In regards of the Trump government scraping all trans inclusion in its queer information portion of its websites I have made this thing. Spread the word. Don’t let them pretend we never existed.
All the Americans who died in WWII fighting fascism would be appalled by JD Vance’s speech in Munich and his later meeting with the a neofascist AfD leader.
Vice President JD Vance urged European leaders on Friday to end the isolation of far-right parties across the continent, an extraordinary embrace of a once-fringe political movement with which the Trump administration shares a common approach on migration, identity and internet speech. […] The vice president singled out his German hosts, telling them to drop their objections to working with a party that has often reveled in banned Nazi slogans and has been shunned from government as a result. He did not mention the party, the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, by name, but directly referred to the longstanding agreement by mainstream German politicians to freeze out the group, parts of which have been formally classified as extremist by German intelligence.
“There is no room for firewalls,” Mr. Vance said, bringing some gasps in the hall.
He punctuated the message by meeting on Friday with Alice Weidel, the AfD’s candidate for chancellor in this month’s election, as well as other German leaders. […] Mr. Vance aggressively challenged the diplomats in the hall in Munich, telling them that their biggest security threat was not from China or Russia, but “the enemy within” — what he called their suppression of abortion protests and other forms of free speech.
It was breathtakingly hypocritical for Vance to scold Europe for not being true to its democratic ideals–much less to do so in a speech delivered in Germany, which in the mid-20th century had lost its democratic institutions because some Germans allowed Nazis to get a foothold in their government.
If you give fascists an inch, they will take a mile.
In his speech, Vance was indignant that Europe has erected “firewalls” against far-right political parties. Ignoring the fact that fascism took over Germany through a democratic, legal process. Specifically, once he became prime minister, it only took Hitler and his Nazi cronies 53 days to destroy the Wiemar Republic through legal, constitutional means.
Germany in particular KNOWS if they give fascists an inch, they will take a mile.
It doesn’t help Vance’s case that in less than a month’s time, Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans have taken a sledgehammer in the U.S. to the law and the Constitution, and appear to be trying to establish an autocratic if no downright neofascist state.
No politician has a “mandate” if they were elected because of disinformation and lies.
Vance clutched his pearls that the Romanian government just nullified an election because it was proven that there was a deep Russian disinformation campaign to propel a far-right party into power.
Besides the fact that Vance hypocritically works for Trump who attempted “coup” to overturn a fair election, Vance wants the world to ignore the fact that any political candidate who is elected into power based on lies and disinformation is in fact NOT a representative of the will of the people because they were elected fraudulently (i.e., if they had told the truth, they might not have been elected).
Consider Trump. If he had not lied and distanced himself from the deeply unpopular Project 2025, but had instead said he planned on using it as a blueprint for his second term, how many of those swing state voters would have actually voted for him?
Therefore, Trump has NO mandate that reflects the “will of the people” not only because he was NOT elected by a majority of the voters (just a plurality) but because he lied about his true intentions for a second administration during his campaign.
[See more about how Vance hypocritically turns “free speech” on its head below the cut.]
This is what America looked like before the EPA cleaned it up
It wasn’t pretty.
In 1970, Republican President Richard Nixon signed an executive order creating the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It was a time when pollution made many of our nation’s rivers and streams unsafe for fishing or swimming. Back then, New York City’s air pollution was so thick that you often couldn’t see the city’s iconic bridges. Forty-seven years later, there is serious talk of dismantling the agency, or at least slashing its size by two-thirds.
From 1971 to 1977 the nascent agency, in an act of prescience, enlisted the services of freelance photographers to help us remember. These photographers captured images of America’s environmental problems before we’d cleaned them up. In 2011, the US National Archives digitized more than 15,000 pictures from the series “Documerica”. Here are some of the most compelling.
The Atlas Chemical Company Belches Smoke across Pasture Land in Foreground. 06/1972 Marc St Gil / EPA
Smog Hangs Over Louisville And Ohio River, September 1972 William Strode / EPA
Smog Lingers Over Louisville Skyline, September 1972 William Strode /EPA
Broken Glass From “No-Deposit, Non-Returnable” Bottles Along the Washington Shore of the Columbia River in a Public Picnic Area. Such Bottles Are Illegal Across the River in the State of Oregon 04/1973 David Falconer / EPA
The Job Of Clearing Drift From The Potomac And Anacostia Rivers Is Done By The Army Corps Of Engineers, April 1973 John Neubauer / EPA
Mary Workman Holds A Jar of Undrinkable Water That Comes from Her Well, and Has Filed A Damage Suit Against the Hanna Coal Company … 10/1973 Erik Calonius / EPA
Dude, before the EPA, the Cuyahoga River used to CATCH FIRE on a regular basis. A river. Caught fire. Multiple times.
“Utah’s Republican governor on Friday signed a collective bargaining ban that experts are calling one of the most restrictive labor laws in the country, despite overwhelming opposition from union members.
Beginning July 1, unions serving Utah teachers, firefighters, police officers, transit workers and other public employees will be banned from negotiating on their behalf for better wages and working conditions.
Gov. Spencer Cox announced his decision Friday evening following a week of rallies outside his office in which thousands of union members from the public and private sector urged him to veto the bill. The Republican-controlled Legislature had narrowly approved it last week after its sponsors abandoned a proposed compromise that would have removed the outright ban.
‘I’m disappointed that, in this case, the process did not ultimately deliver the compromise that at one point was on the table and that some stakeholders had accepted,’ Cox said in a statement announcing he had signed the bill.
Billionaire tech executive Elon Musk has encouraged right-wing political movements, policies and administrations in at least 18 countries in a global push to slash immigration and curtail regulation of business, according to an NBC News review of his political activity over the past two years.
While Musk has received widespread attention for the upheaval he is causing in the U.S. government, as well as for his growing role in Germany, where he recently told voters to “move beyond” Nazi guilt, the tech tycoon is making his influence felt in a long and growing list of other countries.
What i love about this artist’s depictions of women is even the sexualized ones the woman is always genuinely happy and enjoying herself. Frolicking or making funny faces, she’s living her life and looking sexy while doing it, not sitting in a sexual pose for the audience’s view.
I always forget about Hilda and am so pleased when she randomly shows up on my dash. Always makes my day
I love Hilda so much and I want her to be happy
My favorite thing is how Hilda is always doing something and having a BLAST! She’s not posing coyly for anyone, she’s having her own adventures and it’s not about the viewer at all
i dont think we give karl urban enough credit for his acting in this extended edition scene of eomer discovering eowyn in pelennor fields because. my goodness
Tags are fantastic, and if you’re on the fence about reading the books please know Eomer finds her before the battle ends in the original, and thinking she is dead goes absolutely feral on the enemy.
The narration is even like “newly king, Eomer says FUCK TACTICS LETS KILL ORCS, and it is not a good decision but he sure did make it emphatically.”
The thing about the acting in that, is that I have seen that wild, confused, uncomprehending horror – that look as he turns his head side-to-side just as he lifts her up – on a human face in real life, exactly once, and I hope I never in my life see it again.
It was on the face of a friend, the day after her daughter died. She was sitting against the wall of her front hallway, making a sound that I can only describe as “I can’t understand why I am still breathing, my daughter is not breathing, why am I still breathing” with her whole chest. Nothing made sense. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Her entire body was rejecting it beyond any rejection I could encompass.
That was the look on her face.
I don’t know what Karl Urban has seen or experienced or been told about that he could access that reaction as a performer, but it’s one of the rawest and realest things I’ve ever seen in a film. It lasts maybe a second and it punches me breathless every time.
i dont think we give karl urban enough credit for his acting in this extended edition scene of eomer discovering eowyn in pelennor fields because. my goodness
Tags are fantastic, and if you’re on the fence about reading the books please know Eomer finds her before the battle ends in the original, and thinking she is dead goes absolutely feral on the enemy.
The narration is even like “newly king, Eomer says FUCK TACTICS LETS KILL ORCS, and it is not a good decision but he sure did make it emphatically.”
The thing about the acting in that, is that I have seen that wild, confused, uncomprehending horror – that look as he turns his head side-to-side just as he lifts her up – on a human face in real life, exactly once, and I hope I never in my life see it again.
It was on the face of a friend, the day after her daughter died. She was sitting against the wall of her front hallway, making a sound that I can only describe as “I can’t understand why I am still breathing, my daughter is not breathing, why am I still breathing” with her whole chest. Nothing made sense. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Her entire body was rejecting it beyond any rejection I could encompass.
That was the look on her face.
I don’t know what Karl Urban has seen or experienced or been told about that he could access that reaction as a performer, but it’s one of the rawest and realest things I’ve ever seen in a film. It lasts maybe a second and it punches me breathless every time.
I went on an adventure today to return a pillow to IKEA with my coworker Astrid.
We were having a nice day and got stuck in traffic coming home. On the way her phone rang and she was driving so she declined the call with a sigh. “I feel so bad for him,” she said.
“You know that number?”
She did. It turns out her phone number had previously belonged to a woman named Serena. The man calling was her dad. He had Alzheimer’s and didn’t remember his daughter was dead, so he just called the number he knew was hers.
I was stricken to hear this. “Do you talk to him?”
“Yeah. Sometimes he thinks I’m her and we talk. I have a notebook with facts I’ve learned about her so I can connect with him better. Sometimes he knows I’m not her and I say I’m her friend.”
I struggled with the beauty and humanity of this for a moment. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know; I just call him Dad.”
We sat in silence and I was overwhelmed with feelings. That she was so kind and thoughtful about this random connection. A man who called and spoke to her with love for the daughter he missed.
“One time,” she added, “he called me just after I had a difficult day with my mom. I knew Serena and her mom had a rocky relationship so I talked to him about my frustrations with my own mother and he gave the following advice: ‘Everyone fails sometimes, even parents; what’s important is to communicate with our loved ones, even when it’s difficult.’
“I have never forgotten that advice and it healed a portion of my heart.”
amhrancas 