Lovely (?!?) analogy.
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Conservatives use free speech laws to spread lies and disinformation while opposing liberal truths. Conservatives are not honest participants in democracy or morality.
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If you are caught lying, you are fired.
I hear there is a new sign going up over employee entrances to NIH facilities:
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
H/T to Dante Alighieri and his Divine Comedy.
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Again, I ask where is your Rubicon?
We’re now way past Diaper Don breaking the law
Way past a “constitutional crisis”
Way past wrecking America’s standing in the world.
We are now up to sham “investigations” to silence enemies.
Is that enough for you to get pissed and fight back?
Or will it take bullshit indictments?
Kangaroo courts?
Sham verdicts?
Unlawful prison sentences?
Summary executions?
Where is your line? When will you get furious and make a stand?
Because if your impulse is to say, “He’ll never do that” plenty of people thought we’d never get here and yet…here we fucking are.
So, again, where is your Rubicon?
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Don’t forget SpaceX. Elon’s gonna kill the NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) to direct those funds to SpaceX.
I have mixed feelings on that: the SLS is a mess of a project that has missed most of its dates. The only apparent alternative though, is SpaceX.
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Thing is, the Dante line you quote is itself a lie.
In most of the text inscribed over the Gate to Hell, The Satan describes his origin and nature in truthful, declarative sentences. The switch to the imperative for this last line is the clue to the lie. The only way out of hell is to hold on to hope. Granted, the way out requires a complete transit of hell first.
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A Member of the House or Senate can say whatever they want. Even something that seems to be a threat … if it is said in their respective chamber as you rightly note under the Speech and Debate clause. It would be a different matter if that supposed “threat” is spoken out on a public sidewalk.
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“We take threats against public officials very seriously."
“Unless we make them on a day in January.”
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In a multi-looter situation, it might help if the various gangs involved could get on the same page. Sheesh.
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Especially when we are the ones making them
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True enough. It’s been a really long time since I read part of The Divine Comedy (but that part I did read included Canto I). I’d forgotten (if I ever knew) that bit.
All I wanted was an implication recognizable to the literate that RFKJ and the DOGE boys are turning medical research in the US into hell. But that aspect just makes the jibe more appropriate in my opinion.
I have several friends who are involved in medical research or work (on the provider side) at academic medical centers. Everyone is scared right now, even the providers. The morale situation they describe is terrible. The providers actually have it better (in my opinion, although I’ve not voiced this) because they can immerse themselves in patient care. Those who hold NIH grants and fellowships are really scared. I don’t know any physicians in post-grad training (because who does? those folks are worked like rented mules) but I’m sure they are also scared.
And yet, the only route out of this miasmic Drumpfian swamp is to hold on to hope, to act locally while thinking globally, and vote as if your life depends on it…because it might.
PS: My wife is a professor of English. The things she tells me about what’s going down on her R-I campus parallel what I hear from my friends in academic medicine. It’s appalling.
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The most interesting thing about this is that it means the MAGA crowd in the Senate can’t get to 50.
It is no surprise to me that the Senate GOP cockup is as dysfunctional as the House GOP cockup.
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Where will the country go, exactly?
This is my problem with racists/misogynists/bigots . They are so f*cking cowardly. They never say what they mean. They speak in feeble code. Let the world know exactly what they are, the incredible weaklings!
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This is exactly what’s going to happen, and it’s going to be a living hell until it’s not.
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This is today’s lesson in the GOP, party of irony.
In the 2010 midterms, Republican Senate hopeful Sharron Angle argued that if U.S. policymakers pursued an agenda the far-right disapproved of, Americans would have to exercise their “Second Amendment remedies.”
In 2012, now Sen. Joni Ernst said “But I do believe in the right to carry, and I believe in the right to defend myself and my family – whether it’s from an intruder, or whether it’s from the government, should they decide that my rights are no longer important.”
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Stochastic terrorism for me, but not for thee.
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Careful what you write now important more than ever. Too bad the Democrats thought ‘turning the page’ was an effective slogan in spite fact many people don’t know what a ‘page’ is. Really inept. Should have been two words:” —— trump!” What 4 letters fit this slogan? Anyone care to meet the moment with strong emotional words. C’mon now, let’s say it together: “ - - - - trump!”