the process.
Second, there's something about the process that gets out of whack as it goes along. It's sort of like a multithread computer processor that can't keep the threads properly prioritized.
The rub is that both these things are inherent in the process which is why my money says they, like fusion power, will never be a reality. The only cure I find suggested by the Muskovite types is, "Throw more money at the problem.....as in, at us."

As for fusion, what I read says there's at least two problems there also: First, the current machines/generators/reactors are all the size of the Star Wars Death Star just to fuse a few atoms. And second, as near as I can tell, the reaction, even if it would produce usable electric power, it produces an immense amount of radiation which just spews all over the place and ultimately is impossible to contain. In a short time any working fusion reactor would be glowing blue & killing anyone who got anywhere near. No hope of shielding that would not become itself radioactive.
Again, these problems are inherent in the process and the only suggested solution is, "Throw more money at us.....I mean at the problem......which we will spend your money on."

This is all of a piece with Musk's constant attachment to the corporate welfare teat. If you don't believe me, check out YouTube videos of Neal Degrasse Tyson explaining why we're never going to Mars......Except his argument that, in addition to being useless & impossible in practice, Congress will never pay for it, doesn't factor in that this week the Muskcovite Oligarchy has taken over the Federal Checkbook.

Trump et al doesn't give a shit about making the Govt smaller & leaner. All they care about is throwing wrenches into the gears of government so that they can claim Govt doesn't work and we must privatize it.....ie, pay Musk to give us a worse system.

@38 yeah I’m sure the babies had it coming since they are colonizers and all. Hamas clearly acted in self defense by killing little children, parading their bodies around a square while their fellow Palestinians hollared and cheered on their deaths and bloodshed. You must be so proud today.

"Trump is expected to dissolve the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service,...."
The Republicans have been trying to destroy the Postal Service for decades.....at least since the 1970s.
First, if not now, at least when they started, all those Post Offices were Real Estate which was on the books at the price Ben Franklin paid for them. Now they've been closed, sold, and the Muskcovites are leasing their strip mall properties to the Postal Service.
Second, if you haven't noticed the way business works today is, FedEx or UPS park a container at the dock of a shipper. When the container is full, it's picked up by FedEx or UPS who take it to an automated sorting facility where it's sorted into containers which ultimately have one destination: A Post Office. FedEx & UPS skim the cream ($$$) to take it to the local Post Office where the tax payers pay to have it delivered the last mile by postal employees who, unlike years past, get paid shitty wages, shitty health care, and shitty benefits, to work shitty hours with no job security.
The Postal Service used to, and still does, deliver more pieces of mail in a day than FedEx & UPS combined do in a whole year. (Mainly, of course, because of all the envelopes rather than packages, but still.......) And despite what people seem to think, the number of lost pieces of mail is statistically insignificant. In other words, it's mathematically correct to say that the Postal Service never looses mail. (Yeah, yeah, I know if you don't know how to count your change at McDonalds you won't believe that.)

Trump tweeted an image of him as king on a fake Time magazine cover.
They assassinate kings, don't they?
Guillotine!! Guillotine!!

@39 Michael...
We do kinda have fusion power now... solar panels (buh dump, bump).
I do think we'll figure out fusion, eventually (not in my lifetime). I'm not so sure about quantum computing.

Thedonolde's second-favorite
Dictator giving the djt some
Very Good, Very Interesting
ideas to try out Here in
the Homeland

nyt:

Emboldened
Kremlin Steps Up Efforts
to Seize Businesses in Russia

The Russian government is taking over private businesses in the name of national security, and has filed a lawsuit to seize Moscow’s second-largest airport.

more: Nytimes.com

might there Be
a Better Time to
Grow a Pair, Dems?

not
fucking
Likely. or, you
Could, you know,
just Appease the fuckers.

@38, @40: Hamas has been violating the ceasefire terms almost on the daily, including making public spectacles of hostage releases. Palestinians released from prison in Israel, on terms they not remain in Gaza, have been seen at these events. The occasional rocket launch from Gaza has enlivened the proceedings.

Of course, Johnstone and her local mouthpiece here couldn't find such violations if you paid them to do so.

"The Postal Service used to, and still does, deliver more pieces of mail in a day than FedEx & UPS combined do in a whole year."

I wonder how much of the mail delivered by the Postal Service is unwanted junk mail? With FedEx/UPS, we asked for those things to be delivered to us.

@35, In my entire life I have never once encountered anyone as dull and joyless as you but maybe you just come here to vent all your misery on the staff so you don’t take it out on the people in your life and you’re actually a real treat to be around.

I don’t think anyone who works at the stranger is making much more than your average hooters waitress but I’m sure you’’ll write a wall of text I won’t read explaining why you’re doing important work by denigrating them in the comments daily for 15+ years.

@47
Bingo.

thank you
barth. the Mystery's
why tS's put up with it for Decades?

re @45 -- shouldn't tS
have some AIPAC
Warnings?

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trump-resistance-growing-after-a-period-of-grieving-jayapal-says/

It is Jayapal's kind of "resistance" that drove increasing numbers of union workers, blacks, and hispanics into the arms of Trump. I wish she, and her comrades, would stop trying to help.

With friends like Jayapal and her ilk, those of us who don't want Trump, don't need any enemies.

Fergy*
are you
Listening

nyt:
‘See You in Court’:
Maine Governor Clashes
With Trump Over Trans Rights

Something happened at the White House Friday afternoon that almost never happens these days. Somebody defied President Trump. Right to his face.

President Trump asked Gov. Janet Mills if her state would comply with the executive order he signed banning transgender athletes from women’s sports. He didn’t l ike her answer.

He was about an hour into a meeting with a bipartisan group of governors when he suddenly remembered that the leaders of Maine had been resisting an executive order he signed banning transgender athletes from women’s sports.

“Is Maine here?” he wondered aloud. “The governor of Maine?”

“Yeah,” Gov. Janet Mills answered from across the room. “I’m here.”

Referring to the executive order, Mr. Trump asked, “Are you not going to comply with that?”

“I’m complying with the state and federal laws,” she said, rather pointedly.

Mr. Trump replied that “we are the federal law” and said that “you better do it” or else he would withhold funding from her state.

One month into his second term, Mr. Trump has called himself a king, with the White House posting a depiction of the president wearing a crown, and the Republican leaders of Congress have happily ceded their power to him.

--by Shawn McCreesh, White
House correspondent; Feb. 21, 2025

oodles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/us/politics/trump-maine-governor-transgender-athletes.html

*of
Course
Fergy’s Listening

three outta four corners
(FLA being Backwards
And underwater)
Politically dead-
Set against a
Reich Wing
Takeover

for how
Long will
We survive?

@47: I’m sorry, what has any of that have to do with my response @35 to the accusations made @32?

I’m still waiting for someone to explain what was so objectionable about my comment from fifteen years ago. Was it this?

“Some of us get easy jobs, like typing about stuff. Others have to haul ass and hustle for tips. We in the former class should not denigrate our fellow humans in the latter class.“

Is that what you find objectionable?

@49

Pramila’s ‘Not our
Friend,’ mr magoo?

‘olde news’
Perhaps but still
Essential to our little Democracy:

from Truthout:

Jayapal Unveils Bill
to End “Citizens United,”
Slamming “Shadow President” Musk

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) introduced a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United on Thursday [6/28/24], as an out-of-control billionaire informally appointed by President Donald Trump has set out to destroy the federal government in the wake of the most expensive election in U.S. history.

The amendment would reverse the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision to give corporations, dark money groups and the wealthy the ability to spend unlimited amounts to influence elections, unleashing a deluge of money and undue influence on politics.

This funding is instrumental in deciding elections, with data showing that the vast majority of federal elections are decided by which candidate spent more.

The impact of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission becomes increasingly prominent each election cycle, with more and more money being flooded into elections, drowning out individuals’ voices.

This year, its effect is clearer than ever, with Elon Musk, an unelected official, slashing federal agencies and controlling federal spending seemingly without oversight.

--by Sharon Zhang;, Truthout
published February 13, 2025

oodles:
https://truthout.org/articles/jayapal-unveils-bill-to-end-citizens-united-slamming-shadow-president-musk/

'citizens united'
is PRECISELY Why we
must constantly Choose
between the lessor of two evils

plus let's get us some
Ranked Choice Voting.

It’s not any single comment but your entire 16-year body of work, and your needing someone to explain to you why berating the staff of a paper no one is forcing you to read is part of the problem. You come across as a toxic killjoy but as I said before maybe unloading abuse on the stranger staff is how you get it out of your system instead of just going to therapy.

@53: Well, my request we treat service staff at restaurants with respect ended the absolute first comment in my “entire 16-year body of work here,” and you’ve given no examples of anything I’ve written, so I really don’t know what you mean.

As far as my supposed “berating the staff,” here goes, Nathalie referred to the City Attorney of Seattle as a “boot-licking Trump fan,” because of what @20 showed was Nathalie’s own ignorance of the topic upon which she was reporting. I happen to think both the ignorant basis of Nathalie’s complaint, and the name-calling personal attack Nathalie made upon Seattle’s City Attorney (solely based upon Nathalie’s ignorance), deserve criticism. You’re free to argue with any (or all) of that, as you see fit.

If I’m a “toxic killjoy” for these criticisms I have made, perhaps the problem lies more with your definitions of “healthy” and “joy”?

Writing unflattering things about an unnamed breastraunt waitress: arrogant, demeaning, anti-worker

Insulting staff writers by name at a regional alt-weekly, multiple times daily for a decade and a half: god’s work

You don’t even need to leave this thread to see your handiwork. You hate everything about this paper but you keep coming back for reasons I was not put on this earth to understand.

As for Nathalie’s comment, there is a link @24 describing a pro-Trump activist group the city attorney participated in. We can all have our own personal interpretation of what bootlicker means but actively campaigning for republicans in 2020 should meet anyone’s standard.

I’m guessing you make more money than anyone at the stranger so why not take your own medicine and invest some of your hard-earned wealth in a good therapist instead of coming here to be an unhinged asshole to everyone every day. Just a suggestion. You might even learn how to feel another emotion besides impotent outrage.

@46, Even while reading newspapers on line I opt for the .pdf version. The version which is an image of the printed edition. I've always maintained that the ads in a newspaper tell almost as much information & news as the news articles. For expending the effort to throw away those few pieces of junk mail, you get postage at a reduced rate as mass mailing revenue adds a huge subsidy to postal revenues. And you get to keep up with a lot of current fads & trivia. But I realize it is onerous to move your wrist far enough to get the junk to the garbage can.

We were discouraged from referring to it as junk mail as it paid a large fraction of our salaries.

@52, It is exactly that kind of performative, virtue signalling, introduction of bills that are highly unlikely to pass that appeals to a voter like you, that will vote for her anyway, and repels the working-class voters that flipped from Dem to Republican.

Do Dems want to make their tent big enough to win in 2028, or do they want to insure we get 4 more years of this asshole or one of his MAGA successors?

@29 Phoebe in Wallingford: I'm fortunate to be blessed with what I have. What I don't like is the escalating threat of profiteering tech KKKorporations insisting I "need" goods and services, like "upgrades" in some cases that I really don't have any use for, and most likely can't afford. I neither need nor want AI taking over what I do professionally and artistically. Does AI mainly run on cryptology and encryption? I don't want a phone or computer "thinking" for me.
Big Tech seems hellbent on hacking everyone's personal data systems. Case in point: Elon Mu$k successfully hacked into the U.S. Federal Treasury. He's gleefully using his bought and paid for sock puppet, Mu$k'$ and Putin'$ Mein Trumpf, to fuck over the U.S. people as cruelly as possible economically in their evil plot to own everyone and everything. Aren't you even the teeniest bit concerned about this, Phoebe?
What will you do when your Social Security check goes bye-bye?

@10 averagebob and @39 Michael Clayton: BINGO!

@36 kristofarian: I can just hear Bill Murray's inept groundskeeper, Carl Spackler in Caddyshack (1980) now:
'I'd keep on playing. I don't think the heavy stuff's going to come down for quite a while.'

@60: p.s. Sez Mr. Gopher: "EE-ER! EE-ER! GAHAHAHAH! GAHAHAHAH! GAHAHAHAH!.......EE-ER!"

@55: You've now made three consecutive comments, all dedicated to telling me what's wrong with my writing here, without once giving a single example of anything you find objectionable. You hand-wave at this thread, but again, I remain the only one quoting what I've written here.

"Writing unflattering things about an unnamed breastraunt waitress: arrogant, demeaning, anti-worker..."

I couldn't agree more. West actually called her insulting names as well, and I was hardly the only commenter (of over 200 comments!) who had similar problems with West's treatment of a worker for simply trying to do a good job.

"Insulting staff writers by name..."

Again, I fail to see what is "insulting" about noting that name-calling and ignorance do not make a good look for a self-identified journalist. (And again, I'm not the only person in this thread to make such statements. You seem to have quite a fixation upon me.)

"You hate everything about this paper..."

On the basis of no quotations of any kind from me, you make a sweeping generalization. Again, I'm thinking the origin of any problem here lies closer to you than to me.

"As for Nathalie’s comment, there is a link @24 describing a pro-Trump activist group the city attorney participated in."

Yes, but Nathalie herself wrote nothing about that. Her comment had nothing other than her own mistaken reporting to support it, as @20 noted.

Furthermore, in 2021, the Stranger kept readers exceptionally well-informed as to Davison's actions in 2020, and yet, Seattle's voters elected Davison anyway -- over a candidate the Stranger had twice endorsed. So (as I wrote above) I fail to see how this warmed-over rehash of old news accomplishes anything new.

"...actively campaigning for republicans in 2020 should meet anyone’s standard."

As I noted in my first comment, above, another person's active campaigning for Republicans in 2024 did not earn any criticism from anyone at the Stranger, nor from any supportive commenter here. So that did not meet "anyone's standard" -- even though the result this time was Trump's victory; in Davison's case, it led to his defeat.

"I’m guessing you make more money than anyone at the stranger so why not take your own medicine and invest some of your hard-earned wealth in a good therapist..."

Where have I said or suggested anyone at the Stranger visit a therapist? (Oh, wait -- did I just ask for you to provide proof of something again?)

"...instead of coming here to be an unhinged asshole to everyone every day."

Again, I'm seeing this as more of a 'you' problem than a 'me' problem.

@58: Of course I'm very concerned Auntie. Trump and Musk are foregoing all reason and rationality to overwhelm the nation to establish an autocracy. There's not a shred of altruism left in them and in so many in Congress. My own naiveté iwas surprising.

Cryptography is an old science and came well before AI. The secret codes used in World War II are a form of cryptography. AI is now used with cryptography to create algorithms, and in analysis and testing - but it's all good security.

@55: "We can all have our own personal interpretation of what bootlicker means but actively campaigning for republicans in 2020 should meet anyone’s standard."

So, does actively campaigning for Trump in 2024 meet your standard of what "bootlicker" means?

Simple question, a yes or no will suffice.

Please do let everyone know.

but
But
BUT
HAMAS!

incessant cheerleading
for bibi's Genocide whilst
denying its existence & justifying
war crimes -- on OUR TAX DOLLAR$

may have trurned off 10,000,000 formerly-
jbiden voters, but I doubt all of them
read tS, so djt's little victory may
Not be TOTALLY your Fault
Wormtongue but know
this: You Did Your
Part & the djt
Appreciates
y o u.

so get
Used
to it.

but
But
BUT
KSHAMA!

@65: Yes, Hamas has been the issue the entire time. They’ve been abusing civilians (Palestinians and Israelis) for two decades now. They’ve broken the current ceasefire in multiple ways, inviting resumption of armed conflict. This would hurt the very civilians (only Palestinians, apparently) whom you so loudly claim to care about. Yet you treat any mention of Hamas’ existence as if it’s some intentional distraction. That’s never silenced anyone here, but you keep on doing it anyway. Strange.

Why do you keep trying to excuse terrorists for their terrorism? Especially when it doesn’t work, and merely makes you their apologist?

Constantly crying, “Genocide Joe” turned off voters, as you’ve acknowledged by disowning the phrase you once used lavishly. So, we’ve gone from a president who withheld weapons from Bibi’s regime, to one who openly talks about full ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Congratulations, that’s your defining political achievement; enjoy.

And yes, your and the Stranger’s darling politician stumped for Trump. Like you, she did what she could to create our current situation. Too bad your miserable lack of self-esteem means you can’t even criticize her for it, but I suffer from no such deficiency. No problem; I can more than compensate for your abject failure.

"So,
we’ve
gone from
a president who
withheld weapons from Bibi’s regime"

were that only fully True
Thedonolde'd NEVER
Be in the White
House

and your daily
Cheerleading -- yours
and your ai sockbott's that is

encouraged jbiden to keep on
writing bibi's Massive Checks
and to kill Civilians at higher
ratios then all wars ever

unless we take your
AIPAC's and Israel's
'word' for it. but I
repeat myself

also wormmy, 'but Hamas''s
Never been the issue:
it's always been
about The
Landgrab

Hamas's been
nothing but the
Justification For A.
keeping bibi Outta Prison

and B. Justifying
IOF's massive
Genocide
"lite."

Sicko @66 never tires of lying by omission pretending that the victims of violent oppression, ethnic cleansing, and a 100 year old on-going land grab are responsible for everything that is wrong in Palestine. Even now, sick puppy, specialist of the 300 word drivel that nobody reads, can't acknowledge Israel's own numerous ceasefire violations and shifting of the goal posts in Gaza and Lebanon. Neither can sicko acknowledge how extremely unpopular in the USA, and the world over, was providing the weaponry for mass murder and that it would drive down voter participation. Instead in by now familiar 'twisted pretzel logic', he'd rather blame these voters who couldn't ignore complicity in genocide

Cue the sick twisted word salad that inevitably follows ...

@68: Kristo’ schooled you on the contents of Slog, and you still believe anyone cares about your other claims to know facts? Dream on. (You could at least entertain us with some tales of how the Palestinians rode dinosaurs into the area.)

And we don’t even need to leave this thread to watch you wallow in your ignorance. For not having read my comments, barth repeatedly responded to them well enough. (Until I asked if stumping for Trump in 2024 made the campaigner a “bootlicker” or not; that is one topic upon which your big mouths here reliably fall into servile silence.)

Kristo already told us about Israeli violations of the ceasefire, so I found no need to tediously repeat them. I merely provided the context he always lacks.

Fuck it, I'll bite. Tensor, do you have anything to support your claim that anyone on staff at the Stranger stumped for Trump in in 2024? You do know that Kshama doesn't actually write for the paper, yes?

All this pointless parsing back and forth. There was indeed a swell of anti-Biden amongst the left last year, driven by Gaza. Of course, @70, nobody at TS stumped for Trump, but some staffers and Sawant may I dare say let their anti-Biden rhetoric get ahead of them. No need to ask Tensorna to document that.

@71,

Of course Stranger writers were critical of Biden, operating on the perfectly valid premise that candidates shouldn't simply be supported unconditionally and irrespective of any policy positions they hold. You want to argue that this criticism cost us the election then fine, Tensor and Average Bob have been doing so for months now, and neither one of them have one that argument, nor will either of them win that argument as it's infinitesimally complex with far too many variable elements to account for to ever conclusively prove it one way or other.

I'll happily drop the argument right here and right now. You know who won't? Here's a hint, look at who brought it up in the very thread you're reading. Let me know if you need any more hints.

@71 -- ya think?

"There
was indeed
a swell of anti-Biden
amongst the left last year, driven by Gaza."

not to mention
the feckless "D" nc
hidin' smoulderin' joe

debating thee Worst
Piece of Shite candidate
since Nixon quit & ran away

panicking the fucking
Nation, Demanding he
Step Aside and the 'd'nc
fucking FINALLY said well
Okaaaay, but there'll Be No
stinkin' Primary-- it's Kamala
and you can fucking Take it or
you can Fucking GET Thedonolde.

never MInd
our support
for Genocide

and keeping
bibi outta
prison

and
WHERE
are they right
fucking NOW? the djt's
running Roughshod over US.

coprorate
personhood
just bought its
way into the fucking
Castle. and they Intend
to fucking KEEP IT. where's

the

Democrats?

@65 and @67 kristofarian, (re my @60 & @61): I know your two comments are on another subject, but...not one lol? What with all the grimly dystopian news lately I was searching for SOMEthing to laugh about, anything.
Thank you for offering the apt Bill Murray as Carl Spackler metaphor.

@63 Phoebe in Wallingford: My father, as a US Navy Radioman First Class (his highest enlisted rank during the Korean War) used cryptology in transmitting code aboard his ship during wartime. But that was during wartime--in the 1950s. WTF does this have to do with what's currently going on in the 21st Century?? Both my late parents must be rolling over in their graves at the evil plot to dismantle our once thriving government of checks and balances---only so that a microscopic handful of TRILLIONAIRES can claim to own everyone and everything!
Adolf Hitler must be chortling down in Hell over his equally deranged Mein Trumpf.
All Mu$k, Putin, and their sock puppet, Mein Trumpf want is senseless global destruction caused by illegal hacking, lies, propaganda, and willful misinformation. All this uprising and chaos in preparation for WWIII.
They don't care about who or what is left, or if they have to eat cockroaches to survive once our dying planet is reduced to dust. They're that sick and mentally unhinged, marching in lockstep over a cliff of no return.

@auntie Gee:
Carl was indeed
Dy-no-mite with the
dynamite & the Reverend
wouldda beat even Thedonolde*
in that Perfect Storm, tho fried in the end

*"NO One's a
Bigger Cheater
Than ME!"--@djt,
Kicking the ball In.

the
lord he
doth worketh
in Mysterious ways.

"Another Eagle! that makes
Nine!" on the 1st
6 holes

@73 kristofarian: +1 That is a good question, kris. Where ARE the Democrats lately?
Are they being hunted down to extinction, shot, killed, eaten, and crapped out by Elon Mu$k, Vladimir Putin, and their sock puppet, Mein Trumpf over a Mal-a-Tardo round of golf?

who
Wouldn't
wanna bend
Over for Thedonolde?

I miss Bill Murray.

@78 kristofarian: I, auntie grizelda, wouldn't!!! YUCK!

@78 kristofarian: We desperately need Senator Patty Murray, et al as well as Dan Ackroyd as Louis J. Winthorp III, and Eddie Murphy as Billy Ray Valentine from Trading Places (1983), to help bring the ill-gotten trillion$ back to We, the People.
Like Billy Ray said, the best way to hurt rich people is to make them into poor people.
And, as Louie said, at the NYSE: "Let's go kick some butt."

Okay, It's time for griz to get off her soapbox and back to working on her latest musical piece.
Goodnight, all.

"Kristo’ schooled you on the contents of Slog... "

one mistake vs. the
Wormtongue's
pro-corporate
not-All-Facts
Matter nar-
rative?

yeah that's
not even
a Warsh.

"... and
you still
believe anyone
cares about your
other claims to know facts?"

says the
Wormtongue
to the truthspeaker

it's like being
critiqued
by FOX.

@71,

So if you're put off by all of this "pointless parsing back & forth" aren't you gonna take advantage of the opportunity to tell tensor to give it a rest? Or is this solidarity among trolls?

@73 and
@auntie Gee

Where’re
the Dems?
Here’s One:

nyt:
Chris Murphy
Emerges as a Clear Voice
for Democrats Countering Trump

The third-term senator from Connecticut is eschewing caution and throwing out the traditional political playbook as he seeks a broader audience for his critiques of the president and his agenda.

He is also seizing a political opportunity to position himself as a future national leader for Democrats who find themselves deep in the wilderness as they seek a strategy for simultaneously rebuilding their party and resisting Mr. Trump.

As Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, sat seething in his office last month watching President Trump blame diversity requirements at the Federal Aviation Administration for the deadly plane crash over the Potomac River, members of his staff warned him against publicly venting his rage.

The midair collision had happened less than 12 hours earlier, they reminded him; bodies were still in the water and families were still being notified about the deaths of loved ones.

Perhaps it would be more befitting of a U.S. senator to be respectful of the tragedy and all of its unknowns, rather than seize the political moment and respond?

Mr. Murphy had no time for that.

“Everybody in this country should be outraged that Donald Trump is standing up on that podium and lying to you — deliberately lying to you,” he said in an impassioned video he recorded and posted within 30 minutes of Mr. Trump’s news conference.

“Every single senator and member of Congress
should call him out for how disgraceful it was.”

Many did, but none managed to do so quite as quickly or concisely as Mr. Murphy, 51, who has seemed to be everywhere, all at once, since Inauguration Day, staging a loud and constant resistance to Mr. Trump at a time when Democrats are struggling to figure out how to respond to him.

Mr. Murphy, a career politician who rose to national prominence as a gun safety advocate after the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., has emerged in the opening weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term as one of the most effective Democratic communicators pushing back against a president unbound.

In two-minute videos on social media, which he records from his office on Capitol Hill; an almost constant stream of posts on X; passionate floor speeches; and essays he writes on his Substack, Mr. Murphy is attempting to explain in digestible sound bites that what is happening in Washington is very simple: It’s a billionaire takeover of American democracy.

“It’s an overwhelming moment,” Mr. Murphy said in an interview on Wednesday in his office on Capitol Hill. “Our political brand is fundamentally broken, the rule of law is disintegrating and a lot of people still don’t know what Trump’s actual agenda is.”

--by Annie Karnil; Feb. 23, 2025
Reporting from the Capitol

oodles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/chris-murphy-democrats-trump.html

three
nyt readers’
comments on
Annie Karni’s article, above:

It's very encouraging that he
[US Senator Chris Murphy, D -CT]
supports [Senators] Sanders and Warren.

I was at a Bernie Sanders speech
in Iowa City yesterday and the
place has a line around the
block two hours before
start time.

We were not able to get in
and had to watch on a
TV next door. Sanders
is still incredibly
popular.

--JB; Iowa
Feb. 23

@Ck Dexter Exactly what
policies do Bernie and
Elizabeth promote
that are so un-
popular?

Universal Healthcare,
high quality public schools,
enacting financial, food, and
health protections for citizens,
environmental protection measures?

Really,
I’m asking you,
why are these a no-go for voters?
--Sage Femmel; Key West

Well done
to the senator
for speaking truth
to the barrage of lies.

We have been told all our lives
to stand up to bullies.
Now is the time.

-- Surgeon; Camden Maine

oodles, Encouragingly:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/us/politics/chris-murphy-democrats-trump.html#commentsContainer

@84: No, that would be disrespectful as I have no "dogs in that fight".

surrounded
by bullies
we are.

@87: Do you need a safe space?

I -- WE
need a djt-
Wormtongue-free
zone dwebee. why? have you got one?

@70: Oh, you’re back. Did you ever figure out what you didn’t like about my very first comment here ever? Because @32 you were highly critical of it, without quoting so much as one single word from it. In it, I had asked we treat even low-paid service workers with respect, not subject them to name-calling personal attacks just for trying to do their jobs. Is that what you found so offensive about it? My request we treat our fellow humans with dignity?

Where did I claim anyone from the Stranger had stumped for Trump? I noted (elliptically) the Stranger has not criticized Sawant for stumping for Trump.

In just this thread alone, you’ve issued multiple comments which criticize other commenter’s statements. But you seem either to not have read my comments, or not understood them. Perhaps the problem here is on your end, not anyone else’s?

@83: “one mistake”

Wrong. He made multiple mistakes, and you corrected him on each one. Each mistake supported his false accusation of lying. So there were multiple layers of factual error in his words.

That you cannot even recall the existence of your own words, after even a short passage of time, does nothing to support your belief you are qualified to criticize others on their use of facts.

"So there were multiple layers
of factual error in [ab]'s words."

okay
wormmy:
lay 'em out
let us have a Look-see

prove me wrong
Wormtongue
or, prove
me right.

URLs
actual
"Quotes"
the whole ball
of wax; You know

the Drill.
lay it on
the Line.

@91, @92: Of course. Providing quotes & URLs to show you and ‘Bob are wrong is easy:

‘Bob made the following false statements, each time in support of his claim I’d lied:

“No commenter has refused to criticize Sawant”

“The only reference to "genocide Joe" in the comments before the election were made by CapnBlinky, ASaxman5537, dvs99, and Budhamat.”

(https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2025/01/29/79896661/slog-am-trump-is-flooding-the-zone-sue-rahr-has-her-last-day-as-police-chief-bob-kettle-melts-down/comments/60)

In the next two comments after his, you noted both of ‘bob’s statements were false:

“…DEMANDED
I call out Kshama
for fucking MONTHS…”

“I called jBiden genocide
joe numerously…”

So, he made multiple false statements, each in support of his false accusation of lying.

See how easy it is? (For those of us with facts on our side…)

“No commenter has refused to criticize Sawant”

your incessant Demands*
for Me to call Hamas'
Incursion on Oct.7
GENOCIDE! were
Ignored by me
as the ravings
of a madman
Oughtta be
Ignored

that you then Insisted
I call Kashama out
another dozens
were Likewise
duly Ignored.

a joyless
humorless
angry lying
manipulative
Bully you are
Wormtongue

and you
Should be
Ignored\deported/
deposited into the nearest
toxic masculinity waste dump

post fucking haste

there being more
Truth in any one of
ab's mistakes than in
your Entire, insidious Oeuvre of
vile projections & fruitless, impotent Demands

*how many times?
fucking Dozens
seemingly
fucking
Hundz.

but you’re merely a Symptom.

from Caitlin’s Newsletter

(speaking of lying manipulators
& their Loyal psycophants):

When There's No
Money In The Pursuit
Of The Good And No Good-
ness In The Pursuit Of Money

The Sackler family amassed a fortune by creating an epidemic of opiate addiction. The Walton family got rich by deliberately destroying the local economies of small towns so that everyone would work and shop at the local Walmart. Elon Musk is a Pentagon contractor who’s helping US intelligence construct a planetary surveillance network.

Jeff Bezos got rich with the help of contracts with the CIA and Pentagon, and Amazon’s aggressive campaign to control the underlying infrastructure of the economy is destroying whole industries and creating immense suffering for workers. Larry Ellison’s Oracle is intertwined with the US intelligence cartel and the Israeli genocide machine, as is Peter Theil’s Palantir.

These are just a few examples of how depraved you have to be to amass immense amounts of wealth; beyond that there are all the ugly manipulations people engage in to protect the status quo upon which their wealth is premised.

The extremely wealthy buy up narrative control in the form of media, think tanks and Silicon Valley platforms in order to influence public political opinion to their benefit. They influence the government through legalized bribery in the form of campaign contributions and lobbying.

Sometimes they even hop right in to the actual government itself like Donald Trump and Elon Musk. All to ensure the continuation of the unjust systems which allow them to amass wealth while destroying the biosphere and making everyone else poorer, busier, sicker, more exhausted, and more propagandized.

These are the kinds of people who rise to the top in our current system: the absolute worst among us. The more ruthless and underhanded you are willing to be, the easier it is for you to become obscenely wealthy and powerful.

Our systems reward and elevate sociopathy,
which is why we now find ourselves
ruled by sociopaths.

And meanwhile the best among us toil in obscurity, swimming against the current of this sociopathic dystopia their entire lives before dying with nothing to their names but the love that they shared.

These should be the people running the world and charting the course for our species, and instead they live and die unknown and unrecognized, because our system does not elevate such beings.

Instead it elevates narcissistic plutocrats,
vapid celebrity artists, and groveling
pundits and politicians.

This is what you get when you have a system in place where mass-scale human behavior is determined by what is profitable instead of by what is right. This is what that looks like.

Is it working?

--by Caitlin Johnstone; Feb 23, 2025

more:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/when-theres-no-money-in-the-pursuit/comment/95724915

well,
No, Caitlin
it Ain’t. not
for Most People

and Yes!
auntie Gee
to Patty Murray
our very Own US
Senator (D!) speaking
up and speaking out: she's
on NPR this very AM, talking
the talk, walking the walk, calling
out other Dems and Repubs to take
care of fucking Business & do what Needs

to be done (I got the gist but was
distracted &'ll have to give it
another listen on its
2nd time around)
but Hell Yeah.

@21 The Stranger has been on top of WA's evangelical Ukrainian population for a while

https://www.thestranger.com/news/2005/03/31/20917/god-was-with-them

speaking of
Tentsores:

Mayor Harrell
Orders Sweeps of
Enchantments Campsites
by The Needling, Seattle's Only Real Fake News

Doubling down on what got him elected in the first place, today Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell hit his re-election campaign trail with a new promise to sweep all Enchantments campsites and leave no trace of a single tent.

“Every year, hundreds of public land freeloaders from Seattle swarm the Leavenworth area, setting up campsites and disrupting the pristine alpine wonderland with their eyesore campsites in the Enchantments,” said Mayor Harrell, posing in front of the Leavenworth 76 Station sign in his Mayoral lederhosen.

“Well, enough is enough, and that’s why I’ve instructed every available Seattle police officer applying for the Enchantments lottery this month to ensure that they can keep the wilderness safe from squatters. In return, I look forward to another successful mayoral campaign mostly bankrolled by people who don’t live in Seattle.”

Cle Elum native Gus Price was reportedly thrilled that someone was finally pledging to clean up his favorite family vacation destination.

“We pay good money every year for our Bavarian-themed hotel and these filthy bums get to roll into town and enjoy the majesty of nature, all while their lodging is free? Doesn’t seem right to me,” said Price in a local NextDoor post.

“Imagine you’re taking a leisurely 10-mile, 5,000-foot elevation afternoon stroll with your kids up Aasgard Pass, when suddenly you take a wrong turn and bam! You’re face to face with some filthy bums desecrating nature with their campsites and your kids are scarred for life!”

A leaked memo from the mayor’s office suggested that the next target on Harrell’s anti-tent conquest would be The Gorge.

https://theneedling.com/2024/12/14/mayor-harrell-orders-sweeps-of-enchantments-campsites/

oh,
the
Humanity.

and then there's
Mt Rainier

@94: You didn’t ignore my requests for you to criticize Sawant’s stumping for Trump. You loudly refused them:

“you're likely Never gonna get
me to join you in your ANTI-Sawant…”

(https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2024/12/13/79822929/slog-am-spooky-road-signs-possible-giant-drones-in-new-jersey-and-rfks-lawyer-trying-to-recall-the-polio-vaccine/comments/74)

(See? Quote & URL! Easy peasy!)

You were correct in your description of my request as “ANTI-Sawant,” though. I asked for your statement of fact, acknowledging she’d stumped for Trump. To make factually accurate statements about Sawant is to make harshly critical, ANTI-Sawant statements. You were completely correct in that equation.

(And such statements tend to make her supporters look really, really foolish, too…)