Notices by M.S. Bellows, Jr. (msbellows@c.im)

I would joke that Trump will appoint Clarence Thomas Attorney General and name Matt Gaetz to fill Thomas' Supreme Court seat, except in this screwed up timeline it's entirely possible that Trump will appoint Clarence Thomas Attorney General and name Matt Gaetz to fill Thomas' Supreme Court seat.

You knew Trump wants to eliminate the Department of Education. You've learned he's naming WWE wrestling executive Linda McMahon to head that agency.

But did you know that Project 2025's blueprint for dismantling the agency calls for disabled children's special education services to be overseen by... RFK Jr ? The guy who believes vaccines cause autism and that autism needs to be "cured"? #autism #audhd #neurotribes #ASD

Details in next post. 1/2

@kp @clive I'm impressed that the pamphlet had the courage to include the Silver Shirts among the examples of proto-fascism in America, because they were active from 1933 to 1941 (they disbanded after Park Harbor), and their tens of thousands of members were still around.

Never pull your punches around fascists!

Probably the most salient shared characteristic of everyone in Trump's orbit is that they all appear to have personality disorders: narcissism, borderline, etc. When interacting with PD people (as we all are now, sadly), it's helpful to understand what that means, and to learn tools that smart people have developed for dealing with them. Here's a nicely written article by mediator Bill Eddy, coaching professionals on what the PDs are, how PD people operate, and ideas for managing them: (.DOC) https://powerofpeaceportland.com/site/2013new_/Summary_of_High_Conflict_People_in_Legal_Disputes_and.doc

@whophd @bornach @aaribaud @lritter And the Kindle, of course.

@whophd @bornach @aaribaud @lritter Fair.

@Darkphoenix @br00t4c FACE-EATING LEOPARD ALERT!!!!

I understand that my conversations below the post above may sound like I'm part of the circular firing squad, and maybe I am. But I stand by my position that anyone who voted for Harris is a good person who shouldn't be secondguessed, and everyone who didn't vote for Harris, for whatever reason other than actual inability to vote, shares responsibility for the loss of American democracy. So I will love on the former and hate on the latter for as long as I feel, in my grief, like doing so.

Hey, folks? I've figured out who cost us this election:

It's "everyone who didn't vote for Kamala Harris."

That's it. That's whose fault it is. And everyone who DID vote for her is a good guy.

So now we can stop slinging shit at each other in a counterproductive circular firing squad, and start focusing on beating the fucking Nazis.

From "In the Ruins of the Reich" by Douglas Botting: "6 months after the War ended the US Army info Control Division ran an opinion poll which revealed that 50% of all Germans polled still thought that National Socialism was 'a good idea badly carried out: and only 40% thought it 'a bad idea.' At the same time 70% rejected the idea that Germany had in any way been responsible for the war while only 20% accept responsibility. By 1948 a similar poll revealed the percentage opinions had hardly changed even after 3 years of denazification."

Hey, you know those folks who periodically pop up claiming both parties are equally bad and even if voting third party helps Trump win it would just hasten the necessary collapse of neoliberalism?

I have a new answer for them. It's a quote from William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," which I'm currently reading:

"The cardinal error of the Germans who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it. At the crest of their popular strength, in July 1932, the National Socialists had attained but 37 per cent of the vote. But the 63 per cent of the German people who expressed their opposition to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them unless they united, however temporarily, to stamp it out. The Communists, at the behest of Moscow, were committed to the last to the silly idea of first destroying the Social Democrats, the Socialist trade unions and what middle-class democratic forces there were, on the dubious theory that although this would lead to a Nazi regime it would be only temporary and would bring inevitably the collapse of capitalism, after which the Communists would take over and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. Fascism, in the Bolshevik Marxist view, represented the last stage of a dying capitalism; after that, the Communist deluge!”

That didn't work then, and it won't work now. Politics in a democracy IS compromise, and the lesser of two evils is less evil.

Please stop blaming "the Democrats." Anyone can be a Monday morning quarterback. The Democrats did the boldest thing imaginable by having the incumbent step aside and replacing him with a young Black woman. There is only one group that is responsible for this debacle, and it is the people that voted for anyone other than Harris. And all "the Democrats" voted for Harris.

Today I'm wearing my new flag shirt: white and blue, no fucking red.

God bless a better America than the one we have. God bless the America of our dreams, rather than the actual hateful one founded in racism and privilege.

Napoleon returned from being imprisoned on Elba.
Hitler returned after being imprisoned for the Beer Hall Putsch.
Who will be America's Wellington? Our Eisenhower?

@ianrosewrites If Harris loses,* I'd like a little time to blame the FUCK out of any lefties who abstained or voted for Stein or West or RFK, please. Because anyone who doesn't vote for the Black woman when they had the chance is someone who, you know, DIDN'T VOTE FOR THE BLACK WOMAN WHEN THEY HAD THE CHANCE, and therefore fuuuuuck them.

Then later I'll rally and we can try again. But only later.

*knock on wood

WHO'S UP FOR A KARMIC METAPHOR???

Yesterday: "The ex-President... wore an apron over his shirt but skipped the gloves and hairnet, saying his hands were 'nice and clean.' The Meidas Touch claims that he skipped hand washing and went straight to work." (Cite below.)

Today: "What to know about E. coli and the McDonald's outbreak"
https://apnews.com/article/e-coli-mcdonalds-outbreak-bacteria-quarter-pounder-080847096a6b7062b4fb17037393fc99

Crazy thought: what if, the instant a billionaire illegally paid someone to register to vote, he was indicted and hauled in front of a judge for arraignment? Like, as quickly as a Black man caught selling loose cigarettes would be?

Our ballots arrived. We voted. We'll hand-carry them to the ballot drop box in front of the police station, which is next to the cannabis dispensary, because Oregon (mostly) is the future Democrats want. And now @GottaLaff and I can be friends again, because I'm no longer seething with jealousy that she got to vote earlier then I did -- FROM CANADA.

Trump's aides hid from him the so-called "Doomsday Book" outlining the emergency presidential powers that a president arguably could assert in a massive national disaster like nuclear war:
https://time.com/7086057/donald-trump-second-term-emergency-aides/

@OWHolmes Agreed. As I read that article, his aides weren't afraid of nuclear war, but that he would decide to exercise the same powers for a spurious reason.