42 Comments
Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Oh God. It does sound real. It is real isn't it? As if I'm not depressed enough.

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cribbed straight from the tucker show, no doubt.

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Costarring Glenn as Kapo #1.

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

It is the end of the Era of Big Government! No longer will government intrude unnecessarily in the private maters of whether or not Acme Chemicals can poison the public water supply. Government has no role to play there! The GOP is getting Big Government out of the boardroom!

At the same time, we conservatives recognize what is really the most vital role government can play: Making sure no citizen does anything with their private parts that WE do not approve of. Only government can ensure that you do the right thing with the right person in the right way.

The GOP: Getting Big Government out of the boardroom and into the bedroom!

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Ya got me there, pal...tho I'd slow-walk yer plans a little til we see how the out-migration plays. I mean, ya think all those techster hipsters an' all their money gonna stick around yer pointless little Silicon Swamp once you reinstate the 'Heil Thurmond' chant? What about the corruptorations? Oh, you can keep Elon – hell, we'll throw in Zuck! – but once the last Big Financier turns out the last light and that entire zone of oversized office buildings is vacant (and the coyotes retake the tax wasteland) you'll have a righteous* struggle on yer hands, just to scrape together the scrip to keep yer private schools in chalk...

* but it'll be righteous, so you'll enjoy it no doubt...

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OK -- so this depends on many false premises: 1) that Tech Bros are not mostly libertarian yt supremacist doofi who figure they'll get by, bc women & queers will mostly be affected; 2) That corporations have any moral center at all other beyond What Sells & will quickly knuckle under in order to do business; 3) That most (or even a plurality) of these corporations are headed by anything any Boomer would call "liberal" -- most are decidely not. Aditionally, these folks--to a person--are Fully Aware that there is one moral & legal code for the wealthy, and one for the rest of us. So if that's our parachute's rip cord, enjoy our plummet to the earth.

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I should correct this to: "EVEN a Boomer would call a "Liberal"

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

• having lived amongst 'em, my experience w/techies is they mostly are libertarian-leaning ...with some notable (to me) exceptions, but I never ran into genuine 'supremacists' except in law enforcement and their surrogate bully-boys (oh, and 'just folks' in Wisconsin...and Idaho...and Virginia).

• the corps tend to follow the lead of their stockholders, who individually are in my experience more left than the average techie (especially the union investor groups) – but does not get to the question of corporate hqs and the like – if no one wants to work where your office is, move your office. The recently re-established wildernesses of the central plains are indicators of what happens to businesses when all their potential employees move away*...

• no one expects the corporatists to respond to pleas for enlightened beneficence – only that they do business in other than fascist hell-holes. Focused boycotts, relentless rabble-rousement at shareholder events, and non-stop across the board messaging that the fascisti are just warming up would have effects that make suits in boardrooms teeth itch...

All that writ, it is still early days in the newly re-built Domain, and the Dominionists have not yet got the bit truly between their various teeth.

*I'll asterisk this only to say that things change when workers are allowed to 'work from home' – that is, when they have no tether to physical reality.

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So... what does a "genuine 'supremacist'" look like to you? How would you define it?

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The most Republican demographic is late boomer/early Gen X -- the people that came of voting age during the Reagan years

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

If Sam, Clarence, Brett, Neil, and Amy have their way and overturn Lawrence and Obergefell, Peter Thiel and Matt Danzeisen are gonna be in for a big surprise.

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author

Why would they care?

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

You're right, they won't. They would probably be completely insulated from any consequences. But Thiel being a big Trump supporter*, I like to imagine he'd at least be a bit inconvenienced to find that his marriage was no longer recognized as legal, and, like the good old days, four walls was no longer enough to prevent being arrested for sodomy, even if he'd obviously be released once the authorities realized what a great conservative libertarian they had in custody.

*I remember Thiel was a delegate and speaker at Trump's 2016 National convention, and there was even a rumor (possibly spread by Thiel himself but denied by Trump's campaign) that Trump wanted him on the Supreme Court.

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Thiel’s moving to New Zealand to drink his young people’s blood.

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author

What if they don't have a choice?

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Well, if not pro, maybe they'll at least have amateur choice, no?

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

“Have a blessed day, and fuck your feelings. Not to mention your rights.”

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"As of this Important, Groundbreaking ruling, the Hierophant General has decreed that they shall no longer be known as "private parts," but instead "national assets" -- inspectable upon demand by any one our thousands of white female affluent Protestant (of course) "abortion & bathroom matrons."

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Cue clichéd coffee spit take.

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Sorry, but "national assets" reminded me of one of the greatest Onion headlines of all time: "Jenna Bush's Federally Protected Wetlands Now Open for Drilling"

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Too mild, Roy. They’re already working on bringing back chattel slavery, like in the original Constitution and the Bible. It involves reworking debt laws: student loans, credit card debt, medical bills, mortgages. As soon as your total debt exceeds the minimal annual wage, you’ll be handed over to the likes of Jamie Diamond to be used like any other commodity, you and your family ordered to live and work where your owners see fit. But worry not, future slaves! You can, if you’re young enough, join the imperial military and spend at least 30 years defending against America’s enemies, foreign and domestic. “Service is Freedom!” Alternatively, you can buy your freedom by cranking out “service babies” to be given in exchange for freedom at the low, low rate of two babies for one adult. Of course, you have to raise them to a serviceable age, 12 or so.

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Neo-serfdom and debt slavery is private sector doing allowed and enabled by the state (essentially both parties).

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These assholes are in overdrive! I don't know how you can wade so deep into the swamp everyday Roy. All I do is read about it and make an occasional comment and I'm worn out . Boy the hate really energizes them. You'd think all

the white gravy would slow them down.

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

C'mon, let's be fair, abortion rights are controversial. People disagree about them - a lot! Wouldn't it be better for the Court to just step aside and be neutral on the question? Not just neutral, but SCRUPULOUSLY neutral, that's the ticket. Let the states sort things out on their own, I'm sure subjecting the fundamental rights of an actual majority of the population to our gerrymandered "democratic system" will work out just peachy!

I'm marking this down as part of the general conservative tendency to:

1) Get yourself a good-paying government job

2) Refuse to do said job

So we've got regulators who refuse to regulate, legislators who refuse to legislate, why not judges who refuse to judge?

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Y'all may have seen that virulent anti-vaxxer, Marcus Lamb, patriarch of an entire family of christo-grifters, died of you-know-what. He and his wife founded the Daystar christian broadcasting network, supposedly the second largest of its kind in the world, that claims to reach over 108 million homes in the U.S. and 2 billion people globally every day. I don't know about you but I'd never heard of them before I read his obit yesterday. But these are the people whose fascist ideology we will now be governed by, as described by Roy above. Their looney marks may be a minority but they vote in the millions, and they think Donald fucking Trump is the New Messiah.

Mississippi goddamn.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/marcus-lamb-dead.html

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

These people aren't even a majority within the Republican party but the majority of Republican voters are happy to be led around by the nose by them. Because the only way nominally sane Republican voters could exercise some pull over the direction of the party would be to demonstrate a willingness to sit out an election or two. Heaven forbid! If we did that, a DEMOCRAT might win!

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The GOP has to pander to them for GOTV. Other factions of the base don’t need it.

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Right, it's a willingness to stay home that gives you political leverage and steady, disciplined voting in every election that makes you ignorable.

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You lost me there.

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Well, I'm just thinking of the experiences of liberal Democratic voters. Dems know they've got liberal voters in their back pocket, so no need to listen to them.

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

The fascist project is going along quite swimmingly isn't it?

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

Got the lebensborn part down pat already. (Periodic reminder that the Nazis also banned birth control and abortion--for Aryans, of course.)

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After four decades of oligarchy, duh.

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Yep - it's like rereading the news... I've seen all this before. Plutocarcy, Oligarchy, Corporatism and then the fascism.

It's a shitty fucking newsreel to be watching over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over....

well, you get the idea.

There are no surprises in the fascist project, just the same brutal play.

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Dec 2, 2021Liked by Roy Edroso

If, just once in the last 50 years, Congress had been able to bestir itself to codify Roe into law, Brett and the Handmaiden wouldn't have much say in the matter. But instead Congress did Not One Fucking Thing. The cynic in me wonders if the Dems might have held off because having Roe subject to the whims of the court was a handy tool for driving turnout in Presidential elections. But I'll suppress that thought, it's more likely general ineptitude, the filibuster and the continuous presence of multiple Joe Manchin-types that explains it.

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Well, when it comes to action, the Dems tend to ignore the will and wellbeing of the majority of the nation so… And given all the DINOs in the party, a Dem majority isn’t necessarily a panacea cf Mancinema.

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When could it have passed both houses and be signed by the President into law? And then what happens is a shitstorm of lawsuits destined for the Supreme Court. And a Republican wave in the next election or 2, so "codifying" Roe is nowhere near the end of the story.

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There have been many times in the past 50 years when Democrats had the trifecta - but we all know that Democratic majorities don't mean much when you need a supermajority in the Senate and some of the Democrats who make up your majority are Manchinistas or Liebermanians.

As for the Supreme Court, Party Boy Brett's argument is that the Constitution is silent on the question of abortion, so I don't see how you can then claim a law that guarantees abortion rights can be unconstitutional. Unless you think they can do whatever they want whenever they want, in which case why try anything?

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The massive cynic in me wants to think that the Dems make a lot of money off claiming to "fight for abortion rights". But its probably more realistic to think that the party has not been majority pro-choice until the last 15 years or so. Heck, most can't even just say it's just health care instead of some kind of special supplement...

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And yes, codifying Roe wouldn't be the end of the story, there is no end of the story until the death of the Sun. But putting the fight in Congress instead of the courts might allow the solid (nearly 2 to 1) majority in favor of Roe to carry more weight (although I think we agree that Congress isn't very sensitive to public opinion either, it's just potentially more sensitive to public opinion than 9 unelected justices.)

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At some point I may prefer to be dead over living in a parody of a free, civilised, state. I know it's better to fight, but that would involve both understanding humans and having energy to spare.

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I'm pretty sure that parody began long before you were borned...

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