So Says ET @sosayset - Tumblr Blog

"The president sues the literal government for violating his rights with absolutely no evidence or legal standing and instead of laughing in his face, the IRS creates a massive fund dedicated to paying off white supremacists who tried to overthrow the government and stopped investigating the president for tax evasion and other financial crimes" are we for fucking real right now. This feels like a heavy-handed plotline from a fascist dystopia show and not an actual literal thing that is happening right now. Can someone shoot me.

byjove

It baffles me how so many grown adults seem to believe AI is 100% reliable and never wrong. ‘Have you tried unplugging it and plugging it back in?’/‘Have you tried turning it off and on again?’ was a huge meme when I first began using the internet because technology shits the bed in a myriad of ways for no particular reason at all. If your GPS can try to send you down a street that you can’t turn on to and your phone randomly freezes and your laptop periodically gives you the blue screen of death, why the fuck would you trust artificial intelligence to make all the important decisions in your life?

Semi-related note but I hate that society is shifting further and further away from having analogue backups to anything, especially the medical field. There was that software outage last year and my physiatrist casually admitted to me she did not know what patients she was seeing that day and at what time because it was all saved electronically and dependent on the Internet and mentally I was like. Oh. That’s really bad.

tockthewatchdog-deactivated2020

findingfeather

Every time I see this quote I realize how poor even very smart people are at looking at the long game and at assessing these things in context.

One of my favourite illustrations of this was in a First Aid class. The instructor was a working paramedic. He asked, “Who here knows the stats on CPR? What percentage of people are saved by CPR outside a hospital?”

I happen to know but I’m trying not to be a TOTAL know it all in this class so I wait. And people guess 50% and he says, “Lower,” and 20% and so forth and eventually I sort of half put up my hand and I guess I had The Face because he eventually looked at me and said, “You know, don’t you.”

“My mom’s a doc,” I said. He gave me a “so say it” gesture and I said, “Four to ten percent depending on your sources.”

Everyone else looked surprised and horrified.

And the paramedic said, “We’re gonna talk a bit about some details of those figures* but first I want to talk about just this: when do you do CPR?”

The class dutifully replies: when someone is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse.

“What do we call someone who is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse?”

The class tries to figure out what the trick question is so I jump over the long pause and say, “A corpse.”

“Right,” says the paramedic. “Someone who isn’t breathing and has no heartbeat is dead. So what I’m telling you is that with this technique you have a 4-10% chance of raising the dead.”

So no, artists did not stop the Vietnam War from happening with the sheer Power of Art. The forces driving that military intervention were huge, had generations of momentum and are actually pretty damn complicated.

But if you think the mass rejection of the war was as meaningless as a soufflé - well.

Try sitting here for ten seconds and imagining where we’d be if the entire intellectual and artistic drive of the culture had been FOR the war. If everyone thought it was a GREAT IDEA.

What the whole world would look like.

Four-to-ten percent means that ninety to ninety-six percent of the time - more than nine times out of ten - CPR will do nothing, but that one time you’ll be in the company of someone worshipped as an incarnate god.

If you think the artists and performers attacking and showing up people like Donald Trump is meaningless try imagining a version of the world wherein they weren’t there.

(*if you’re curious: those stats count EVERY reported case of CPR, while the effectiveness of it is extremely time-related. With those who have had continuous CPR from the SECOND they went down, the number is actually above 80%. It drops hugely every 30 seconds from then on. When you count ALL cases you count cases where the person has already been down several minutes but a bystander still starts CPR, which affects the stats)

myfatfuckingface

That Vonnegut quote brings this particular moment to mind:

Yes, it’s just a pie. Yes, the pie itself doesn’t do much direct damage in the grand scheme of things. But the pie is resistance, and resistance inspires resistance. Resistance inspires survival. Throwing pies sometimes starts a movement. Throwing pies sometimes saves lives.

And of course, we haven’t spoken about the inherent morality of throwing pies at oppressors in a world where oppressors have outlawed pie throwing. At the very least, pie throwing is a reminder to the oppressors that no matter how much money they have, no matter how much power they have, there are still some people, some moments they can’t control.

I’d rather go out throwing pies than just rolling over and accepting that pie throwing isn’t going to solve anything. Yeah, the pie throwing doesn’t immediately solve the problem, but it doesn’t have to because it’s just a starting point. So throw the damn pie.

holy-muffins

So throw the damn pie

kingscrown666

Speaking of the effects of pie throwing and art in opposition of oppression, and “resistance inspires resistance”:

Imagine sitting in a packed auditorium and some asshole is up front is spouting bullshit about minorites. Like saying they’re filthy and deserve a violent death etc. And there are lots of people nodding along and even cheering and applauding

But no one is saying or doing anything to disagree, so you think that you’re the only one who opposes the speaker. And you don’t want to say anything because you don’t want their ire or violence to be aimed at you

So you go through the entire speech, and possibly your entire life, thinking you’re alone

BUT if just one person has the courage to speak up, to throw a pie, to project art on the screen behind the speaker, then that single act of resistance will inspire others to do the same. It could even inspire you to stand up. Or if you’re the first, then you can inspire others

Small acts can snowball into an avalanche

ralfmaximus

Reblogging this in 2025 because of all the “Yeah the No Kings protests were cool but they didn’t doooo anything” crap I’ve been seeing lately.

kata-chthonia

The No Kings protests absolutely did do something. Just tune into your local city council meeting the next week and see public forum. Chances are there’s a public official advocating resistance of all and any federal orders, or a local housing/immigration activist saying it helped them and then pointing that energy in the direction of more.

3.75% of the entire country was in the streets on Saturday. Might not sound like a lot, but those are the kind of numbers that signal a toppling government or a revolution.

If nothing else it proves to wannabe authoritarians that they can sure fucking try, but they can’t kill us all.

asparklethatisblue

wait let me just add about Vietnam:

every single outspoken anti-war protestor did do something. Muhammad Ali famously refused to join the war, which in turn inspired people to draft dodge, or help others draft dodge. Every person dodging the draft is one less person shooting at someone during a war, and one less person likely to die.

earhartsease

also, that pie in Anita Bryant’s face? did literally destroy her career as a raving bigot, she lost so much face nobody really took her seriously after that - and she’s not the only one

this is why we still want to see an entire stadium of people show up for a trump rally and then just point at him and laugh derisively

mercurialturnip

There is this weirdly pervasive desire for a single action that will instantly fix all the problems, as if the problems aren’t many and decades in the making. Not how large scale movements work m'dears. A movement is many actions taken by many people over time. Disregarding any action that does not independently and immediately achieve all your goals is like going through the mechanisms of a clock and throwing out every gear or spring that can’t tell time on its own. And my favorite explanation of the role of art in a movement came from a musician in New Orleans involved in a group that does regular public performances for protest and community building. (I’ll look up his name when I have the spoons). ‘the job of artists is to make the movement irresistible ’

resist-much

catmask

the thing that always gets me about the US and jobs it considers 'essential' is those roles are always treated like/expected to be temporary, and you both get talked down to and it is made extremely difficult to live if you don't want them to be (temporary, that is).

i frequently miss previous food service jobs, not because i don't enjoy what i do now, but because i did genuinely enjoy those jobs too. the reason i left is because the expectation was that i either sell 40+ hours of my week to the job, regularly be physically injured with no support, either no or abysmal workers comp, inconsistent scheduling so it meant i had little to no life outside of work... and still, the actual labor of the job, i enjoyed. i enjoyed the people. i liked working with my hands and making people happy.

and you know, people often bring up customers as the reason to leave food service - this was part of my reason as well, but how much of that - like the unsustainability of working food service itself, bodily and monetarily - is manufactured? many of the people who were terrible to me working food service were often people working office jobs only marginally 'above' mine in pay and support, miserable with their own work, looking to exert some level of power they could over someone else.

this is a bit long winded, but i think its a perfect cultural example of how capitalism does not actually incentivize 'progress' or 'growth' as much as a constant state of desperation, discomfort and dehumanization - you arent actually encouraged to do what it is you excel at, but whatever you can just barely tolerate, all at the risk that at the current stage your body might give out and you will not have worked hard enough to have 'earned' the right to be care for when it does. and someone will be right behind you, desperate enough to immediately replace you.

probablysomethingtm

Lmao we have to fucking destroy this company are you fucking kidding me with this shit

Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and

probablysomethingtm

Remember that xkcd about how Google searches are shit now? What if we made them even worse for no reason?

probablysomethingtm

I will vote for any candidate who promises to go scorched fucking earth on every tech company. Break every single one of them up into companies based around a single product and then split those in thirds. Weaponize existing antitrust laws to the hilt and pass the most draconian versions of them ever seen on this planet. Nationalize google search specifically. Pass consumer privacy protections strict enough to kill the data harvesting industry for good. Make all of these fuckers go bankrupt for this rent-seeking shit

probablysomethingtm

stillnaomi

using violence to liberate people from sweatshops, unsafe mines, and grinding poverty isn't the same as using violence to impose those things on people. the idea that violence is morally repugnant regardless of context is a belief that every oppressor throughout history would love for the oppressed to hold

liberalsarecool

You could hardly invent a worse technology for the era of climate collapse.

...

truth-has-a-liberal-bias

Trump administration moves to roll back limits on forever chemicals in drinking water

quakerjoe

TACO, NACHO, and More Trump Acronyms

It turns out that MAGA and TACO aren't the only Trump acronyms you need to know. Investigative reporter Carlos Greaves provides a complete glossary.

FAJITA -- Forget About Jurisprudence If Trump's Around

If you’ve kept up with the news this past year, you might be familiar with the acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out). Perhaps you’ve even heard the more recent acronym NACHO (Not A Chance Hormuz Opens).

But there are plenty more Trump acronyms where those came from. Here are a few you probably haven’t heard yet that are equally relevant:

TAMALE — Trump Always Makes America Look Embarrassing

TORTA — Trump Only Rarely Thinks Ahead

FAJITA — Forget About Jurisprudence If Trump’s Around

FIESTA — Finalizing Iran Entente Seems Totally Aspirational

DISCOTECA — Donald’s Iran Strategy Consists Of Threatening Ending Civilization Arbitrarily

CINCO DE MAYO — Certainly Iran Not Ceasing Operations Despite Ego-Maniacal Asshole Yelling Obscenities

CORONA WITH LIME — Come On, Republicans! Obtain Nuts Already! Wallowing In Trump’s Horrendous Leadership Is Manifestly Evil!

CORN ENCHILADA — Clearly Obama Realized Neutralizing Enemy Navigational Chokepoint Hormuz Impossible; Looked At Deal Alternatives

TORTILLA — Trump Obviously Russian Toady Intentionally Limiting Liberty Abroad

CEVICHE — Cowardly Enabler Vance Is Complicit Helper Elf

CHIMICHANGA — Criminal Hegseth Is Making It Clear He Approves Nuclear Genocidal Armageddon

TABLESIDE GUAC — Trump Authoritarian Bully Leading Economic Slowdown; It’s Decidedly Expensive Gassing Up A Car

CHICKEN QUESADILLAS — Closing Hormuz Is Causing Kerfuffle; Every Negotiation Quickly Unravels; Economic Situation Awful; Donald Is Laughably Lousy American Sovereign

TEQUILA JELLO SHOTS — Trump Escalations Questionable Under International Law And Jail Evidently Looks Like Only Solution; Hague Or Tribunal Somewhere?

justinspoliticalcorner

He was the first out gay member of Congress.

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

Barney Frank, the trailblazing Massachusetts congressman whose razor-sharp political instincts and unapologetic visibility helped reshape both American liberalism and LGBTQ+ representation in public life, has died at 86, according to The Boston Globe. Frank died Tuesday night after recently entering hospice care at his home in Ogunquit, Maine, where he had been battling congestive heart failure, the Globe reported. For more than three decades in Congress, Frank stood at the center of some of the country’s defining political battles, from the AIDS crisis and gay rights movement to the fallout of the 2008 financial collapse. Equal parts policy architect and cable news combatant, he became one of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable liberals while also emerging as one of the most consequential out gay politicians in American history.

"Former Member of Congress Barney Frank’s legacy stretches beyond the landmark Dodd-Frank Act to include many laws to advance prevention, detection, and treatment of HIV/AIDS. We remember Barney as a trailblazer who was the first Member of Congress to come out as gay, and who moved many pieces of civil rights legislation forward," PFLAG National President Brian K. Bond said in a statement to The Advocate. "Sadly, his legacy is also marred by his own actions and failures on behalf of transgender people." Born Barnett Frank in Bayonne, New Jersey, on March 31, 1940, he graduated from Harvard College before later earning a law degree from Harvard Law School. He entered Massachusetts politics in the 1970s, serving in the state House before winning election to Congress in 1980.

In 1987, at a time when few national politicians were openly gay, and the AIDS epidemic was devastating LGBTQ+ communities, Frank publicly came out, becoming the first member of Congress to voluntarily do so while in office. The decision transformed him into a symbol of a rapidly changing political era and helped push LGBTQ+ visibility deeper into mainstream American life.

Frank also became one of Congress’s most persistent advocates for federal LGBTQ+ civil rights protections. For years, he championed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, known as ENDA, legislation intended to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and, later, gender identity. The effort consumed much of Frank’s congressional career but repeatedly stalled amid Republican opposition and divisions within the LGBTQ+ movement. In one of the movement’s most contentious internal fights, Frank drew criticism from transgender advocates in 2007 after supporting a version of ENDA that protected sexual orientation but excluded gender identity protections. Frank argued at the time that a broader bill lacked enough support to pass Congress. Many LGBTQ+ activists viewed the compromise as a painful betrayal, while supporters defended it as a pragmatic attempt to secure at least partial federal protections in an openly hostile political environment.

[...] Frank retired from Congress in 2013 after 32 years in office. He married his longtime partner, Jim Ready, in 2012, becoming the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court struck down key parts of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Former Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) died at 86. Frank was the first out gay Congressperson who did so voluntarily, and helped champion several LGBTQ+ rights bills and the Dodd-Frank Act. He was the first sitting member of Congress to enter into a same-sex marriage.

However, Frank has been criticized by pro-trans advocates over being too willing to parrot GOP anti-trans attacks, as evidence in a CNN appearance weeks before his death.

See Also:

LGBTQ Nation: Iconic gay congressman Barney Frank passed away at age 86

fuckdumblr

How Barney Frank tamed Wall Street and rewrote the rules of capitalism

Story by Amanda Castro

May 20, 2026

Barney Frank, the sharp‑witted Massachusetts Democrat who helped reshape Wall Street regulation after the 2008 financial crisis and became one of the first openly gay members of Congress, died Wednesday at 86. Frank had entered hospice care at his home in Maine last month.

Frank served southern Massachusetts in the House for 32 years, becoming a dominant voice on banking policy, affordable housing and LGBTQ rights. As chair of the House Financial Services Committee during the 2008 meltdown, he co‑authored the landmark Dodd‑Frank Act, the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulation since the Great Depression.

Barney Frank’s Legacy as a Pioneer for LGBTQ Visibility in Politics

Frank’s political career broke barriers long before LGBTQ representation became more common in Washington.

In 1987, he became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay, telling The Boston Globe: “If you ask the direct question: ‘Are you gay?’ the answer is yes.”

This public acknowledgment helped usher in a new era of visibility for gay elected officials, and he later called his coming out “life‑changing, lifesaving.” Frank argued that LGBTQ progress accelerated when more people lived openly, allowing Americans to see “the gap between our reality and the way we were painted.”

In 2012, he made history again as the first sitting member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage, marrying his longtime partner, Jim Ready, in Maine.

Civil rights advocates credit Frank with using his platform to push for anti‑discrimination protections, the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” and broader equality measures.

“He was a fighter and fearless,” said Mary Bonauto of GLAD Law, who argued the Supreme Court case that ultimately legalized same‑sex marriage nationwide.

What Is the Dodd‑Frank Act?

Frank’s signature legislation was the Dodd‑Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, signed by President Barack Obama in 2010. It was a Congressional response to the 2008 financial crisis, co‑written by Frank and Democratic Senator Chris Dodd.

The law sought to:

🔷️ Increase oversight of major financial institutions

🔷️ Prevent another “too big to fail” collapse

🔷️ Strengthen consumer protections against predatory lending

🔷️ Create new regulatory bodies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The legislation quickly became a political flashpoint. Progressives argued it didn’t go far enough, while Republicans and business groups criticized it as overly burdensome and regulatory. Frank defended the law until his final months, saying he believed its critics had been “vindicated by events.”

Frank’s Path to Power

Born Barnett Frank in Bayonne, New Jersey, in 1940, the Congressman grew up in a working‑class Jewish household and excelled academically. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1962, staying on as a government instructor and Ph.D. student before leaving to work for Boston Mayor Kevin White during a period of racial tension in the city.

Frank entered the Massachusetts Legislature in 1972 and earned his law degree while serving. He won a seat in Congress in 1980. After a narrow first victory, he became a fixture in the House, winning reelection 15 times.

His career weathered controversy in 1989 after revelations about his relationship with a male sex worker who had used Frank’s apartment for a prostitution service. The House reprimanded him, but voters returned him to office with a comfortable margin.

A Liberal Mainstay With a Broad Policy Footprint

Across three decades, Frank championed abortion rights, environmental protections, fair housing, and civil rights. He also pushed for expanded mortgage access through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—an area where critics later faulted him as the housing market collapsed.

Even after leaving office, Frank remained a force in public debate, speaking at LGBTQ events, weighing in on financial policy and reflecting on the evolution of the Democratic Party.

Frank married Ready in 2012 and later published a memoir, Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same‑Sex Marriage. On the day the Supreme Court legalized same‑sex marriage nationwide in 2015, he marked the moment with a simple tweet: #lovewins.

Frank is survived by his partner, Ready.

saywhat-politics

Ashley St. Clair, who dated and had a baby with Elon Musk, says he admitted to her that he used AI and voting machine technology to rig the 2024 election for Trump.

"10,000 satellites and lasers in space."

contemplatingoutlander

October 5, 2024 — According to "The New York Times," Elon Musk texts a friend, who we now believe to be St. Clair:

“I’m feeling more optimistic after tonight. Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” An hour later, he adds: “This isn’t something on the chessboard, so they’ll be quite surprised. ‘Lasers’ from space.”

Oct. 7, 2024 - Musk laughingly tells Tucker Carlson in an interview: “If Trump loses I’m fu*cked. How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”

[....] Then, on November 5, 2024, Donald Trump, a 34-count convicted felon and adjudicated sexual predator who had to pay people on Craigslist to attend his rallies, supposedly won all the swing states just above the threshold for an automatic recount, 88 counties flipped red, none flipped blue, and he did it with less than 50% of the vote.

Even Ronald Reagan didn’t accomplish that.

Even stranger, in the swing states, Democratic voters supposedly voted blue down-ballot and then switched to Trump at the top of the ticket.

And according to Joe Rogan, Elon Musk knew the results several hours beforehand—and Donald Trump thanked Elon Musk for his knowledge of those “vote-counting computers.”

Ashley St. Clair just corroborated Joe Rogan’s statement in her TikTok video:

“‘Yeah, I knew hours ago that Trump won. My team has the best real-time data anywhere,’” said St. Clair. “First of all, how the f*ck do you have real-time data on elections?” she continued. “How do you have real-time data? I could not understand that.”

Then, on June 5, 2025, Elon Musk announced to the world that he won the 2024 election for Trump: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”

▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️

Why oh why didn't Harris ever question any of the results?

In the comments to this article, someone with an IT background claims that Musk could not have actually changed the votes, but that he did a whole lot of things to influence the voting (including the $1 million lottery), and he also probably had an electronic way of determining whether "voter intentions have changed."

Regardless, this adds additional questions about how far Musk went to impact the vote before the election.

So, now we have a monster in the White House brought to us, in part, by one of the tech oligarchs.

[edited]

saywhat-politics

liberalsarecool

Capitalism kills.

liberalsarecool

And the ballroom🤦🏻‍♀️.

wilwheaton

“We understood that the Warren Court was different from the Burger Court, and that there would be advances and counterforces. But we also understood that even Warren Burger thought it was his job to find a principle of decision that was fairly grounded in the constitutional (or legislative) text and history, and that could be applied across the board. United States v. Nixon was just one example of the Court applying “law” and not just partisan politics. That conception is irretrievably broken, and not likely to come back. Shelby County, the Trump immunity decision, Callais, and the post-Callais treatment of Purcell have torn away any illusion that this Supreme Court views its job as law and not politics. As you know, the Court’s dishonesty about the Reconstruction Amendments is particularly horrifying. These decisions, among others, have destroyed much of the work my contemporaries thought that we were doing as lawyers. Even if Democrats somehow achieve a trifecta, abolish the filibuster, expand the Court, and pack it, nobody in the academy or elite bar – or the public – will accept that the Court’s decisions are “law” and not “politics.””

— More on the Fancy Lawyers #5 - TPM – Talking Points Memo

myrandomstuffpage

They got their racism and xenophobia codified…

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