And I hadn’t even seen until today this from a piece way back in 2023 by Jonathan Karl in The Atlantic, on Trump’s CPAC speech. A bit of a holy shit moment for me right now.
“And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.” He repeated the last phrase—“I am your retribution”—and promptly the crowd started chanting: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” When I spoke with Bannon a few days later, he wouldn’t stop touting Trump’s performance, referring to it as his “Come Retribution” speech. What I didn’t realize was that “Come Retribution,” according to some Civil War historians, served as the code words for the Confederate Secret Service’s plot to take hostage—and eventually assassinate—President Abraham Lincoln."
Connolly was my rep when I lived in Virginia. He was good in that role. That said, he, and many other Dem leaders, should have moved the f#*••! over to make room for someone younger to start leading the party forward. These elders should serve as mentors to their younger peers. Instead, they’re acting as roadblocks. Neither the Democratic Party nor the USA has time to indulge their stupid egotistical games.
I’m so fucking done with religion. I completely understand why people are religious. I totally get it. But at some point, you really have to examine why you believe in anything. If something is really true, why do you need to believe in it? Why does it require worship and praise every single day, and money? Lots and lots of money?
Yeah, I just was too lazy to look up the exact stats for the time when they were sending around the goon squads to police plastic straws, so wanted to stay conservative in estimate.
We really do underestimate how this sort of dumb stuff resonates with the public. All the arguments about how much waste of taxpayer dollars is happening gets legitimized by what are often relatively-small but stupid expenditures, when clearly there are far higher priorities where we expect to like walk or drive down a street without being assaulted or worse. But at least the ER will have a paper straw for the water cup at the hospital after, so we’ve saved the whales.
