As someone who has worked in the Federal sphere before, this happens anyway; Ron Swansons are all over the place and have been for a long time. The idea that this would happen deliberately, en masse, is actually kind of awesome in a terrifying way.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but even if we just remodel it later (for all it’s gaudy “splendor”), the taxpayers are going to wind up paying for this boondongle twice. The fact that it’s clearly a money-laundering-grift scheme is just salt in the wound at this point.

Un-doing all of this is the right thing to do, but it’ll be seen as divisive and will ultimately cost more, making it politically problematic for anyone in office that cares about all that. You’d need another authoritarian to pull this off, and I’m not sure we want that.

The fuck is going on with that organization?

My two-cents on the matter: The NFL’s relationship with problematic decisions and/or optics, have been a thing for a long time now.

• Military flyovers¹
• Strictly IMO: player “draft” process resembles an auction
• Predominantly black player base with white team ownership
• “Redskins” as a team name for far longer than the public felt it acceptable
• Entire league suffering from concussions², life-altering injuries after retirement
• History of team owners doing all kinds of problematic stuff, but keeping their jobs regardless

1. My problem here is that we’re talking commercial sports, an institution one could feasibly use as a refuge from politics. But we add rah-rah military back in, opening the door for nationalism, because screw all that.
2. There are lawsuits out regarding a possible cover-up (going back a long time) by the league in this area, as highlighted in recent news.

I’m on Tim Kaine’s mailing list.

Since last November, his entire office/campaign has been heavy on optics throughout the state, all with a heavy lean towards business as usual. Only recently (late October) did he write about “challenging trump’s reckless tariff policies”, which was little more than a statement of fact than any actual coherent plan to solve anything. Most shockingly, this communique had ZERO mention about DOGE, and the thousands out of work right now in his state, let alone the government shutdown and the hungry poor people out there right now. Or any of the other politically relevant horrors we have going right now. It was easily one of the best written, carefully crafted, barely educational, worthless, tone-deaf, rage-inducing pieces of literature to hit my inbox, and includes a bottomless cornucopia of spam mail.

There’s an old saying in politics: “never waste a good crisis.” Well, this is a big one, and opportunities to be a hero with accolades and job security for life can be had at minimal effort. I can only conclude that the man’s brain is located somewhere in the vicinity of his spine, both of which went missing back in 2024.

While I’m no longer a Virginian, I emplore those of you who are to vote this trash out.

DOGE fired most of these people, or at least their friends, family, and neighbors. Read the room, donnie.

This right here. It’s not isolated to NYC. It’s a crack in the pavement of ossified ideas and outdated politics. If a more progressive platform works in one place, it could work in many more.

the fact that both the DNC and RNC fought this is incredibly telling of how big a deal this is.

isn’t sure or approves

I know it’s not you, but those really need to be different categories.

Boy, is Trump gonna be mad when he finds out that Trump beat his ratings.

Maybe?

I don’t have the time or energy to dive into the methodology to figure out if any poll is conducted scientifically. What I do know is that it’s way easier to build a bad poll, and easier still to hit the bricks and generate heaps of bad data.

What I really wish these would ask are things like: “if you had the only vote and could write-in anyone that is eligable, even if they’re not on the ballot, who would you choose?”… or: “Who is your favorite person in politics right now?” Disregarding of all the nonsense answers, you’d probably find out a lot more about hearts and minds versus whatever controlled choices major parties are propping up.

He knows this particular string of hurtful words because he’s heard it before.

Eh, not really. This is not an admission of support. Here’s why.

I’ve seen firsthand what it looks like when these creeps invade tolerant spaces. We’re talking clubs packed full of goths, punks, metal-heads, very gay people, and the occasional furry. First, it’s just one or two. Then their friends show up. You may not even realize it until it’s too late. And there they are, happily mixing it up with everyone else. Their bigotry is usually only evident when put to the test, and there aren’t a lot of situations where that’s called for. But provoke their sense of ‘correct’ social hierarchy and things get bad, fast. Then the bouncers get called in to handle the really stupid/violent ones.

And that’s where the problem lies with this statement. Nazis have zero issues standing side-by-side with the people they hate. Just as long as they know they can seize control or maintain the upper-hand whenever they want, is enough. In this situation, we have someone running for public office, versus someone who’s just a voter. They’d be holding all the power in this situation, and didn’t admit to lending that power to a trans person in any way; something that would divorce him from Nazis support. So, the assertion of “stand by your side” isn’t even worth the electricity it took to get it to our screens.

Honestly, I dread this day for the political fallout, lavish wake, and who knows whatever “dear leader” horseshit we’ll be forced to endure. That said, I’m still counting the hours.

/me looks around.

…

Ctrl+F O N I O N

…

Huh. Satire writers really are having a tough time right now.

Exactly. The current turnout is a good sample of the overall population, but we won’t see truly huge numbers until there’s a general strike.

These people are completely broken.

Agreed. Here’s how I arrived at that conclusion, today.

who are high value

I positively loathe qualifiers like this. It’s the presumption that we all have the same values (we don’t), that theirs are the correct ones (really not), and that there’s some kind of objective attractiveness hierarchy in play (less of a thing than you’d think). It’s only four words, but man does this carry weight by conveying a willful ignorance of how people really work. It also something you’d likely find on a 4chan greentext.

take risks, they’re brave, they’re unafraid, they’re confident

These are also qualities shared with the mentally deranged and sociopaths. It’s easy to look like this if you’re crazy and/or don’t give a fuck about others. A dead giveaway is when they’re always like this. Meanwhile, good people that share these qualities are also usually esteemed for their deeds,how they don’t always act like this, and know how to be cautious, when to retreat, and that it’s okay to doubt.

And they have younger wives with beautiful children.

… and we conclude with a cocktailof misogynist double-speak, ageism, and prosperity gospel for seasoning. Just the thing to wash down this shit-sundae of a character endorsement.

The unholy intersection of snake-oil medicine, AI, propaganda, qanon, and cult-of-personality politics. As someone living here I’m nauseated, and frankly a little scared, that this even got the green light. It’s clearly AI generated, but if you’re not paying close attention or are unaware that AI is this good now, it’s passable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5aFVZwORYg

They may just “Weekend at Bernie’s” this shit as far as they can take it.

I’m calling it now. If this keeps up, they’ll roll out AI-based addresses and propaganda in his image for a while before they have to face the music. The biggest tell is that if they use his voice, it’ll be cogent, understandable, and to the point.

Exactly. Even the press could attend.

Since you mention it, by summoning leadership to the pentagon he just gave them plausible deniability for being in the same place at the same time, without being monitored (e.g. off base). If you wanted to jump-start a coup, that’s a helluva way to do it.

I was gonna complain about the lack of paragraph breaks, but then, this is literally how his speeches feel. Which is, uncomfortable, to say the least. Thank you for your hard work here.