Commander of Antifa Brigade 42069. A blog full of history, art, antifascism, poetry, rambles, rants, and oddities from the wonderful worlds of anthropology, anarchism, and Medieval Studies. Note: Some of my older rants are probably deep into nuthouse territory. At the time, so was I. Rather than edit anything (I'm lazy and it takes time), I leave this warning. You have been warned and I am sorry (really, really sorry). That said, happy to chat. Pronouns: He/him.
Some notes if you're interested in that sort of thing.
I cannot stress enough how little time I devote to reading replies to anything I post. Unless you're a mutual and you tag me. I check replies about once a week.
Don't think I align with your political system? Good. You're right. My views are highly idiosyncratic and change with evidence and when I read stuff, because, ya know, I'm not glued to one system of government beyond capitalism is bad, small town economies in the New Economic Policy mode? Now those are dope.
-I'm going to keep adding to this, but if you think I'm Anti-Maoist/Stalinist/Leninist/Anti-Ancap etc...good call.
But how can you be antifascist and antistalinist, Stalinism is the foundation for all antifascism or some shit? Yeah, no it's just fucking not. I refuse to debate this further, because, just like you, I owe nobody the pleasure of my words that flow like honeyed brilliance from my keyboard.
Trans rights are human rights. Think otherwise? Reconsider your views. Just do it. Fix your hearts or die. I mean, and die, we're all headed that way eventually, but you should try to be as good a human in the meantime, and no I'm not getting into an argument about what 'good' means. You know what it means, you just refuse to see it because of willful blindness. Which, yeah, way to be a dick there.
On the Catholic Left, so if you want to bitch about the Church and are of the Faith, awesome. If you're just going to call it a fantasy or something like that I'll probably just tune you out. Or block you if you decide to get aggressive about it. I don't go on your page and yell at you for being an atheist or, God help us, a Protestant.
Last big note and probably the most important:
I will not, under any circumstances, give money to your gofundme, Kofi [if that's still a thing], paypal [definitely not, fuck off], or other charity case cash transfer site. If you send me a request for such aid, you will be summarily blocked, no questions asked, no matter what sob story you tell me.
See under the cut for the whataboutisms that come to mind (it's nice but also a note on the state of Internet Discourse that whataboutism is accepted as a word by spellcheck).
A very angry, exhausted, and honestly saddened post because I am an elder millennial who is burned out. Skip if you want. But the point is fuck right off with your tales of woe that require a small donation. I'm just kinda ranting on that below. You will be blocked. If you reach out to me in chat for such things, I'll probably send you a rude message or gif back for your shenanigans.
But what about the people in Palestine and all the appeals coming directly from there? I give directly to relief services, like a person with common goddamn sense, verified things that help actual people. So many of the pages on here are scams, the modern Nigerian princes (still out there, still stealing from rubes and the not-so-competent).
But what about me, I'm a [X, Y, and Z things, lost my legs to the same rhinoceros that killed my parents, and blackballed political affiliation besides] (boy was this originally written to piss off Fucking Everyone [I got creatively specific based on some reblogs of campaigns and petitions I've seen] but then I was like wait, wait, I probably shouldn't say that just because I'm pissed off, kill the fascist voice in your own head and all)? You have my sympathy. If I live in your area, reach out, I'll see what I can do to help ya directly, hook you up with legal aid, hell, I'll help you fill out forms for a frickin' passport if you want to get out of the country, I'm not just tossing you a stack of cash because another person on the Internet is going through trouble. I have people in my life, people I love and care about, that need my help, support, and occasionally just straight up remittance--which they get because I trust them. I know they are not trying to bullshit me. I don't know you from Adam, nor, honestly, do I care about people on Tumblr. I've got serious, whole side of a cow beef with the 'struggling x or y minority queer disabled community that just needs help with the rent or the stove or the car or the wolf at the door' on here, because I know people in that community, actually struggling, and they...don't ask for shit. I help them because they're my friends.
But how can you be a Socialist, Mutualist, Antifascist, and Anarchist if you don't help lift everyone up? Quite easily. I work within my community. Again, I help people around me, that I know. Just tossing money at The Glorious Cause for The People or the Liberation of the People's Red Freedom Party of Kalifornia...is just lining someone's pockets, and worse somehow, someone who doesn't give a flying fuck about me no matter how swaying their rhetoric. I practice mutual aid, I work with Anarchist Black Cross, I hire folks I know to do work, overpay them (but that's capitalist/bougie behavior--jump. up. your. own. ass), and usually share a fucking meal, because that's how I was goddamn raised by non-party reds, ya exist in the capitalist system, but you fuckin' help.
But that's transphobic! It isn't. At all. I'm not helping you because I don't give a shit about any part of you. I won't help you regardless of what is or is not under your chosen ass-covering or assless chaps. Ok, if you are a resolute assless chaps wearer AND have the ass to pull it off, I might just help you. I don't want pictures, I just want to know you've got the confidence to rock that look. If you can't convey that in writing, than you probably don't have that kinda swagger.
The only, and I mean fucking only, if you've read everything above, exception is if you are someone I regularly correspond with, and you need help, let me know. But take the time to get to know a guy first, act like you, in fact, care about me, and that if the tables were reversed and I needed help, you'd try to help if I came to you with hat in hand after...at least weeks of friendship.
OK, there is another exception there: If you've got a book that you think I might like, sci fi, history, fiction, basically anything but self-help or your cult's latest tract, let me know and I'll push that shit if I think it's worth it, and if I like it I'll probably buy several copies because supporting writers is the tits. I want to say the same for artists, but my wife says if I buy more art she'll take away my credit card and make me operate on cash only. Which is honestly fair, and she should also do the same thing for books, because hard times are coming and we can't ultimately, eat books, as much as we might like to, as cool as The Book Eaters is (Sunyi Dean, order here or other places, just not from Amazon if you can help it).
I feel like I ended in the middle of a thought, but if you read this far give yourself a gold star. Do not ask me for gold stars, I will not send them.
To end: this is the internet. None of you are real and it is at best silly to think that you are.
AAA video game publisher voice: "Look. The goose layed a golden egg, and that's nice! Everyone loved that egg. But keeping the golden goose means paying for bird feed and I don't want to, so I killed the goose."
#‘that goose keeps laying golden eggs. that’s stagnation. I’m going to kill it and go look for a goose that lays diamond eggs’#‘that goose normally lays golden eggs but this time it laid a silver egg. I’m going to kill it because even though I can still make good#money with that it’s not as good as a golden egg’#‘that golden egg laying goose only lays an egg once a day instead of constantly shitting them out. I don’t care that golden eggs take time#if they’re not constant the goose is worthless to me’
@thebaldursmouthgazette y u leave all the good stuff in the tags
Luigi Mangione has pleaded guilty to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
[Plaintext for Accessibility- links left live]
Luigi Mangione pleads guilty to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO
By MICHAEL R. SISAK, LARRY NEUMEISTER and JENNIFER PELTZ Updated 3:03 PM EDT, August 14, 2026
Leer en español
NEW YORK (AP) — Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty on Friday to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, admitting matter-of-factly that he trailed the executive to an investor conference and gunned him down on a New York City street in 2024.
Mangione, 28, said he made a gun with the aid of a 3D printer, traveled to New York and used a ruse — posing as an investor at a multibillion-dollar firm — to contact the company for details on the event.
“On the morning of Dec. 4, 2024, I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan, and he died,” Mangione told the Manhattan federal court, which he entered shackled at the feet but not handcuffed in his beige jail uniform.
Listening in the audience, Thompson’s wife, Paulette, took several deep breaths and repeatedly wiped tears from her eyes.
Prosecutors plan to seek a life prison term at Mangione’s sentencing, set for Dec. 18. When U.S. District Judge Margaret M. Garnett asked whether he understood that he could spend the rest of his life behind bars, Mangione answered neutrally: “Yes.”
In a statement, Thompson’s family called the plea “an important step toward justice” and noted that Mangione still faces other cases, including a New York state murder prosecution. It carries the potential for a separate long sentence.
Mangione still faces a state murder case
Federal prosecutors didn’t give Mangione any deal or incentive to plead guilty, they and his lawyers said. Nor did Mangione plead guilty to avoid a potential death sentence. That possibility was taken off the table when a federal murder charge was tossed out this winter.
But after Mangione entered the plea at Friday’s hastily scheduled hearing, his lawyers quickly sought to have the New York case thrown out on double jeopardy grounds. The state’s double jeopardy protections can kick in if a prior prosecution ends in a guilty plea.
“Mr. Mangione has accepted full responsibility for the death of Brian Thompson,” defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo said outside court, arguing that her client shouldn’t face two prosecutions over a “single tragic event.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is handling the state prosecution, said it remains committed to its case and would contest the defense’s efforts to shut it down.
Mangione alludes to back pain in explaining his actions
Surveillance video of the ambush showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson, 50, from behind. Police say “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
That detail — and revelations that Mangione’s private writings lambasted health insurers as greedy, according to authorities — made the case a fulcrum for debate about the industry and made Mangione a cause célèbre for some of its critics.
A University of Pennsylvania graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, Mangione told the court Friday that he pursued Thompson “after years of enduring severe pain from a broken back, navigating the obstacles of the health insurance system and witnessing similar experiences of countless others.”
Friedman Agnifilo later said her client “believed that the system had failed him and destroyed his life.”
Authorities say Mangione’s grievances are no excuse for killing
Mangione never was a UnitedHealthcare customer, according to police and the company.
“To those who idolize Luigi Mangione, I say this. Violence is not a cause. Murder is not a message. And a killer is certainly not a hero,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said outside court Friday.
U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald, whose office handled the federal case, added: “There can be no celebrity in assassination.”
Thompson led one of the United States’ largest health insurers, but he wasn’t well known outside the industry. Trained as an accountant, he worked at parent company UnitedHealth Group Inc. for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, in 2021. He and his wife had two sons, who were in high school when their father was killed.
Thompson’s violent death “devastated everyone who knew and loved him,” the company said in a statement Friday, thanking law enforcement for bringing Mangione to justice.
His defense had lost some disputes over evidence
Mangione was arrested five days after the shooting, when he was spotted at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of Manhattan. Police had released various images of the suspected shooter, including one showing his face as he checked into a hostel.
Although his lawyers got the federal murder charge dismissed, Garnett also delivered some setbacks to the defense, ruling in January that prosecutors could use items collected from Mangione’s backpack during his arrest as evidence against him. They included a 3D-printed pistol that investigators said matched the one used to kill Thompson and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to kill an insurance executive.
Similarly, the judge in the state case threw out terrorism charges against Mangione but agreed to let the gun and notebook be used as evidence. The case has been heading toward a September trial, but his lawyers’ new bid to dismiss it could complicate the timeline.
___
Associated Press writers Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington contributed.
US 17th Airborne Paratroopers, with their hair cut in Mohawk-style, being briefed for the next day’s Jump across the Rhine, Arras, France. Photograph taken on the 23 March 1945.
In 1969, legendary photographer Henry Diltz took a series of candid, iconic portraits of a young Steve Martin at his home in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles. Long before he became known for his signature white hair and “Wild and Crazy Guy” comedy persona, the future superstar was working as a television writer and stand-up comic while living right up the hill from Diltz.
The photo session captures an intimate look at Martin’s early artistic passions, quirky humor, and life in the vibrant Laurel Canyon artistic community. Several famous shots from this shoot highlight Martin playing his acoustic guitar and banjo. He would later seamlessly weave his master-level banjo skills into his legendary comedy acts. One notable image showcases him focused at his desk, working away on a vintage typewriter, around the time he was writing Emmy-winning material for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
Even in casual portraits, Martin’s distinct comedic sensibilities peeked through. Diltz captured deadpan, absurd setups, including a famous shot of Martin jokingly pretending to “iron” a kitten, as well as posing with binoculars.
