OH MY GOSH, the Luvahs always slay me!!!
BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
25 May 2024
24 May 2024
TELL PRESIDENT BIDEN, "THIS IS A TIME FOR PEACEMAKING -AND THAT STARTS WITH A CEASE-FIRE." 24MAI24
PLEASE sign this petition, share with family and friends and pray for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
Add your name to tell President Biden, "This is a time for peacemaking — and that starts with a cease-fire."
Dear President Biden,
As Christians, we demand that the U.S. government use its considerable power to advocate for a cease-fire by Israel in Gaza, including withholding U.S. military weapons. The Israeli government's invasion of Rafah makes this even more urgent.
We grieve with all the families who have lost loved ones and pray for an end to the violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip.
We unequivocally condemn Hamas’ attacks and inhumane treatment of civilians. We demand the immediate release of all hostages.
We equally condemn the Israeli government’s current bombing campaign, ground invasion, 16-year blockade of Gaza, and longstanding military occupation of the West Bank. We demand that Israel move toward democratic norms and an equitable inclusive society for all.
We call on you and your administration to apply maximum diplomatic pressure to negotiate a cease-fire in order to limit the current war and restrain a wider regional conflict, ensure that sufficient medical aid, water, food, and fuel can reach Gazan civilians, and pave the way for political solutions that provide lasting peace, security, and justice.
As Christians, we are shocked at the disregard by armed actors for the lives and safety of international aid workers and for the protection of holy sites and religious charitable institutions that serve as pillars of communities. As peacemakers, we must honor the image of God in every Palestinian and every Israeli.
Peacemaking calls for both restraint and courageous and concrete actions that de-escalate the current conflict and opens up creative possibilities for durable and resilient peace, security, and justice.
This is a time for peacemaking — and that starts with a cease-fire.
Everything at stake at the Supreme Court 22MAI24
I no longer believe the Supreme Court of the United States ( SCOTUS ) will protect America's civil liberties and civil rights. I fear the First Amendment will be shredded and left in tatters on the courtroom floor. I am afraid of what the future holds for any of us who isn't a White "evangelical christian". This is why I remain a sustaining member of the ACLU knowing my monthly donations allow the ACLU to monitor our government, take legal action to defend our freedom, rights and liberties and keep us aware of the status of the legal situation in our country. Here is an update on the SCOTUS, and you can click on the link to join and / or donate to the ACLU.....
We are just weeks away from hearing the Supreme Court's rulings on cases that could impact every one of our rights – from medication and emergency abortion access to our voting rights and criminal law reform. With so many cases on the docket, it can be easy to lose track of what's at stake. That's why we're breaking down the major cases we're tracking. Check out our recap of what we're waiting on from the Supreme Court this term >> IN ABORTION RIGHTS
IN VOTING RIGHTS
IN CRIMINAL LEGAL REFORM
For more on ALL these cases – and others we're tracking this season – read our latest piece recapping this Supreme Court term.
Supporters like you fuel all of this work and more. So as we hear rulings on these important cases, you'll be the first to know what these rulings mean for our rights, our next steps, and how you can take action too. Thanks for all you do, The ACLU Team | ||||
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Two major cases will determine the future of abortion access. In one, the Supreme Court is considering whether to impose nationwide restrictions on mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion and miscarriage care. In the other, the Supreme Court will decide if emergency care mandates include necessary abortion care – or if politicians can force doctors to turn away pregnant people at the emergency room doors.
South Carolina voters are still awaiting a ruling on their new congressional maps – which we, along with partners, challenged in court for being racially discriminatory. The gerrymandering in this case would shut Black voters out of meaningful representation. The Supreme Court will decide whether to overturn these harmful maps.
The Court will soon decide if cities can criminalize unhoused people with no access to shelter for sleeping outside in public. The case stems from an Oregon city's law punishing people for sleeping outside on a blanket, pillow, or even a cardboard sheet to lie on. The Supreme Court will decide if this is a violation of the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Unhoused people should not be fined or arrested for simply existing.
FORTY-FIVE! - A Randy Rainbow Song Parody 20MAI24
Parody of “9 to 5” (music and lyrics by Dolly Parton)
Parody lyrics by Randy Rainbow Vocals: Randy Rainbow Song Produced, Orchestrated, Mixed, Mastered by Michael J Moritz Jr @michaeljmoritz Vocal Arrangement - Brett Boles Piano, Synths - Michael J Moritz Jr Bass - Adam DeAscentis Drums - Billy LaGuardia Guitars - Dylan Kondor Saxes - Ryan Saranich Trumpets - James Canty Engineer - Joe AmadioTrump Shares ‘Unified Reich’ Campaign Video During Lunch Break 21MAI24
Trump Shares ‘Unified Reich’ Campaign Video During Lunch Break
The 30-second video was shared on his Truth Social account while he was on a lunch break from his hush-money trial.
Donald Trump’s Truth Social account has boosted a campaign video that spoke of a “unified Reich” in America if he reclaims the White House in the November election.
The 30-second video, which was finally taken down Tuesday after it remained up for 15 hours despite growing outrage, features a series of headlines predicting “what happens after Donald Trump wins,” with answers like, “Economy booms!” and “15 Million Illegal Aliens Deported.” One headline referenced the “creation of a unified Reich,” using a term meaning “realm” or “empire” that is usually associated with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich in Nazi Germany.
The Biden campaign reacted to the video with alarm on Monday night, with campaign spokesman James Singer accusing Trump of “parroting Mein Kampf” in a statement posted to X.
“America, stop scrolling and pay attention. Donald Trump is not playing games; he is telling America exactly what he intends to do if he regains power: rule as a dictator over a ‘unified reich,’” Singer wrote.
Amid the controversy, Trump’s campaign said Trump himself had nothing to do with the video and that it had been inadvertently shared by a staffer while the former president was on lunch break from his hush-money trial in Manhattan on Monday.
“This was not a campaign video, it was created by a random account online and reposted by a staffer who clearly did not see the word, while the President was in court,” campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, adding that “the real extremist is Joe Biden” for having supposedly “turned his back on Israel and the Jewish people.”
Trump social media video references 'unified reich'
Former president Donald Trump shared a video May 20 on Truth Social suggesting his reelection would bring 'unified Reich'. Trump’s ‘reich’ video, Biden’s pandemic and political smoke detectors
By Philip Bump
May 21, 2024 at 10:09 a.m. EDT
Mini-gaffes generate social media attention and validate preconceptions.
What first caught my eye in the video that was posted to Donald Trump’s account at Truth Social, the social media platform he owns, was an imaginary newspaper headline celebrating the deportation of immigrants should he win this November’s election.
Below that, a date: 28 July 1914 — 11 November 1918.
You will perhaps notice that a second Trump term would unfold not in the 1910s but the 2020s. If you are particularly attuned to world history, you may also notice that the indicated dates are actually the dates marking the beginning and end of World War I. In fact, you can see a mention of World War I in the background text at upper left; it mentions that the conflict is often abbreviated as “WWI.”
That same text snippet is also visible in the “peace through strength” bit of the video, too.
These are pretty clear hallmarks of placeholder text from stock footage. The advantage of newspapers over video is that you can pack a lot more information into a small space, but this means that those showing newspapers (or magazines or books or whatever) on screen have to come up with dummy text to make the thing look real. In movies, they’ll have someone write something that looks real but doesn’t draw attention. At other times, someone will just pull from some similarly inoffensive source — like, say, an encyclopedia entry on a global conflict.
There’s just one problem: Sometimes those entries contain snippets that might be overlooked until someone looks closely. Like a mention of a “unified reich.”
It’s not hard to see why that word, on that screen, would generate attention. “What’s next for America” followed by a hard-to-read sentence that ends in “reich,” a word used to describe the empire envisioned by Nazi Germany? Coming from Donald Trump?
Looking more closely, though, it’s clear that the video isn’t saying that “what’s next” is an American reich. The full sentence says that “industrial strength significantly increased … driven by the creation of a unified reich.” This, too, is a reference to world history, and the evolution of German power in the decades before World War I. That this is just more dummy text is made more obvious by its inclusion in the final page of “newsprint” shown in the video.
The Trump campaign asserts that it didn’t make the video but, instead, that it was made by a supporter and reshared by the former president’s account. (It’s not clear whether Trump himself posted the video; it was published during a break in his Manhattan criminal trial.)
Such things have happened before. In 2015, Trump blamed a social media post insulting Iowans on a “young intern.” The following February, he reshared an unattributed quote from the fascist leader Benito Mussolini. That July, his campaign spent days dealing with the fallout of his resharing an image including antisemitic tropes. Then, as now, it seemed more likely that Trump or his team were insufficiently attentive to what they were sharing than that they were intentionally sending a weird, coded wink to their followers. And then, as now, doing so triggered a flurry of criticisms and suggestions that the shared material was deeply revealing of intent.
The Trump video arrived on the heels of a similar flare-up for President Biden. During a speech in Michigan over the weekend, Biden offered an anecdote intended to show his affection for the city of Detroit and its leadership.
“When I was vice president,” Biden said, “things were kind of bad during the pandemic, and what happened was Barack said to me, ‘Go to Detroit and help fix it.’ Well, poor mayor, he spent more time with me than he ever thought he was going to have to.”
There was a pandemic when Barack Obama was president; in 2009, the H1N1 influenza virus reached that status and Biden was tasked with the government’s response. (This was a common point of comparison among Trump supporters during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.) But Biden misspoke, as the White House transcript indicates; he meant “recession.”
Fox News wrote a story about the mistake, as did the New York Post and other right-wing outlets.
There are two advantages for partisans in elevating such stories. The more obvious is to embarrass their opponents. The other is slightly more subtle, using such stories to reinforce existing assumptions about the other party’s presidential candidate.
To his critics, Biden’s gaffe is the smoke that proves the fire: He is insufficiently mentally capable to serve as president for another four years. To Trump’s critics, the “reich” video plays the same role: It shows that he is sympathetic to the fascism that defined Nazi Germany — or at least, his supporters are.
We live in a moment where this sort of smoke detection, if you will, is rampant. It’s not new that political candidates and their supporters would seek out gaffes on the part of their opponents. It is new, though, that so many people would be engaged in the gaffe-seeking economy, in serving as smoke detectors that might demonstrate the presence of a conflagration. Anyone, these days, is empowered to have an international audience in the manner that was once reserved for substantial news organizations, so anyone interested in undermining a candidate for president can pore over videos or transcripts and pick out things that might serve as that smoke or otherwise embarrass the candidate. And there are rewards for doing so: the tainted, jinxed currency of social media attention.
Americans have valid concerns about how Trump intends to wield power, should he return to the White House, and about how Biden’s age might affect his job performance. Those points of weakness increase the social value of finding proof of those flaws and — in classic supply-and-demand fashion — increase the supply of examples.
We are a nation littered with political smoke detectors, constantly blaring. The type of smoke detectors, mind you, where you can’t simply take out the battery.
Update: A person who does motion graphics and video editing work emailed with a link to the stock footage used in the video Trump shared. This person noted that they’d used the same template recently, noting that the designer of the Trump video had apparently not swapped out the filler text included by default.
PBS NewsHour full episode, Jan. 6, 2021, Watch: What we saw the day the Capitol was attacked | 'America, Interrupted' Podcast 8JAN21
SHARING videos (and transcripts when available) of the treason committed against the United States of America by the insurrectionist sent by (NOT MY) pres drumpf / trump and other fascist republican officials to storm the U.S. Capital Building on 6JAN21. drumpf's / trump's actions reminds me of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. hitler and drumpf / trump but incited their followers to commit treason, insurrection and physical violence. While hitler physically participated in the putsch, cadet bone spurs ((NOT MY) pres drumpf / trump) hid in the White House watching the storming of the U.S. Capital Building by his followers he just sent to Capital Hill on TV. I watched this horror take place mostly on PBS, Lisa Desjardins' reporting was nothing short of amazing. First from PBS NewsHour, then MSNBC
2.36M subscribers SUBSCRIBED
On Jan. 6, for the first time in more than two centuries, Congress was attacked and overrun, this time by its own citizens. The PBS NewsHour’s anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff talks to correspondents Lisa Desjardins, Amna Nawaz and Yamiche Alcindor about what they saw as they reported from inside the Capitol, the grounds that surround it and the White House, respectively– and what they and other Americans will remember from that day.
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