A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
“Trump does not want people to know about the entire vanguard of extremist weirdos around him—and what their plans are when he governs,” says Chris Hayes on voters finding out about the far-right agenda that is Project 2025.
While Donald Trump claims he “knows nothing” about Project 2025, Taraji P. Henson gives a clear warning of its threats. Frank Figliuzzi and Jill Wine-Banks weigh in.
That means what John Oliver, MSNBC, and bloggers like me have been doing is working. Good. That encourages me to keep it up. As Tom Sullivan at Digby's Hullabaloo says, Time To Work The Eye.
As for Hoover Cleveland (un)truthing "I have no idea who is behind [Project 2025]," check out MSNBC's list of chapter authors.
All of them have worked for him, so of course he's lying. He's not fooling anyone but himself and his most devoted followers.
Some top MAGA supporters in the Heritage Foundation have outlined their plans for a future Trump administration, known as "Project 2025". Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance joins Richard Lui to provide more insight on it, saying it's a "map" to punish former President Trump's enemies.
As I've written before, yikes! No wonder it's unpopular!
I'm taking a break from Project 2025 to post the Sunday entertainment feature. My choice right now is between Tiana's Bayou Adventure or the BET Awards. Decisions, decisions. Any preference from my readers?
Project 2025 is a “wish list of a bunch of fringe, far-right policy proposals that I think many voters would be really horrified to learn about,” says Chris Hayes. For example, the agenda says, "Pornography should be outlawed,” and “the people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned."
I think Hayes is taking Kevin Roberts' saying "the reason that so many anchors on MSNBC, for example, are losing their minds daily is because our side is winning" and "we're in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" personally. That's an insult followed by a threat, which Hayes should take personally. I do and I think my readers should, too. The threat also forms part of DARVO, "Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender," which I described in Projection is the Right's favorite defense mechanism. That's a tactic of abusers, which means Roberts and the Heritage Foundation are telling on themselves.
MSNBC’s Katie Phang reports on the fallout from The Supreme Court’s decision to vastly expand the powers of the president. MSNBC’s Jason Johnson and NYU’s Ruth Ben-Ghiat join.
I'm being a good environmentalist by reusing what I last wrote in MSNBC examines Project 2025, part 1 to begin my reaction to Ruth Ben-Ghiat.
Speaking of zombie laws and the Heritage Foundation, listening to Olivia Troye's horrified reaction to what it has become reminded me of what I wrote yesterday about the GOP being undead.
As I tell my liberal friends who keep thinking that the GOP should be dead by now, the GOP as a traditional party engaged in electoral politics is already dead. What it is now, as described by "EscapefromWisconsin" over at the Hipcrime Vocab, is an authoritarian movement. That makes it an undead party in a democratic system. As Bela Lugosi's Dracula said in the eponymous movie, "There are far worse things awaiting Man than Death." Yeah, and one of them has happened to the GOP.
That was a dozen years ago. Back then, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan weren't the candidates to realize that movement's ambitions; they were still conventional conservative candidates contesting for power in a democracy. The condition of the GOP has become even more obvious since then with the rise of Hoover Cleveland, who is the right candidate to fulfill the current party's dictatorial desires. As I wrote nearly three years ago, "I had no idea how right I was then and now I wish I hadn't been. Break out the garlic."
They're no longer hiding it. Also, Molly Jong-Fast's comments about how these are now mainstream GOP views demonstrates that the far right realized what a missed opportunity Trump's first term was and now they aren't going to miss their second chance. Yikes!
Now Ben-Ghiat's Tweet, which Phang mentioned but didn't have to display when she said the words onscreen.
Situational awareness: Heritage does not have an in-house paramilitary or security apparatus sufficient to carry out a revolution on a national scale. Using "we," Roberts is suggesting that Heritage is aligned with armed entities that could be activated if there is resistance to [their coup. Classic intimidation tactic: submit or else.] https://t.co/3WZVlkCG5a
The fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision on Donald Trump’s presidential immunity continues to unfold as the future of democracy remains uncertain. Sherrilyn Ifill, Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University, joins Joy Reid to warn voters.
As a reminder to my readers of how the U.S. will suffer, here is the graphic listing Project 2025's goals.
Happy4thofJuly! I'm reaching back to 2020 to follow through on a postponed idea for today's celebration of the second of three patriotic holidays in July I observe on this blog.
For today's celebration, I'm returning to the concept behind Drink to America Sings for July 4th, by examining a patriotic attraction that Disney planned for but never opened, Abandoned - Disney's America by Bright Sun Films.*
...
*Defunctland has a video on this topic that was my original choice for this post, but I watched this and decided to save Kevin Perjurer's documentary for next year. I'm an environmentalist, so I don't just recycle, I conserve my resources.
Defunctland goes to Virginia to explore the history of the Disney park that never was, Disney's America.
I'm recycling my reaction from 2020 as well.
Not only did this proposed park get in trouble because its neighbors had a severe case of Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY), but because Disney's sanitized view of history had fallen out of fashion and rubbed historians the wrong way, leading to activism on the part of both groups. Imagine how poorly that perspective would fare today with Confederate monumentsbeing removed[,] Juneteenth becoming popular[,] and people examining the Tulsa Massacre. Then again, maybe not, as Disney is retheming Splash Mountain...
Four years later, Splash Mountain has transformed into Tiana's Bayou Adventure, which is now open in Walt Disney World and will open soon in Disneyland. I will revisit the attraction in a future Sunday entertainment feature. For now, I'm sharing some patriotic music from the United States Marine Band, SOUSA - The Stars and Stripes Forever - "The President's Own" U.S. Marine Band.
"The Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa...Performed by the United States Marine Band on Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024, during the band's annual Sousa Season Opener. Conducted by Director Lt. Col. Ryan Nowlin and recorded at the Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria, Va.
I couldn't get too far away from marching music for today, even if the band is sitting in a concert hall, not marching down a parade route.
I'm continuing, for now, with my tradition of including a Tipsy Bartender drink recipe for today with 4th of July Heaven & Hell Shot.*
"Heaven and Hell" — yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about today's celebration. Drink responsibly, or if you wish to drown your sorrows, at least don't drink and drive.
*Skyy hasn't posted a regular-length video for 4th of July so far this year. Instead, he live-streamed 4th of July drinks for nearly 3 hours last night. I'm neither watching that nor sharing it with my readers. It's enough to make me use another creator for next year's celebration, should 4th of July be worth celebrating then. To make sure it is, vote!
John Oliver discusses the UK elections, who’s running, why people are so upset with the Tories, and the happiest surgeon in all of Lithuania.
One ofmy favorite sayings that I tell my students is "no one, or in this case, no place, is completely useless; it can always be used as a bad example." Both austerity, a core conservative project on both sides of the pond, and Brexit, which the first two of five consecutive Conservative Prime Ministers did not support and struggled to implement, serve as bad examples that the U.S. should avoid. There is a reason why I have an anti-austerity label on this blog. Also, Brexit may be an analogy for Hoover Cleveland's hostility to NATO. Leaving NATO would be a mistake, too, and another reason not to re-elect the convictedcriminal.
By the way, tomorrow is Alice In Wonderland Day, a day that the U.S. and U.K. can celebrate together. May the U.K. avoid falling down a rabbit hole because of the election results!
I might return with the results of the U.K. and French elections, where the French seem to have realized that they might fall down a rabbit hole as well and have caught onto the edge to prevent it. In the meantime, stay tuned for the 4th of July.
The Supreme Court's ruling in Donald Trump's presidential immunity claim could transform the power of the presidency and will likely delay Trump's federal election interference trial until after November's election. In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the president "is now a king above the law." MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow and more are joined by legal experts to analyze what the court's immunity decision means for Trump's criminal cases and the future of democracy.
On the one hand, well-said, all of you, including President Biden. On the other, there's nothing funny about any of this other than to share some gallows humor from Animal Farm about the new legal status of the President.
Toronto's Oakland Crusaders perform selections from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake during the 1976 DCI World Championship in [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.]
I couldn't resist an official upload from the beginning of the show to serve as a bookend to the unofficial upload of the end of the show I used eight years ago.
Follow over the jump for Canadian corps from the 1980s to the current decade.
