A belated Happy (sic) Not My President's Day, from a populace bruised and reeling yet still defiant in the face of a right-wing junta by staggeringly arrogant jackwads too hyped by their own megalomania to comprehend, never mind regret, the devastation they wreak on our storied democracy. How do we hate thee? Let us count the ways in an inane war on equity, reason, kindness, workers, chickens, freckles, gender, Greenland, brown people, knowledge itself. But resisters abide.
"No Kings" is increasingly the righteous cry against a regime run by an apartheid-born Nazi and his figurehead president, abetted by a cadre of extremist lackeys who know nothing about the agencies, one after the other, they're being handed to run, or run into the ground. After a Munich conference that made clear today's Germany is resolutely anti-Nazi but America isn't, Garrett Graff offered up "a more clear-eyed" assessment of a new regime that, if it was unfolding in a third-world country, would be deemed "a full-blown autocratic coup": Seized capital, dismantled legal constraints, corrupt law enforcement decriminalizing crimes by power elites and brash bands of roving mercenaries and "political commissars" insidiously installed across the government in key positions, much like Stalin's Russia.
Astoundingly, the new regimen of "masculine maximalism" (LOL) is overseen by a doddering, addled, moronic know-nothing who, when he speaks, somehow still knows nothing, Witless and wandering, he babbled on at last week's National Prayer Breakfast, wildly veering from teleprompter to fever dream: Religion "suffered greatly over the last four long dark years," "they say you can't run again, sir," "in God we trust, there was a movement to get that out," we "got rid of woke, woke is gonzo," the election "didn't work out too correctly," "God works in strange ways," the "spirit of the country is up 49%," "a light is shining all over the world," "I shouldn't be here, like sinking a one-foot shot," "the persecution they've," "blessed are the peacemakers," "You can take an aeroplane, it costs two dollars," "nobody's ever seen anything like it."
Yet still the idiot lackeys jump, along with most of the media. Only the A.P. has refused to herald the inane "Gulf of America," for which treacherous act they've been banned from the macabre festivities. One eager rep wants to rename Greenland "Red, White and Blue Land," another to make a national holiday of the master's birthday. Conspiracy-steeped Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Nazi progeny, veteran, former cocktail waitress and armed swimsuit model in camouflage bikinis who compared Hillary Clinton to herpes, wants to add his mug on Mt. Rushmore. Her prize: Head of a House task force to expose "federal secrets" - a move "not just monumental but pivotal" in a "new era when the light of truth begins to shine through." She'll be "investigating" UFOs, 9/11, Jeffrey Epstein, and the death of JFK; she plans to call an august panel of eye-witnesses who all died decades ago. So that should be cool.
More ugly cranks emerge daily to spew. After the Superbowl's halftime show, wingnut Stew Peters raged about the NFL's tiresome "satanic rituals": "Every single one of America’s biggest entertainment platforms (has) completely given in to this degenerate black filth culture (created) by a bunch of subversive Jews." Many brandish not just hate but stunning, deadly ignorance. With avian flu rampant - spreading through poultry, dairy cattle, raw milk, farmworkers - and DOGE cutting public health funding, freezing most CDC info and firing a quarter of the National Animal Health Lab that tracks it, we're left with economist Kevin Hassett burbling there's no eggs at the grocery store 'cause Biden "spent billions of dollars randomly killing chickens," which is how to stop the spread among chickens packed into factory farms, but in the new regime "We're going to have a better, smarter perimeter," aka fence, created by "the best scientists in government."
Hopefully, those best ever scientists will also help maintain safety at workplaces nationwide after DOGE purged its ranks and safeguards, often in botched raids that wildly misinterpreted its own rules in the name of eradicating nefarious diversity. In a story that would be hilarious if not so terrifyingly dumb, Judd Legum's Popular Information uncovered an OSHA order for "the digital and physical destruction" of 18 hefty publications on workplace safety to "terminate any activities associated with "diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility." Ultimately, the order targeted safety on or for construction sites, hazardous waste, workplace injuries, first responders, nursing home ergonomics to prevent musculoskeltal disorders and multiple other best practices, all because a Musk robot detected the word diverse - "diverse conditions under which EMS responders work" - or gender - respiratory issues may be related to "genetic causes, gender, age, and other factors."
The idiocy extends to the Dept. of Education - being shuttered - and books increasingly banned to halt "radical indoctrination," dreaded second cousin to critical thinking. The latest victim of the frenzied censorship: Freckleface Strawberry, a Marxist manifesto by actress Julianne Moore, about "a girl who dislikes her freckles but learns to live with them." "I wrote it for my children and other kids to remind them that we all struggle," Moore claimed from her gulag, "but are united by our humanity and community.” Still it goes on. The Führer just got driven around the Daytona 500 track in "The Beast" while loudspeakers blared the Foo Fighters’ There Goes My Hero as his fans cheered; the strongman stunt cost about $5,000,000. The White House sent out a vicious "Valentine" menacing immigrants. Trump insisted, "We're gonna have Gaza and keep it and make sure there's (no) problem...We're gonna cherish it." And he posted a fiery quote he "picked up online like a dime on the sidewalk," from a movie on Napoleon: "He who saves his Country does not violate any Law."
Yes: Hitler famously said in 1929, "The authority of the Führer is not limited by laws or statutes.” Yes, we are evidently here. But Gandhi famously said, “Civil disobedience therefore becomes a sacred duty when the State has become lawless." And amidst the rage, dread, grief, dark sense of powerlessness, many Americans, often quietly, are refusing to go quietly, vowing per the fabulous sign of a literary friend's daughter at a protest here in Portland, to "Rage, Rage Against the Lying of the Right." Marking Monday's Not My President’s Day, aka No Kings Day, thousands turned out at dozens of protests across the country, many organized by #50501 - 50 protests, 50 states, 1 movement” - in partnership with Political Revolution. They ranged from modest but heartfelt In Austin to massive in D.C., where crowds lined the National Mall's Reflecting Pool chanting "Where Is Congress?", "Do Your Job" and "Nobody Voted for Elon Musk." And Canadians are doing their thing.
Federal workers, often unheralded, have stepped up, putting themselves and their jobs on the line. They've refused to be "terminated," resigned rather than follow illegal orders, marked memos from Trump/Musk as "spam" and kept working, flooded Slack and other platforms with spoon emojis in response to Musk's grand "Fork in the Road" buyout demand, launched encrypted chats to hide and save their sensitive data, created a "fednews" subreddit urging workers to "hold the line" and “support the Constitution by NOT resigning." Because there is, still, power in a union, the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union of federal workers, now has the highest number of members in its 92-year history, with thousands joining daily. In unprecedented solidarity, half of New York Mayor Eric Adams' top deputies just joined multiple prosecutors in resigning to protest the corrupt federal move to drop charges against him.
Organizers have declared an economic blackout for Feb. 28. Choose Democracy is reminding patriots of ways, large and small, to fight back. Experts cite the historic success of civil resistance campaigns, focusing on the "3.5% Rule" that no government can withstand challenges from that number of citizens.Rep. Jamie Raskin has "spit fire" on the hubris of fascists who think they can overthrow democracy for a "techno-state monarchy" of their own inept imagining. Musk's dimwit "move fast and break things” firings - like his SpaceX' "rapid unscheduled disassembly - are rightly, finally encountering pushback; one FAA official says, "I'm scared to death, and the American public should be too." Stephen Greenberg proffers a "Weekly Trump ll Anti-Fascist Music Minute because "what’s songwriting for if not to document the latest administrative atrocities?" And, almost unnoticed, Texas Rep. Al Green has begun impeachment proceedings against Trump for "dastardly deeds proposed and dastardly deeds done." Ok, unlikely. But the gist, per Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Don't panic."
we are
endless as the sea, not separate, we die
a million times a day, we are born
a million times, each breath life and death:
get up, put on your shoes, get
started, someone will finish
–Diane di Prima, Revolutionary Letter #2
Canadians are putting up googly-eyed hockey stick sentries at the Manitoba border to reassure King DonaldFacebook screenshot
Canadians are putting up googly-eyed hockey stick sentries at the Manitoba border to reassure King DonaldFacebook screenshot