Susie Dent: Sometimes the historical dictionary offers solace through the existence of an obsolete word that is sorely needed now. One of them is ‘respair’, recorded just once, in the 15th century. It means fresh hope, and a recovery from despair.
Quotes
Sunday, July 27
Sunday, July 20
Fatima Khan: “$45,000 hiring bonus for new ICE recruits and a six-figure salary.” Oh so the money WAS there! Y’all just didn’t teel like using it on teachers, healthcare, or student loans. … neat. :(
mmpadellan: Dear MAGA, You hated Pope Francis. You hate Pope Leo XIV. You hate ideals taught by Jesus Christ, like loving thy neighbor, feeding the poor, and treating immigrants (strangers) with kindness. Maybe you’re not as Christian as you say. Maybe the problem is YOU. Think about it.
malwaretech@infosec.exchange: Real freedom is saving 4% on my taxes by living in in a country with no healthcare, child support, or functional education system, then paying like 50% of my post-tax income if I happen to want any of those things. Europeans simply cannot comprehend this level of freedom.
LeftistCEO: Paying 20% of your paycheck to insurance = good, capitalist, affordable. Paying 4% of your paycheck to Medicare = bad, communist, too expensive. Americans really are the most propagandized people in the world.
Carl Sagan, Contact: “You’re an interesting species. An interesting mix. You’re capable of such beautiful dreams, and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone, only you’re not. See, in all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable, is each other.”
Warren Ellis: “Everything is loud out there, but it’s not on you to have to take it all in at once. When you get up tomorrow, try sitting outside or by a window for ten minutes instead. Just quietly be in the world, instead of the entire world trying to move into your head. You’re going to be okay. See you next week.”
Tuesday, July 15
When Do You Think We Spun Off the Main Plot
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
“I think we’re living in a dystopic riff on the main timeline, like a nightmare that someone in the main plot is having. “That’s where we exist, because I was just watching the news and they had a talking hat on. He was talking about the situation in the Middle East and he was like, I wish we had a Bush presidency right now. “And my first thought was, oh man, that would be great.
We Have Enough Dead Friends (Lena Oleanderson)
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Come over. The doors are open, my flat’s a mess and so is my heart but the doors are always open. Come over. I will make soup, probably from frozen but the important thing is we will both eat. You don’t have to be dying, but if you are, or you feel like you are, or if living’s been hard, call me, and I will show up. It doesn’t have to be that bad, it doesn’t have to be bad at all, but if it is, please call.
This shit sucks, and it sucks having to explain why it sucks, and it sucks that assholes will argue it doesn’t suck.
You deserve a break. Stop healing. Choose violence. Go batshit insane. Do it for the plot.
leojamesmusic: It works like this, you look the ICE agent right in the face, cell phone in hand and say “Identify yourself as a real officer.” Then you say, “badge number and serial number” because they are playing dumb. Start dialing emergency services. If they refuse two times you call 911 and say, “there is a man here impersonating a cop and he has a gun.” Someone was assassinated by a fake cop. Time for ICE to stop hiding behind the masks. We need to learn who they are.
boredwalktees: Reality is in retrograde.
broadwaybabyto: Alligator Alcatraz was built in 8 days. It took just over a week to create a massive concentration camp. Remember this the next time those in power claim they can’t house the homeless, feed the starving or provide medical care to the poor. They can, they don’t want to.
Lyudmila Pavlichenko: “Every Nazi who remains alive will kill women, children, and old folks. Dead Nazis are harmless. Therefore, if I kill a Nazi, I am saving lives.”
St. Peter: “In 99999999976.33% of all branches of the universal wavefunction, you are an evil dictator who enslaves and murders hundreds of millions! ‘You’ happen to be the version whose wicked ambitions were repeatedly thwarted by bizarre coincidences over and over and over.”
Variant Hitler: “Boom! Gimme the halo and wings.”
St. Peter: “Sigh Right this way, Mr. Hitler.”
Caption: Reconciling theology and multiple worlds theory turns out to be difficult.
Keenan: “The German word for bagpipes’ is dudelsack and I hope this introduces as much whimsy into your life as it has mine.”
samsamyea: “People love to say ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ until EBT is the village, until free lunches is the village, until medicaid, public schools and Libraries are the village. Y’all want women to shoulder the weight of raising the workforce out of the goodness of their hearts while simultaneously demonizing welfare moms for using the village.”
birrion: Hating Nazis should be the default position.
alexdmub: My fav college prof once said “there are two normative positions everyone needs to hold: nazis are bad, and slavery is bad.” Anyone who doesn’t meet both of these criteria shouldn’t be taken seriously.
petergleick@fediscience.org: “Thoughts and prayers” does sound a lot nicer than “I didn’t do anything before to prevent this foreseeable disaster and I’m not going to do anything now.”
Thursday, July 10
The Germans have a message for you: _We’ve been where you are now.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
Fighting fascism is an ideological war of attrition against you. You win by not relenting this instant, tomorrow, and every day thereafter. Listen to us! MAGA Fascism You aren’t crazy: MAGA under Trump is turning fascist. Even researchers begin to realize this. For all historical differences, there are modern definitions of fascism perfectly applicable to MAGA: “It wants to silence and even murder its opponents rather than arguing with them; it prefers an authoritarian state over democracy; it pits an aggressively exclusionary idea of the nation against a pluralism that values and prioritizes difference.
showerthoughtsofficial: The brain is just 8 lbs of meat that sits in complete darkness and plays a video game of what it thinks is the most realistic thing ever.
willow-wanderings: It’s 3lbs, not 8. also it’s not really meat, it’s mostly fat with some water and salt. You have a wad of soggy bacon inside your skull. And this blob of gross unprocessed jello somehow manages to run a complex biomechanical suit using less electricity than it takes to work a lightbulb.
And people wonder why humans are so fucking weird and have odd experiences that aren’t actually real. | mean, if a bowl of tapioca pudding managed to hallucinate so vividly it invented calculus, it also going “dude, i heard a weird noise and i’m 100% sure it was the ghost of the neighbor’s cat which hasn’t actually died yet” would be just as expected as anything else.
Sunday, July 6
Q: What do you think about the president?
A:
I know currently in D.C. he’s having a birthday party, sort of a parade. What do you think about that as you guys are protesting here and in other cities across the country?
I can remember in 2016 all the propaganda that was put out on North Korea and how they had a show for Kim Jong-un’s birthday, and all the rockets that they displayed and the nuclear weapons. And the West took that as an insult and kind of a threat.
While I see absolutely no difference in what’s happening in D.C. right now, it’s an absolute waste of tax dollars in any kind of way that you can put it. It’s a threat. It’s a threat to the American people that says if you step out of line, we will destroy you. We will take everything you love away, and I’m not going to stand for that.
This is America, and you are nothing without the American people, and I want you to know that. If you’re not angry, you’re not listening. You need to be aware. It is your civic duty to care about what’s going on. I don’t care if you’re a Democratic or Republican.
You have a Constitution that sets freedom of speech. You have a Constitution that sets freedom of the press. You have a living document that lives and breathes for the people.
And that man is using it in corrupt, demonic ways, and he wants to talk about how the LGBTQ, how Black communities, how POCs, how immigrants are the devil. That’s only one devil I can see, and he sits in the White House.
You should be angry. You should be out here with us. They don’t care about you. These people—and you should show them—all of these people out here. These are the people. This is their country. This Capitol building. People are supposed to come here and represent us, and they won’t.
So I will represent me. That’s what I have to say.
If you’re doom-scrolling for updates on Trump’s big beautiful bill, I want you to stop with me for just a moment. Because, yeah, we’re probably gonna get some bad news, and it’s gonna hurt a lot of people. I’ve had no other way to put it: the Republican Party has truly betrayed the United States with what they are doing, and it’s horrible.
But what are we gonna do about this? Just because this bill becomes law doesn’t mean it’s forever. Yes, it’s going to suck. Yes, this is bad. But are we just going to give up because we suffer defeat? Do we give up on the entire game because we had a bad quarter? Do you give up on the whole war because you lost a battle? You don’t do that. You don’t do that.
You can be upset, and you can lash out and say, ‘This isn’t fair. This is fucked up. I don’t know what to do.’ That is okay. Take the time that you need to feel those feelings because they’re valid. But know that you’re not alone. Know that there are people who are working to help, and you can help too by taking care of yourself.
Support your community. Go out into community events and be part of your community, because strong communities can survive this. And although this bill is a disaster and it’s going to do a lot of harm, we can work to fix it. There will be a time when Donald Trump is no longer president. I don’t know when that time is, but it will come, and we’re gonna have to pick up the pieces. But we have to make sure that we are a strong community when it is our turn to clean this mess up.
I hope you have a good day. I know this is going to be hard, but we’re gonna get through it. Come on back to this video. Find a friend. Comment, support each other. We’re going to get through this."
WuiverQuant: UPDATE: We recently saw Representative Robert Bresnahan selling Centene stock. Centene provides healthcare exchanges for Medicaid. The stock has now fallen 43% since his sale.
warren.senate.gov: Protecting his stock portfolio while ripping away health care from 17 million Americans. This is Washington at its worst. We need to ban Congressional stock trading.
Fascism is here.
Sunday, July 6, 2025
Fascism is here. It’s not wearing jackboots. It’s wearing a flag. Holding a Bible. Funded by billionaires. And led by a felon in a suit shouting: “Law and order.” “Patriots only.” “America First.” What does it look like? Schools punished for teaching history. Teachers criminalized for using a kid’s pronouns. Universities defunded unless they obey. Law firms threatened for defending the law. Judges smeared and silenced, Immigrants blamed. Minorities targeted. The press attacked.
Robert Reich: Gutting Medicaid and food stamps. Dismantling federal agencies and safety regulations. Firing independent inspectors general. Replacing civil servants with loyalists. All plans pulled from Project 2025. Remember when Trump denied knowing about the playbook and the media gave him a pass?
blackazizanansi.bsky.social: I knew we were cooked as a society when everyone just sorta decided they were sick of dealing with Covid and everyone just decided to pretend like it wasn’t a thing anymore.
Cute Gender-Neutral Things to Call Your Partner:
- Abolisher of Bloodlines
- Defiler of Flesh
- Reality Smasher
- Phyrexian Plaguelord
- Ravenous Gigamole