Notices by solarbird (solarbird@solarbird.net)

Okay, so remember when I told everybody to hold April 19th? Here’s where you can search for a 50501 event near you, and there are definitely going to be other events on the same day by other groups.

It will NOT be as big as April 5th. But a good turnout is important – and basically will continue to be important for months and months.

The next really massive turnout day looks like it’s going to be May 1st, though. Reserve the day. Indivisible is cooking something up, 50501 will be in on it, so will a lot of other people, or so I hear. Put it on your calendar now, so you’re ready.

Here are some other April 19 events in the Seattle area, compiled by Indivisible. I’m sure you can find something to do.

See you out there, and as always – good hunting.

#fascism #politics #protest #protests #uspol #uspolitics

Hello and welcome to another Monday planning day. At time of writing, I don’t actually know how this past weekend’s Tesla protests went – I’m writing this well in advance, and scheduling it to go up no matter what happens. But hopefully you were there and hopefully it went well.

This weekend is bigger. It’s called Hands Off! and it’s not specifically Tesla focused, it’s against the entire Musk/Trump administration agenda.

Like with the Tesla protests, there are hundreds scheduled. Like the Tesla protests, not all are at the same time of day – I have two in reasonable range of me that don’t even overlap so I may be able to show up at both.

You have options is what I am saying.

Go find a good one for you, make the time, and get out there.

And good hunting.

#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

One addendum to the last post:

We need to do our own reporting. We need to talk about these protests. To everyone. You need to post about them, at least to say you did them, that you were there.

The media’s not reporting it, so WE HAVE TO REPORT IT INSTEAD.

Which is one reason why I’m writing all this up. WE have to spread the news, because THEY will NOT.

Seriously, the fash podcasting littleman I talked about last post? He was literally the ONLY media to show up. No other media was there.

So once again, we have to be that media. For real.

#politics #uspol #uspolitics #wapol

This Saturday, March 29th, is Tesla Takedown Day, a day of peaceful protest at every US Tesla dealership and as many other dealerships and facilities outside the US as possible.

Here’s a map of planned protests you can join – places, times of day, and so on. They aren’t all at the same time, which might be useful for you. Find one close to you that’s at a time you can make and be there, preferably with a sign. If you don’t want to design your own sign, feel free to print and use one of these, or adapt them to your own ideas. They’re high resolution at 11×17 and plenty good enough at two times that.

Tesla Takedown is also helping people find protests on other days as well. Here’s the home website for the movement, with all the details you need.

Get out there. And good hunting.

#fascism #politics #uspol #uspolitics

Holy shit, team. That thing I told you to do? Last week? The anti-trans bill, and the attempt to cut off debate, and how we had to stop it here or we wouldn’t, because then it could pass with only Republican votes so we needed to stop it here and now?

It fucken

WORKED

The vote got called this afternoon. Move to cloture FAILED 51-45, and not one single Democrat crossed the line.

Note how if this were a straight-up 50%+1 vote, it would’ve passed. That’s why we needed to win it here, where they needed 60 votes.

They might try again later but right now this is a big win. Drop ’em a note of thanks, team. Shouldn’t be required, but give it a moment anyway. This one can just be email, if that’s easier for you.

Not one crossed over.

Not one.

Good job.

#LGBT #LGBTQIA #politics #uspol #uspolitics

HHS employees, DO NOT OPEN YOUR EMAIL.

Not without reading this first.

They’re going to cut off your network access as soon as you read your email, so you need to download a bunch of things first. Details at the link.

DO NOT OPEN YOUR EMAIL WITHOUT READING THIS FIRST.

See also the firings in the Epidemic Intelligence Service.

#datascience #fascism #medicine #politics #science #uspol #uspolitics

Yes! As always, it’s not the most fucked up thing you will ever see, it’s the most fucked up think you’ve ever seen so far.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield want to stop covering anesthesiology drugs beyond a fixed amount of time

during

surgeries?

So if a surgery goes longer than their time allotment, coverage stops on

anaesthesia?!

I mean

I mean

I mean

there’s also the whole “nothing says quality medicine like rushing a surgery team” but

HOLY SHIT YOU MONSTERS

#HomeEc #lolscience #medicine #science

The Google app for iOS now adds THEIR links to YOUR posts from YOUR website unless you opt-out.

Their links lead people away from your site and back to Google. Because that’s definitely what you want, right? That’s why you have a blog or portal or web site or whatever. You want people to leave your site and go back to Google.

Oh, it’s not?

If you don’t like it, you can “Opt out.” Opting out is a pain in the ass. Here’s where you go to do it. You have to enter every variation of each of your domains or it won’t work. It will take up to 30 days, during which time Google will continue to pollute your work and your writing and your website with their modifications and their added links to take people away from your site and back to themselves.

For example, here’s the list of what I need to opt-out just for this one blog:

Yes, you explicitly have to file no prefix, http:, and https: variants separately. They say so.

Making it difficult like this is 100% intentional and entirely designed to make it as annoying as possible, and also, to make sure you slip up if at all possible and forget one or more combinations.

(Tho’ I am just going to depreciate web. as a prefix right now, to bring down the load a little. Still gonna list ’em, though, because spite is why.)

Right now it’s only in the Google app for iOS and it’s probably a test to see whether they can get away with it without complaint, and how much revenue it generates. Let’s make that a combination of no and as close to zero as possible. Because otherwise they’ll roll it out everywhere, and probably derank you if you don’t go along.

Fucking hell, Google. Fuck you. Just… fuck you.

#art #t0000000000bs_ #writing

The New Republic have called for an exit from Twitter saying that if you’re on X you’re complicit with Elon Musk

HEEEEEEY LOOK THE FUCKWIT MEDIA IS FINALLY NOTICING THAT TWITTER’S A FASCIST PROPAGANDA AND DISINFORMATION MACHINE AND ONLY TWO YEARS LATE! WOOOOOW!

Jesus fucking wept.

#fascism #politics #uspolitics

Say “You know that rape taunt going around? If you do this in front of me, I WILL IMMEDIATELY PUNCH YOU IN THE DICK.”

Or whatever you’re willing to say, but say it as strongly as you’re willing to say it. They’re looking for social permission from men. You must pre-emptively deny that in the strongest terms you’re willing.

This is about force now. Not reason.

I think I’ve squared a circle. Doesn’t mean it’s real; just that I’ve found a way to square it.

Walk with me.

Let’s say you’re Trump and you’ve promised mass deportations and huge tariffs on China and other countries.

Let’s say that mass deportation is incredibly expensive – maybe you’re aware that Hitler’s camps and extermination programme were eating 13% of Nazi Germany’s GDP in the middle of their wars of conquest.

Let’s say you’re also aware that this will take years and years and years, because there’s literally no way to do this quickly. Physically, I mean. 15 million people can’t be thrown out overnight, or even over months. It’ll be years.

Let’s also say you want to keep inflation down, particularly to keep prices from skyrocketing due to your tariff policies. Tariffs are, I remind you, a tax an imports that get paid by the importer, and which are passed on to the customer. They are inflationary, by design. At least, until and unless they torpedo the economy entirely, at which point, well, you’ve set off a second Great Depression, just like Smoot and Hawley.

Now, let’s say that it’s very important to you to keep wages down as well, because nobody wants to pay workers if they can avoid it. If you want to bring back a lot of manufacturing in an already-tight labour market, that’s going to raise labour costs. It just is.

So you assign an amoral monster like Tom Homan – author of Trump’s Family Separation policy – as the “czar” of immigration. He’s promising the largest deportation force in history and recently said his answer to preventing “family separation” is to expel the entire family – citizenship be damned.

(He’s also a contributor to Project 2025 and a visiting fellow at Heritage Foundation. Project 2025 absolutely is the agenda. All of it.)

Then you start talking to people you’re already very friendly with, the operators of private prisons. They are utterly ready and looking forward to the new policies. They see it as an opportunity to double – or better – the size of their evil industry in all its forms.

Your inner circle have already acknowledged you’ll have to build camps – lots of them, big ones. You’ll call them “prisons” or “detention facilities” or “military camps,” not “concentration camps,” you certainly won’t call them that. Let’s say “facilities.”

Prison “facilities” are already well known for requiring prison labour, and for their pennies-per-hour payment to inmates. Private prisons have pushed the envelope on this in many ways; prison labour is a profit centre. One I was working against, before the fascist era.

So.

Imagine, if you would, the very easy jump.

You’ve got to do something with these hundreds of thousands of imprisoned people, don’t you.

Imagine expulsions taking months, then years. Years at a time. Perhaps they stop working so hard on speeding up the process. Perhaps they slow-walk it, timed to, say, suit the availability of “facility” beds.

Of course you’ll put them to work. A rotating cast of “facility” workers – “prison workers” – worked slowly through the system so there’s no one there quite long enough to start organising.

Paid, technically. At pennies for the hour, as a token, a pretence that it’s not slavery. But, of course, it is. You recoup the pennies you have to pay by charging them for everything. Maybe even their bed.

And just like that you have highly profitable… North Korean-style labour camps, with entire families of workers imprisoned, for who knows how long while they are put to work as factory labour for the private prison companies which become the new internal outsourcers of zero-cost labour.

Slavery, though not by name.

Maybe you’ll tie camp expansions to increases in tariffs. Raise them in parallel, timed so that the internal outsourcing absorbs the cost of the new tariffs. And then look – no price inflation, no wage inflation.

And whole new class of people to look down upon forever, if you like.

It’s quite the plan. Very neat. Very clean. Given that Trump voters actively want “military camps” used against immigrants, it’ll be a very easy sell.

And very, very profitable. Slave camps always have been, really.

And all you have to be is an abomination upon the earth.

And all your supporters have to do is let you be one.

Is that the plan? I don’t know.

All I know is that all the pieces seem to fit.

#fascism #politics #uspolitics

I am not seeing nearly enough cishet men react proactively to this national wave of rape threats.

Most men listen only to men, particularly on topics like these. These men specifically only listen to men. Not listening to the opinions of women is the point, because as far as they’re concerned, we don’t get to have any.

Right now, these men are testing what they can get away with. They see but don’t care about how women react; if anything, they like the revulsion and anger, and look forward to more of it when they actually start “grabbing women by the pussy.”

But they do want to see how other men will react. They want to know what other men will say or do.

Passivity now, in the face of this, is permission. And your men friends are watching. If you don’t object, they probably won’t either. So if you’re against this – and you fucking well need to be – you need to get ahead of it.

And the next time, and the time after that? Every other time the fash test something? Because they will be testing everything they can?

It’s the same reality.

You have to get in front of it. Independently. Not just a thumbs up to a woman’s post. Preferably in your own words.

And you have to start right now.

#fascism #politics #uspolitics

How the fuck do you get a 33-point swing in favour of the guy campaigning on an ethnic purge against you?

This exit polling graph tells me everything and helps me understand absolutely nothing:

Trump won Latino men 53-45 after campaigning for months on the basis of an ethnic purge against Latino people, promising to expel millions of people, and if you think that’s only going to be undocumented people, you’re out of your goddamn fucking mind and you have to know that.

Trump won Latino men 53-45 after a hate rally in New York City against Puerto Ricans, who are Latino, and who got the word out.

White women still voted for Trump, but swung towards Harris. It’s stupid and it’s evil.

But how the fuck do you win the people you’re campaigning on purging?

Without this swing, I think I was mostly right. My higher hopes hinged on white women shifting more than they did, and they didn’t, which is fucking self-destructive. But this… I just… did not see this coming. It wasn’t in any of my calculations. It’s suicidal past a level I don’t know how to handle.

How do you get votes from people you’re promising to purge?

And now I don’t know what to think at all.

[link] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics

Election Liveblog

I’ve never done an intentional “liveblog” before, but since I’ll be glued to it all anyway, I’ve decided hey, why not. This is the liveblog root, and updates will be in the replies below, which are also Federated so you can follow along on Mastodon and other Federated social media.

I’m also going to experiment with reply threads grouped by topic.

How active will it be? That’s a dang good question, and we’ll find out. I’ve got a few items queued up already to start reply threads. Let’s gooooooooooooooooooo~~~

[link] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #t0000000000bs_ #uspolitics

Results and Exit Polling thread root

Holy shit the Latino – meaning in this case mostly Puerto Rican – exit polling in Philadelphia. Massive turnout, 90% Harris.

This insanity right here is why I kept hammering on how Elon Musk thinks Trump’s plans will crash the economy, but he thinks that’s good and wants it to happen, and why I kept begging everyone else to talk about it too.

But the media ignored it, so a majority of voters still trust Trump with the economy over Harris. Batshit insane.

A pitch I did not expect to have to make on this final day

For years now, I have been railing against the Republican Party as a literal – literal – Party of Plague. In these closing days of the campaign, they have quadrupled back down on this in ways that will kill millions of Americans.

Not “might.” Will.

Appointing RFK, Jr. as czar of public health and letting him “go wild” will kill millions. Not might: will. Not immediately, no, but over time. Trump himself is utterly refusing to promise he and his party won’t ban vaccines and said on Sunday that RFK Jr.’s pledge to eliminate fluoridation of water on day one “sounds OK to me.”

If they do this and make it stick, millions will die. And an outsized number of them will be children.

Courtesy McNadoMD on Mastodon, here are a few of the diseases mass vaccination eliminated from American life, and which banning vaccination will bring back, along with some of their symptoms and progression paths.

Lockjaw and rabies:

Diphtheria:

Whooping cough:

Polio:

You get the idea, right?

These aren’t the only ones. These are just a few of those less often mentioned in these modern times, because people have forgot they exist.

When I say the Republican Party is a Party of Plague, when I say it is a goddamn death cult, I mean every single one of those words in every way you might think.

They are promising economic ruin and they are promising ethnic purges and now they are promising mass death of children.

All while killing pregnant people for their vile sense of domination, of course. Let us never forget that, since their families certainly won’t.

One of the things their apologists keep saying is that “Trump doesn’t mean it” and “Trump won’t do it,” and “That’s just Trump being Trump,” and they talk about “Trump derangement syndrome,” and say that we’re stupid for believing what their candidate fucking says he’ll do, and meanwhile, they get enraged about shit they completely make up about us and the candidates who are with us.

We react to things their candidates promise. They react to shit they make up wholesale about us. We are not the fucking same.

If only the political press would catch on to that fact.

The very last day of a campaign is a pretty lousy time to bring up another topic, even if it’s not really new. But this is, again, so murderously psychotic that I can’t not bring it back up.

Maybe you can bring it up, too, on this final day of this hellish and evil campaign, this Monday, November 4th, 2024.

Zero days remain.

It is Lastday.

[link] #medicine #politics #science #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics

oh ho ho

yep.

looks like the trump campaign figured out reason nr. 1 in my list and are absolutely freaking the fuck out.

So they’ll be pivoting to denialism and Plan B/Coup II probably full-time now. But the bigger the gap, the fewer people will go in with them, so we need every vote in every state, because Coup II all about the psychological.

Time to bring it home, team. Let’s get it done.

this looks to me like what we call a “tell”

“Scoop: What Trump is hearing about his chances in a tight 2024 race,” writes Axios. I’m not linking it, because I think it’s shenanigans.

What he’s supposedly hearing is that he pretty much has the election pretty much in hand, better position than 2020, blah blah blah blah [fart noises].

I’m calling bullshit on the whole story, because this “internal” memo that they “scooped” is using as its thesis data from fucking Real Clear Politics, an absolutely canonical clown car, and if they had real, actual, good internal data showing what they’re talking about, they’d be using it. And they’re not.

Given that even Trump should know that, I’m thinking much less “this was a scoop” and a lot more “This was propaganda written to be ‘scooped’ up and reported as a ‘scoop,'” and Axios happened to be the ones who bit.

Further – I think it’s a tell. Between that and Trump going all in on telling his cult that he has a truly massive lead that can only be overtaken by fraud, what I’m actually hearing is that the Trump campaign thinks they’re losing.

I think they know something very bad about their numbers, and I think I know what it is, and I think it’s more than one thing. 1: I think the gender gap is higher than they or pollsters have been thinking it is; 2: I think likely voter composition is different than they think it is and pollsters haven’t caught up either (this is, however, reflected in enthusiasm numbers); 3: I think Trump has failed to get past his hard upper limit of 47% and thanks to that racist hatefest in New York, Latino men who had been leaning towards not voting for a woman got a big slap of reality in the face, and finally…

4: People who don’t math very well are saying that Harris’s wide lead in early polling just reflects how Democrats always turn out more for early voting than Republicans, and that her lead is not even as good as Biden’s was in 2020, but that ignores that this time, Republicans are in fact turning out in early polling, and way more than they have for a while, and Trump’s even been encouraging them.

A lot of people don’t seem to be catching on to that, and it matters.

And while a lot of these numbers are shaky at best – there’s one set of numbers going around that is in fact from a decent polling agency but the question it’s hanging on is kind of fucked up so I don’t think it’s reliable – Harris’s lead appears to be bigger than the party turnout differential.

And what that means is that some of those early-voting registered Republicans are voting for her.

Mostly women, no doubt. But still, I have seen some numbers that make me go holy shit. And not just in Kansas.

I’m wondering whether the Trump campaign have figured all that shit out. Particularly with their panic about Republican women not voting the way their men want them to, and talking about how maybe women shouldn’t be voting at all and maybe the 19th Amendment needs to go away so that women can’t vote.

Their reaction to losing is always to prevent the people who vote against them from being able to vote at all. I see no reason for this time to be different. If they’re saying women shouldn’t be voting at all, that tells me they’re being absolutely brutalised by women voters – as they damn well should be.

So now they’re moving forward on their Plan B of setting up the faithful for mass rejection of the results and a second coup attempt.

Another thing I said a very long time is that to get through this without major violence, we need the fascists to think that they’re on the very cusp of victory throughout, and not to believe they’re actually going to lose until they literally can’t win.

That’s what 2024 has always been about, and I think they may’ve just figured out they can’t win.

I really would’ve preferred them not figuring this out for another few days, but, well… four days beforehand, that’s not so bad. One day after would’ve been ideal, of course, but four days before? We can work with that.

Keep up the pressure, team. Stay at your posts, or if you’re not at your post, get to one and start pushing us across the finish line. If these numbers confuse you, forget about them all – in fact, ignore all the polls entirely. I could be so very, very wrong. I don’t think I am and my history is good, but in the fog of war, anyone can be fooled, including me.

So stay on target. First we have to win this, then we have to keep it. And we can’t leave anything “on the field,” because this is – as I have said many, many times – for all the marbles.

Eyes. On. The. Prize.

3 days remain.

[link] #politics #USPol #fascism #politics #uspolitics