Republicans have declared open, total war on human rights and democracy. We must defend our liberties, and ourselves, and the world entire. We must defend our declared enemies from themselves as much as possible, while we are at it. But first, we have to explain to ourselves that it is worse than it was only a few months ago, especially on abortion, guns, and elections.
They are doing everything they can think of to destroy themselves, with too few children to replace them; too many preventable deaths; and driving away millions of their children every year. Then they rage at our admittedly imperfect schools, media, and Internet for the children going away. It is always bogus moral panics, such as CRT and the Gay Agenda and Soshulism and the even more bogus Great Replacement Conspiracy Theory. And Mr. Potato Head, when they are really reaching.
They can’t actually demonize President Biden and VP Harris, which does not deter them from trying. They cannot actually demonize the Democratic platform (the Best of Everything for Everybody, including them), which does not deter them from trying to do that either.
But they can conspire to break all of the laws in sight in their vain attempts to turn history back to the days of unchallenged White patriarchal Christianist Supremacism in at least some states.
Our Declaration of War
See whether you can tell which phrases in the following are Jefferson, and which are my pastiche of his style concerning events that did not occur in his time.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, That all men[sic] are created equal…
and they hold it as self-evident that they are More Equal.
When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these States; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Republican Party is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, mostly.
- They have refused their Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
- They have forbidden their Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till the Assent of SCOTUS should be obtained; and when so suspended, SCOTUS has utterly neglected to attend to them.
- They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
- They have endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
- They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing their Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers and establishing necessary courts.
- They have made Judges dependent on their Will alone for their appointments.
- They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither and thither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
- They have affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
- They have pardoned the most notorious criminals:
- They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- For protecting the police, by refusal to indict or even investigate; and all else failing, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
- For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Habeas Corpus and Trial by Jury:
- For abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
- For pretending that their officers are above the Laws, and need not answer to our Legislatures or our Courts:
- They have abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of their Protection and waging War against us.
- They have plundered our land, air, and water; ravaged our Coasts with rising seas, burnt our forests and towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
- They are at this time recruiting Armies of Domestic Terrorists to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy a civilized nation.
- They have excited domestic insurrections amongst us.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Republican brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislatures to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of the Founding of this great Republic. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably break up our common heritage. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces this Hostility, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the People of the United States of America, appealing to the record of our actions for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these States, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States are and of right ought to be free and sovereign over our own affairs, without interference from those who would undo our Constitution and our Republic. And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our inviolable Honor.
But There is Good News
- We throw some of the rascals out in November.
- We take some other rascals to court over election shenanigans.
- The new Congress reforms the filibuster after some housekeeping in January.
- We get voting rights laws.
- We get women’s healthcare, gun laws, policing, and hundreds of other bills to President Biden’s desk. IOW, we repeal the current War on America and the planet.
- We discuss expanding the Supreme Court to 13 justices, one for each circuit.
- Then we fight everything out in the courts.
- Next round: undoing systemic racism, misogyny, predatory capitalism, science and economics denial, and more, at length and in detail.
1/6 Public Hearings and Previews
Expect lots of palaver about what to expect in the hearings. Ignore anything unsourced, especially about what they think they want you to think Because Bogus Reasons.
Justice
Elections
Bad News: Plans to steal elections via terrorism and fraud escalate.
Good News: We can and will prepare for them.
This lawyer, Christine Brim, is on fire about the Big Lie.
The RNC says that it has so far recruited more than 5,000 poll watchers and nearly 12,000 poll workers for November.
Politico: ‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections
Placing operatives as poll workers and building a "hotline" to friendly attorneys are among the strategies to be deployed in Michigan and other swing states.
The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts.
@GOPChairwoman Ronna McDaniel tweeted a non-denial denial of everything, of course.
But wait! There's more!
No, we need poll watcher watchers to watch the illegitimate self-proclaimed poll watchers. Many will fail to follow the legal requirements and can be barred from entering polling places during voting. If county clerks and police do their duties. Otherwise, brace for many hundreds of lawsuits for intimidation and maybe arrests for interfering with government functions.
Science! Animals! Weirdness!
James Webb Space Telescope
has taken a few photos, and will be ready to take First Light photos with all instruments working soon. Then after data analysis and image preparation the rest of us will get to see them and find out something about what they can tell us.
Countdown to Webb's First Images
We are counting down to July 12, 2022 when NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency, will release its first full-color images and spectroscopic data.
Large Hadron Collider
has restarted and is producing record high energy beams, almost ready to collide at 13.6 TeV. It will start collision experiments in July. Until this run LHC was confirming the Standard Model, including the Higgs boson. Now it is ready to look for new physics.
Hurricanes
Bottles
Excellent middle-school experiments that you can do safely at home.
Robots
Bees
Bees co-evolved with flowers and fruit and grains to feed and delight us and many other species.
Pangolins
Planigales
Good for What Ails You
That’s funny. I was sure I heard that we are all going to die, that life is guaranteed to be fatal.
Oh, yes.
Don’t worry about dying. It’s 100% certain.
Sawaki Kodo Roshi, Soto Zen Master
A Large Prospective Cohort Study
A total of 171 616 participants (mean age, 55.6 years [SD, 7.9]) without cardiovascular disease (CVD) or cancer at baseline were eligible. Baseline demographic, lifestyle, and dietary data from the UK Biobank were used, with follow-up beginning in 2009 and ending in 2018.
During a median follow-up of 7.0 years, 3177 deaths were recorded (including 1725 cancer deaths and 628 CVD deaths).
Compared with nonconsumers, consumers of various amounts of unsweetened coffee had lower risks for all-cause mortality after adjustment for lifestyle, sociodemographic, and clinical factors.
So the substantial percentage changes in death rates were for the seven-year study period.
See Also
Quack! Quack!
Christianism
I also do this kind of research.
I feel sorry for the victims of this foolery, and glad for the millions of young people who escape each year. We can and will help them much more.
Funny or Cry
There are many more tweets like the above, with scenes from many more cartoons. And there are many others from Japanese anime.
More than 3,000 by his own count.