This post by attorney Tor Ekeland has been making the rounds on Blue Sky and I think it’s worth sharing: My dad was tortured by the Gestapo for 4 days and thrown in a concentration camp for being in the Norwegian Resistance. Growing up, he would tell me things he learned in the Resistance. I thought, I’m never going to need this stuff. Here’s some of those things #Thread First, you’re never going to win a head on battle with an adversary that’s got you outgunned. That’s not the point of the Resistance. The point is to create friction, make it hard for your adversary to operate, to increase transaction costs. Second, resistance doesn’t have to be a dramatic act. It can be a small act, like losing a sheet of paper, taking your time processing something, not serving someone in a restaurant. Small acts taken by thousands have big effects. Third, use your privilege and access if you’ve got it. He and his buddies stole weapons from the Nazis by driving up with a truck to the weapons depot, speaking German, acting like it was a routine pick up, and driving away.
Uncategorized
I wrote about Tate last week a criminal sex-trafficker and alleged good friend of … Barron Trump? I guess it does figure I posted this a year and a half ago, pointing out that Donald Trump was consorting with some truly vile, fringe figures, among them Paul Ingrassia, now working for the White House: Amanda Marcotte has written a fascinating deep dive report on online radicalization for Salon that I highly recommend. I’ll just excerpt this piece of it: The same rabbit-hole phenomenon that can draw social media users deeper into the world of eating disorders or suicidal ideation also appears to be a factor in online radicalization. Lisa Sugiura notes that many of the men she interviewed while researching the “incel” community were first drawn into that world through unrelated or apolitical online material, before the algorithm turned their heads toward darker stuff.
That comment is Elon with his full two months of being a gadfly in Mar-a-Lago wielding influence over a complex health and financial issue he knows nothing about. Yes, the richest man in the world is going to be pushing to take bare subsistence money away from disabled people. We are hearing that Susie Wiles is trying to build some walls between Elon and the Prez and rein in DOGE but who knows? And I don’t know how Trump could mess with SSDI unilaterally but I’m sure they have some ideas. It’s just insane that this idiot has influence on the government in any way. Democrats? Can’t you do something with this? By the way, here’s Elon being cute as always (when he isn’t talking to Nazis and delivering a Sieg Heil at the inauguration:
Was there ever any doubt? From Leigh Ann Caldwell at Puck: Last weekend, before his inauguration, Trump floated in conversations the notion of redirecting funds from the $370 billion Inflation Reduction Act, the massive infrastructure bill with a hilariously disingenuous name, to projects he wants to underwrite. The idea also came up earlier this week when he met with Republican congressional leaders, according to a person who received a rundown of the meeting. Rep. Sam Graves, the new chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, told me that’s not an immediate priority, but will happen “later in the year.” Graves said it would be part of the Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill, which funds highways and, well, surface transportation projects, which will begin to come into focus in the second half of the year. Or, Trump could ignore the Impoundment Act, the law that requires the administration to spend money on what Congress legislated, as his allies have suggested for a host of issues. Someone needs to ask Russ Vought what he plans to do on this. I don’t think it was in any of their plans to be spending money on this stuff.
Pick a fight For all their sky-is-falling rhetoric about Project 2025 last year, Democrats (with exceptions) have settled into business as usual in D.C. They just chose old and busted over new hotness for a top Oversight Committee post. It’s what they know. It’s their comfort zone, well-worn groove, rut [your preferred metaphor here]. Well, the rest of us will be feeling discomfort beyond serving in the congressional minority for the forseeable future. If Democrats have another gear, they’d damned well better find it now. From December 2016 during the first Trump transition: The biggest challenge Democrats face is not Donald Trump, but constitution. Not the one in the National Archives, but their inner constitution. The Democratic Party as an “establishment” organization is conservative by disposition. When shaken or defeated, or when facing the unknown, like now, such organizations by reflex seek safety in the comfortable and familiar. They shy from risk. Democrats fret about what Republicans might say about them at election time. Inner circles across the country worry about fundraising: regular donors might not support untested, young leaders.
He literally said he wants to “just clean out Gaza” Trump made some big news last night: President Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One Saturday that he wants Jordan and Egypt to take Palestinians from Gaza into their territory “temporarily or long term.” Since the start of the war in Gaza, Egypt and Jordan have led the Arab world’s opposition to any forced transfer by Israel of Palestinians from Gaza. Trump on Saturday spoke on the phone with Jordan’s King Abdullah, who congratulated him on his inauguration. King Abdullah “stressed the pivotal role of the U.S. in pushing all sides to work towards achieving peace, security, and stability for all in the region,” the Jordanian royal court said in a statement. But Trump said the two leaders discussed an entirely different topic — the millions of Palestinians who live in Jordan, and the possibility that more will move there from Gaza. “I said to him, ‘I’d love you take on more,’ because I’m looking at the whole Gaza Strip right now and it’s a mess. It’s a real mess,” Trump said.
Not burning out is key to pushing back This next period of American history is going to be more of slog than the first Trump administration. Pray it isn’t as deadly. We’re all trying to summon an effective response to Trump 2.0, but the angst gets in the way, doesn’t it? Greg Sargent points to recommendations at Civic Texts, the blog website of technology journalist Alexander B. Howard. In the wake of Trump pardoning violent Jan. 6 seditionists and portraying them as victims, Howard offers some suggestions for self-care and safety online. “If you want to hit the trifecta of intolerance, ignorance, and bigotry, however, post online about religion, immigration, and the First Amendment at the same time. (It’s like grabbing a third rail, but less fun.)” Trump and his enablers in the states, in Congress, and in the Supreme Court represent “the worst crisis for the rule of law in my lifetime, paired with a muted response from American society,” Howard writes. “The flood of actions is intentionally designed to overwhelm, intimidate, and flood the zone with cruelty expressly designed to instill hopelessness and fear.
You’ll be fine Progressives are allowed to have their advocates too. I’m very sorry if that offends the right wingers who are supported by just about every business on the planet (and believe me they are losing their shit over this ad) but that’s how it is.
Shamelessness was their superpower For a man with a decades-long obsession with the world laughing at us (him) and a visceral fear of looking weak, Donald Trump sure is determined to give the world plenty to laugh about. Especially for our sworn enemies. Vice President J.D. Vance cast a tie-breaking vote Friday night in the U.S. Senate to confirm Pete Hegseth, the scandal-spangled, alleged hard-drinking, former Fox News weekend talk show co-host, as Trump’s next secretary of defense. What won’t Hegseth do at Trump’s whim? Shooting Americans in the legs could be the least of it. Stuart Stevens, former chief Republican strategist and Lincoln Project adviser, posted to social media Friday night that “Trump could have appointed serious Conservatives to his Cabinet. Instead, he picked nuts and freaks. Why? To prove he could make Republican Senators do whatever he told them to.” “Humiliation through submission,” Stevens concluded. Republican senators are not the only ones Donald Trump means to humiliate through submission. He just wants to “do them” first to show the world who’s boss and who’s the gimp.
If they are smart enough to run with it I wish I knew why the Democrats are acting like they just lost in a huge landslide so they must find ways to appeal to the huge majority of MAGA acolytes or stay out in the cold for a generation. It just ain’t true. However, one of the real lessons of the election, indeed the last several elections probably going back to Occupy Wall Street, is that the country is in a populist phase and it’s up for grabs which party will be able to meet the moment. The Democrats passed big pieces of legislation aimed at working people while Trump and the Republicans have used typical right wing xenophobic and “anti-elite” populist sentiments neither of which has brought either party a real majority. However, if you want real populism, the GOP has given the Democrats an opening they couldn’t have dreamed of. Josh Marshall wrote about it today: I’ve mentioned a few times that Donald Trump is giving Democrats a big, big opening by so conspicuously surrounding himself and seeking the counsel of almost all of the country’s super-billionaires.