We could. And we could use cameras that will film their activities even if they shine a light right onto the camera. The problem is that our phones aren’t made to do that on their own.

If I see shit like this I’m a lot less opposed to citizens using lights as weapons against these neo-nazi fucks. I go out of my way to oppose illegal and most forms of “legal” violence (reddit bots/employees seem to think otherwise) because down that road lies the US turning into another Somalia and … not only do I not wanna see that many people get dead, I mean, I’d really rather not die that way. (And I would be dead, no doubt, with my medical background…) But lights and sounds can go both ways, y’know?

People seem to love it. But it’s highly proprietary and there seems to be planned obsolescence built into their model

I’m just gonna suggest that we not take anybody’s word for it that “it’ll probably fail” unless we make damned fucking sure it fails. Voter suppression, screwing with voting machines, vote tallies, people getting to polls, throwing out votes, throwing out voter registrations, stuffing ballot boxes (something they accuse us of which means they’re doing it), seizing ballots, ballot boxes, voting machines, voting humans, vote counters, or elected officials… or just ordering the military to drag anyone who protests him canceling the election to Aligator Alcatraz, CECOT, or other concentration camp … any of that is possible.

Guys, the truth is that dictators often come to power (apparently) “legally” in democracies. But never in the history of ever has such a despot elected democratically (presumably) been later deposed by means of an election. Never. Not once. The only reason is might possibly happen this time is that Donald Trump is completely fucking incompetent. But do not underestimate him. Especially not because someone else says you can/should.

No, it pretty surely is that he is a pedophile … he said so himself. It was recorded and he knew it was recorded. The fact that this was news in a lot of the country but not on any Republican-serving media source is testament to the lengths they went to in order to protect a disgusting human being.

What’s really sick is that a bunch of Americans would’ve voted for him if they knew. Probably not enough to win an election even against Hillary Clinton who acted like the presidency was owed to her without campaigning, but enough to illustrate a problem in this country both with where people get their “facts” and how few care what the facts are.

I see what you did there.

If you’re an American voter, you are. That’s the thing about sea changes in politics. They come from people who have very little power. And we do have very little power. It happens when there’s a damned lot of us, and not until then. The last time was when they kicked out the railroad barons and created anti-monopoly laws that are still on the books, mostly unused since the 70s. The time before that was pre-civil war. And before that was the revolutionary war itself.

These things don’t always have to be done via war, but they do have to be done by an overwhelming majority of people. Fatalism doesn’t help. Organizing does.

Let me put this as delicately as I can… ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND??

We had a civil war. It cost the United States 10% of its total population. If we have a repeat of that, kiss 35 MILLION of your friends and neighbors goodbye, because they’re fucking dead.

But we don’t have nice neat battle lines and territory back and forth like we did back then. It isn’t gonna look like Gettysburg. It’s gonna look like Somalia. Power and sometimes water, and certainly trucks and trains that deliver the stuff people like you and me need to live pass through red districts. They’re gonna turn off the utilities. They’re going to block the trucks and trains. We in turn are going to break the lines of communications. The We’s and the They’s are gonna all arm up in whatever tactical gear we can get our hands on like those ICE fuckers are wearing now, and we’re gonna patrol our borders in our isolated little pockets for anyone trying to cross who don’t belong. People will get through, saboteurs, raids…

I’d say we’re lucky if we lose only 120 million or so people. It’s gonna be a lot more of us than it will be of them, I promise you. But ultimately it’s not going to matter because there’s gonna be a lot of starving and dying and killing, if things go the way you want. And the two sides will probably wind up with roughly equal numbers fighting over the scraps of America for a decade or longer.

This by you is “good”? I hope you deposit a reality check and pretty damned quick, because we need to stop this shit before we get there, if we can. I don’t know if we can, honestly, but we really need to fucking try.

The big reason why the electoral college has “rigged things” (aside from Jefferson fucking things up, but that’s an argument for another time) is that the vote of so many has been so predictable. They only really worry about the places the outcome is likely to be volatile. Except in this election people are so pissed off that the outcome of the whole country is at least fuzzy, or can be if we work to make it that way. If they think they’re gonna goround Texas, they need to send people down there to intimidate. But they don’t. They might. In fact they’re likely to.

Everything’s in play if we make it all be in play. That’s on us, so let’s make it so sending goons to a few places won’t suppress the nation’s will. This isn’t even a presidential election, so the electoral college isn’t a factor. We can fix some of this shit right now.

Please help us do that! I’m treating this election like our lives depend on it, because they do.

While I agree about the “everything is rigged already” problem, the cold hard fact is that 80% of the election is considered to be decided before the first vote is ever cast, and I think Blackmist knows that, and discussing the electoral college suggests that … yeah, kinda. Which makes your otherwise helpful admonishment harmful too, because it doesn’t dissuade them of that view. In fact, a cynical reading of what you said is, “we know that, but you’re not supposed to say it out loud.”

What I’d recommend instead is pointing out that the people who assume 80% of the vote is irrelevant are failing to account for political sea change events on a large scale. They’re rare. Very rare, actually. But they happen and we’re kinda in one. So while 80% of the vote is already a given in most elections, it’s not a given in this one.

I upvoted Blackmist for his comment about ICE only needing to hit a minority of polling places to create fear, because that’s true. And you as well because you’re right that a message of hopelessness is harmful. I hope you both come away ready to defend the idea that this is an election that can actually erase and rewrite the status quo in America. The focus in the primary season needs to be getting strong candidates and flushing some weak-ass Dems, and then fighting like hell to get as many Dems elected as possible to avoid squandering people’s sheer outrage at the violence, lawlessness, and nothing short of Nazi saluting fascism in this country.

It genuinely was the talking point for years on Fox “News”. And what we heard was some Dem saying “there’s no election fraud whatsoever!” Which is obviously bullshit on its face because of course there’d have to be some. I’ve genuinely seen it happen, red and blue alike, personally, and I’m legally blind! So the claim there was none was an “admission” that they were doing it, yup!

If you don’t ever come out of that tank, you buy that bullshit. An excuse for everything, the favorite being “they always lie, and they always repeat this particular lie, against everyone.” Y’know, and then we have e.g. the Epstein files coverup which still manages to prove that at least some of those “lies about everyone” absolutely were not lies. Congress has access to tons of classified info you and I don’t get so … they knew.

As for the rest of us? Maybe one didn’t see him for what he was in 2016. Propaganda is a terrible thing. Maybe somehow one voted for him in 2020. IDK how they ignored Jan 6th when he lost (I sure couldn’t!) I really don’t know how one might vote for him in 2024 either.

It’s now 2026. If someone still can’t see the problem with the concentration camps, the “100% above the law” enforcers who can gun down people just because threatening all our allies planning several invasions at once, tearing down the White House, stealing the Resolute Desk and Eisenhower’s sword and whatever else, slapping his name on everything and breaking laws to do it, erasing pre-Trump history (including pesky parts of the Constitution), literally running Nazi slogans on social media and government websites, and talking about people “poisoning the blood of America” … If you don’t see the problem yet, the only rational conclusion is that you don’t want to see it. We’re past the point of propaganda now.

Whelp, story’s out! Russian asset Gabbard was informed that a Trump staffer was making off the books calls to foreign intelligence and, instead of it reporting through the usual chain, she contacted the White House directly and then DIDN’T report it through that chain.

The Trump crime family says the story is false, but also that it’s true and totally above board and legal what she did. Pay no attention to the TREASON behind the curtain.

So, who was talking to their handler, and was the handler Russian or Israeli this time?

“You’re under arrest!” “What charge?” “Resisting arrest and saying fuck.” FUCK THESE NAZI CUNTS!

“It seems like an overstep.” Why? Those ICEholes are coming to MY home and firing off clusters of teargas and flashbang grenades. People as far north as the Mirabella reported being exposed Sunday. I was 20 feet from a kid who looked to be about eight the day before when they gassed us—I’d been at the labor union event, streaming, because it was in my neighborhood, and working to get somewhere I could move away quickly if they used some tear gas.

I needed to a fucking gas mask just to walk outside my home, and on Sunday I needed one to live inside my home. So why the hell should this be considered an “overstep”?

Funny, he never gave me any orders. I used to take my orders from a chicken named Jack, but these days they come from the frogs. Because they are too strong when they’re together, y’know.

It must have been a typo … is what I would’ve said if not for:

• They can’t identify where the noose came from. BTW where is that noose now?
• Everybody swears they didn’t take the noose off him.
• Guards say the do rounds about hourly … but not that night.
• A prisoner count went down by one mysteriously (and without alarm) hours before Epstein was killed
• “There is no video” despite Epstein being in a wing expressly so there would be video
• “Here is video showing the stairs” that basically doesn’t show the stairs “nobody went up or down, the video proves”
• Someone noticed a gap in that video “The video cuts out for almost a minute at midnight due to system reset”
• Turns out it was three minutes. “Okay here’s video that shows we lied” with a few seconds gap, not minutes.
• FBI documents identify someone, likely an inmate, going up the stairs. Not released BTW.
• Others go up and down the stairs without detection that we have documentation of.
• “Gaurd took linens upstairs.” “No we didn’t!”
• “It was a suicide” conclusively, quickly, despite all of this…
• And then it turns out we now have evidence Trump wanted Epstein dead too.

Seems like the story and the facts keep changing to whatever you’re likely to believe and stop asking questions.

I don’t think this is gonna sound “civil”, because I genuinely think we are so completely fucked in the US that if we want to avoid either a Somalia-style civil war (which is really bad BTW) or a dictator in power … we need to do some pretty drastic stuff. And … even this is kinda dangerous IMO, but also IMO “safe” was something that went byebye in the 2024 election.

We must primary worthless Democrats like Schumer anywhere we can. “Ohhhhhkaayyyy…” FUCKING NO DAMMIT, NO MORE! This surrender bullshit has to stop and that means he’s gotta be removed from “leader” at the least. Then we need to get every Democrat we can into office, with strong leadership in the Senate and Stronger in the House. We must flip the Senate.

Next, Vance needs to be impeached. Yes Vance. Congress doesn’t actually need “cause” but claiming an army of fucking stormtroopers have “absolute immunity” to murder Americans is cause enough. He’s gotta go. And Congress must refuse to appoint his replacement. Because when you then impeach Trump over … pick a crime, really? That makes the Speaker our president. You see why I said this is dangerous, because one party rule always is corrupt. If we come out of this with a democracy where elections matter it’ll be a miracle.

The new president can begin firing Trump’s cabal of feckless, corrupt incompetents, and sith lord Stephen Miller too. At that point we need a special counsel to start investigatin’ and referring people for prosecutions as the evidence is collected. And the prosecutions need to happen. I don’t think people accept less than that. The evidence has to come out, and people need to be accountable. That is gonna include some in Congress. (Although frankly every Republican in Congress had access to classified info that proved a lot of Trump’s crimes from the start, so IMO they’re all co-conspirators. But I doubt even firebrand Democrats have the guts to charge them all.)

This is a monumental task and I have no idea how it gets accomplished.

The fact that these fucking animals are going after any random brown person headed to a hospital is more than reason to eject them from our city. Yeah yeah “balance blah blah we don’t want a war between our police and the feds…” Fucking bullshit, these bastards are waging a war on us right enough. I live near enough to the ICE building that I don’t have to go outside to hear the flashbangs and a week ago Sunday the gas was so thick people complained at the senior home next to the OHSU buildings. This shit needs to stop.

“Sir, they hate America and are leftist terrorists who should be arrested by DHS, very strongly.” All you do is just keep repeating that. He won’t remember what you said five minutes ago.