April 1, 2025

Why does Shady Vance

look like the Pillsbury Doughboy with some kind of brown furry mold covering his face?

March 31, 2025

How many of you think the orange slime has deputized Oath Keepers and Proud Boys

to kidnap people off the streets under the guise of "ICE", and this is the reason for the masks and refusal to give identities? It hadn't occurred to me until someone mentioned it on another forum, but now I firmly believe it. What say the rest of you?

March 15, 2025

'Negative world': How an evangelical theory became Christian fundamentalism's 'dominant framework'

When Donald Trump declared, "I am your retribution" during his 2024 campaign, his far-right white evangelicals supporters were quite receptive to that message. Many white Christian nationalists view themselves as a persecuted minority, and Trump is promising to defend them.

Trump's predecessor in the White House, former President Joe Biden, is known for being a devout Catholic — and Biden isn't shy about discussing his faith. But Trump and his Christian nationalist allies often claimed that Biden's presidency was hostile to Christianity.

The New York Times' Ruth Graham, in an article published on March 7, explains how a term by evangelical activist Aaron Renn is giving a voice to the sense of persecution that many right-wing evangelicals have.

Renn's term is "negative world," which, in his view, means a country that is hostile to Christianity. And that messaging, Graham emphasizes, has really caught on among fundamentalist Protestant evangelicals.

"On the Christian Right…. a thesis is emerging: If conservative Christians are no longer a 'moral majority,' but a moral minority, they must shift tactics," Graham explains. "They ought to be less concerned with persuading the rest of the country they are relevant and can fit perfectly well in secular spaces. They don't."

Graham continues, "Instead, they must consider abandoning mainstream institutions like public schools and build their own alternatives. They must pursue ownership of businesses and real estate. And they must stop triangulating away from difficult teachings on matters like sexuality and gender differences. Resilience over relevance."

https://www.alternet.org/aaron-renn-negative-world/

How we got where we are

March 15, 2025

Survivor who ignited US Catholic church's reckoning with abuse killed in Louisiana

The clergy abuse survivor who effectively ignited the US Catholic church’s reckoning with clerical molestation when – at age 11 – he testified in the 1980s that his priest had raped him was recently beaten to death in south-west Louisiana.

Scott Anthony Gastal, whose later life was marked by legal struggles after enduring child sexual abuse at the hands of notorious clergy predator Gilbert Gauthe, was 50.

“Like all other sexual abuse victims, Scott surely lived a tortured, troubled and difficult life, having been robbed of his youthful innocence,” said a statement from attorney Cle Simon, whose late father, J Minos Simon, represented Gastal’s family in civil litigation involving Gauthe.

Simon said that his own involvement in other Catholic church-related sexual abuse cases has convinced him “that there is probably no end in sight to the number of innocent children that were subjected to clergy sexual abuse and horrible consequences resulting therefrom”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/14/church-abuse-survivor-louisiana-killed

I can't help wondering....

March 15, 2025

Eggings, swastikas and dog poop: Tesla bears brunt of people's ire against Musk

In the early morning hours of Donald Trump’s inauguration day, a person wearing a long black cloak and face mask wheeled a cart down an Oregon sidewalk. He was headed toward a Tesla showroom in Salem, and his cart appeared to be loaded with molotov cocktails, according to court documents. One by one, he took out the handmade explosives, lit them on fire and lobbed them at the glass-walled dealership.

By the time Salem police arrived, the showroom window was shattered, a fire was burning on the sidewalk out front, a nearby Tesla sedan was ablaze and the alleged vandal had fled. The whole scene was caught by security footage, according to an affidavit from a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The showroom’s general manager estimated $500,000 in damages, with seven vehicles struck and one completely destroyed.

The vandalism incident is one of dozens to hit Tesla dealerships, cars and the electric vehicle maker’s charging stations across the country since Trump took office. Many bear explicit messages protesting against Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and a senior adviser to the president. Musk is the head of the unofficial so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and has made it his prerogative to overhaul the federal government – ordering the firing of tens of thousands of employees, slashing agency budgets and eliminating entire departments. His hardline approach, which takes aim at institutions including the National Weather Service, the Department of Education and the Social Security Administration, has elicited backlash and criticism nationwide.

Thousands have attended peaceful protests at Tesla showrooms in cities and towns across the country. In the 54-odd days since the inauguration, those protests have grown from a handful of people in cities like San Francisco chanting “Hey hey, ho ho, Elon Musk has got to go” to massive demonstrations across the US replete with live bands, Musk-as-Hitler costumes and heavy police presence. They have also crossed the Atlantic, with demonstrations occurring in the UK and Germany.

As the protests have multiplied, so has vandalism against Tesla’s brick-and-mortar business and individual vehicles. The Guardian has tracked at least three separate incidents involving molotov cocktails, the coordinated theft of nearly 50 Tesla tires and spray-painted swastikas on Tesla facilities from New York to New Mexico. Nearly 20 Tesla showrooms and charging stations have seen deliberate fires set, while dozens of owners have had their cars egged, pooped on and hit with Kraft cheese singles.

Like the protests, the defacement and destruction of Tesla facilities has also gone international, with sedans and Cybertrucks targeted in at least five other countries. In France, authorities in Toulouse reported that a dozen cars were torched at a Tesla showroom earlier this month. Another showroom in the Netherlands was graffitied with slogans such as “fuck off fascist” and others that called Musk a Nazi. One vandal as far away as Tasmania wrote “do you really want to drive a swasticar” across a dealership window.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/mar/15/vandalized-tesla-elon-musk-trump

Serves him and his henchmen right

March 15, 2025

As enrollment in online college grows, students wonder: Why does it cost more?

Emma Bittner considered getting a master's degree in public health at a university near her home in Austin, Texas. But the in-person program cost tens of thousands of dollars more than she had hoped to spend.

So she checked out master's degrees she could pursue remotely, on her laptop, which she was sure would be much cheaper.

The price for the same degree online was … just as much. Or more.

"I'm, like, what makes this worth it?" said Bittner, 25. "Why does it cost that much if I don't get meetings face-to-face with the professor or have the experience in person?"

Among the surprising answers is that colleges and universities are using online higher education to subsidize everything else they do, a survey of the people who manage these programs finds. And some schools are spending significant amounts on marketing and advertising for it.

The result is that 83% of online programs in higher education cost students as much as or more than the in-person versions, according to an annual survey of college online-learning officers. The survey was conducted by Eduventures, an arm of the higher education consulting company Encoura, for the nonprofits Quality Matters and Educause.

About a quarter of universities and colleges even tack on an additional "distance learning" fee, the survey found.

Universities and colleges "see online higher education as an opportunity to make money and use it for whatever they want to make money for," said Kevin Carey, vice president of education and work at the left-leaning think tank New America.

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/15/nx-s1-5311603/why-does-online-college-cost-more

Ain't that a kick in the head?

March 15, 2025

Jesse Eisenberg's Polish Citizenship Sparks Viral Joke

Be careful what you wish for. Prime Minister of Poland Donald Tusk joked that actor Jesse Eisenberg’s newly granted Polish citizenship might come with strings—and military service—attached.

The Oscar nominee, who has been trying to obtain Polish citizenship for years, was granted the honor last week. Eisenberg shared the news on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “The president personally gave it [citizenship] to me last week,” the 41-year-old actor said. “You know, it was a great honor.”

However, just a day after becoming a naturalized Pole, Eisenberg was hit with a bit of unexpected news: a new mandate that requires all male Polish citizens to undergo military training.

“I open the news … and the top story was, Poland now requires all males to participate in military training,” Eisenberg quipped. “This was, like, the day after I got it.” The star, who was promoting his second directorial effort, A Real Pain, couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the situation. And, luckily for him, Polish authorities were similarly amused.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/jesse-eisenberg-becomes-a-polish-citizen-and-eligible-for-military-service/

Joke's on you, Jesse!

March 15, 2025

Video Released of Mahmoud Khalil's Controversial ICE Arrest

On Friday, attorneys for Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil released video of their client’s controversial arrest by federal agents on March 8.

In the video, obtained by the Associated Press, at least three agents confront Khalil in the lobby of his apartment building. After telling him that he is “going to be under arrest” and to “turn around” and “stop resisting,” Khalil replies, “There’s no need for this. I’m going with you. No worries.”

Khalil’s wife, Noor Abdalla, an American citizen who is eight months pregnant, asks him in Arabic how she can contact him. Khalil tells her to call his lawyer. When she asks the agents to identify themselves, one replies: “We don’t give our names.”

Khalil is a lawful U.S. resident who was arrested because the Trump administration claims he engaged in “pro-terrorist” activity. His attempted deportation and revocation of his green card has spurred immense criticism over the government’s potential violations of his First Amendment rights, including from right-wing commentator Ann Coulter.

Khalil’s lawyers, who say ICE agents initially were acting on an order to revoke his student visa but then had to change plans once they realized he didn’t have one, have made other serious allegations against the government in court documents.

Among them, the AP notes, was federal agents denying Khalil’s request to talk with a lawyer once he was taken into custody. The lawyers write that Khalil was handcuffed, shackled, and taken to New Jersey early Sunday, only to be sent back to New York. On Sunday afternoon, he was flown to Dallas, then to Alexandria, Louisiana.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/video-released-of-mahmoud-khalils-controversial-ice-arrest/

Fucking bastards. Aren't ALL cops supposed to give their names, ICE or not? And when even Ann Coulter says you're constitutionally wrong, you're wrong!

March 14, 2025

Judges are threatened with impeachment and bombs for ruling against the Trump agenda

Federal judges who have ruled against the Trump administration this year are confronting a wave of threats, potentially compromising their personal safety and the independence of the judiciary.

The sister of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett received a bomb threat earlier this month, and lower court judges who hit pause on some of President Trump's efforts to dismantle federal agencies and programs have been singled out on social media.

Republican lawmakers close to the president even have proposed impeachment proceedings against a few of those judges, who serve for life.

Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Efficiency making cuts to federal agencies, himself has repeatedly posted on social media about impeaching judges who delay or block parts of Trump's agenda.

Efforts to undermine the judiciary come at the same time the Trump administration has moved to fire lawyers inside the Justice Department and the Pentagon, penalize private law firms who represented clients Trump does not like, and to back away from participation in the activities of the American Bar Association.

Judge Richard Sullivan, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, said in his lifetime four federal judges have been killed in retaliation for their work on the bench.

"This is not hypothetical," Sullivan, who leads a Judicial Conference panel on security issues, told reporters in a news conference this week. The Judicial Conference is a representative body of federal judges that frames policies for courts. "It's real. It's happened before. We have to be certain that it doesn't happen again," he said.

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/13/nx-s1-5316340/threats-judges-trump

And you don't really know if the threats are from MAGA cranks or insiders....

March 14, 2025

Andrew Tate cannot hide fury as Florida 'welcome' brings yet more legal trouble

Analysis
Andrew Tate cannot hide fury as Florida ‘welcome’ brings yet more legal trouble
Richard Luscombe
in Miami
The accused human trafficker flew ‘home’ from detention in Romania only to be greeted by a state criminal investigation

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Fri 14 Mar 2025 07.00 EDT
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It was a welcome to Florida that Andrew Tate was not expecting, far less the warm embrace he believed he was entitled to.

The controversial influencer, an accused rapist and human trafficker, walked straight into a state criminal investigation after descending the steps of the private aircraft that flew him and his brother Tristan from Romania last month, inducing a fit of apoplexy in Tate that appears to be still raging two weeks on.

Since their arrival in the US, the Tates have crisscrossed the country in search of attention elsewhere, popping up in Las Vegas at the weekend at a mixed martial arts festival where they were hugged by a close friend of Donald Trump, and in Los Angeles on Monday, where they preened in the front row of a press conference for the boxer Ryan Garcia.

But their troubles in Florida have never left their mind. Tate’s X account has featured a near constant stream of conspiracy theories and vitriol directed at those he blames for his situation, including Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, and attorney general, James Uthmeier.

DeSantis has said the brothers’ brand of toxic masculinity was “not welcome” in his state, while Uthmeier, who has called their alleged behavior “atrocious”, warned the Tates that “fleeing our jurisdiction will not stop Florida’s ongoing criminal investigation”.

In a post on X, Uthmeier wrote: “We will continue working with our law enforcement and partners around the world to fight human trafficking and sexual abuse”.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/mar/14/andrew-tate-florida-investigation

You get what you came for, boy!