Freedom does not come with a reimbursement form

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J6 insurrectionists have cost the former United States of America $2.7 billion, and now they want more. {Citizens for Ethics 22 July}

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/january-6ers-cost-taxpayers-2-7-billion-now-theyre-seeking-secret-payouts/

Now they are out to fleece American taxpayers once again. And guess whose side the President and his Department of Justice are on? Certainly not yours — assuming, of course, that one is not a J6 insurrectionist. If any J6 insurrectionists are reading this, kindly remove yourselves from the gene pool, motherf**king thugs. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Russian strike kills women and children at crowded train station in Kramatorsk, thoughts on the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, and a fine example of how conspiracist thinking has spread beyond politics and into every aspect of our lives

Letting any and all Russian/pro-Russian propagandists know that most of the world sees through Russia’s lies, and - the nationalist populists who have taken control of America’s Republican Party aside - few are buying the contention that it is the Ukrainians who are the Nazis and aggressors. Rarely in human history - the scapegoating of Jews being the notable exceptions - has there ever been a more shameless and hateful example of one group of people projecting their issues onto another. Given the atrocities they are committing against the Ukrainian people, and given how strongly they hold to this idea of ‘us against the world,’ I do not believe there will ever be any reasoning with Vladimir Putin and the Russian nation. This is not even the Russia of Soviet times, when a degree of logic and a healthy fear of mutually assured destruction tempered their barbarism and aggression. Russia has reverted to a more primitive state, and they are only going to be subdued by force  #StopPutin #StopRussianAggression #StandWithUkraine Слава Україні

Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images

Killing children, ‘for the children.’ Russian air strike hits crowded train station in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 50 civilians and injuring hundreds more - My blood is boiling. Excerpt: ‘A missile hit a train station where thousands of people had flocked to flee in eastern Ukraine, killing 50 people Friday, Ukrainian authorities said, while warning they expect to find more evidence of war crimes in areas abandoned by Russian troops. Photos from the scene showed bodies covered with tarps on the ground and the remnants of a rocket with the words “For the children” painted on it in Russian. About 4,000 civilians were in and around the station, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said, adding that most were women and children heeding calls to leave the area before Russia launches a full-scale offensive in the country’s east. The Russian Defense Ministry denied attacking the station in Kramatorsk, a city in Ukraine’s contested Donbas region, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian leaders accused Russia’s military of deliberately targeting a location where only civilians were assembled.’ (AP 4/08) 

Kevin Lamarque/AP

Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Supreme Court Justice - First black woman to sit on the high court. To the extent yours truly paid any attention to her confirmation hearings - virtually not at all - the Republicans made colossal fools of themselves (just another day for them), but also delivered all the crazy the base demands. The belligerence, racism, and showboating is not hurting them with public opinion; the general public is severely divided, and the portion of people the GOP needs to win elections actively demand their representatives engage in performative bulls**t, and ‘protect’ them from the rest of us and the rest of the world - especially people who look like Ketanji Brown Jackson. Congratulations to Justice Jackson, but her life just got a hell of a lot more complicated. (CBS News 4/07)

Leader of a Proud Boys chapter and January 6 insurrectionist pleads guilty, will testify against his former co-seditionists - Could prove to provide valuable testimony, but nothing less than ten years in prison and lifetime disenfranchisement will be suitable. (Washington Post 4/08)

Sharing the above tweet to make a point. Here we have the owner of a professional wrestling organization – bear with me - declaring that because there are fans online who don’t like the goofy product he puts out, there must be an organized conspiracy by his (larger, established) primary competition. The point I’m making is not about professional wrestling or predatory business practices (which Khan’s competition has certainly been guilty of at times in their history), but the mindset that has spread beyond politics and into every aspect of our lives. We have as good of an example of this as any right here. Most everybody’s brains are conspiracy-addled today: Anything bad that happens, or anything they don’t just like, it must all be because some shady figures in the shadows are pulling the puppet strings in order to oppress and control others. This mindset always blinds individuals to the words and actions of true oppressors, such as Vladimir Putin, and said mindset is the result of conditioning from actual tyrants. Exactly why the likes of Putin, Donald Trump, and every populist dictator in modern history have been so devoted to defining the narrative, and so quick to tell their subjects that the other side is out to get them, and only he can provide protection. And people eat this s**t up with a silver spoon. Sickening. It is really quite sad and juvenile, but this is what Trumpism has done to #Murica. It has made us all paranoid, hateful, and unable to differentiate between reality and delusion. It will take generations for society as a whole to disavow itself of this conspiracy-addled mindset, but then we probably don’t have that much time left before mankind’s collective suicide.

Copyright 2022, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here. DONATIONS - click here.

The danger a Trump comeback in 2024 would present to American Jews

AP

Eric Yoffie’s piece in Haaretz is vitally important reading. Virtually any time in human history where mob rule and tyranny have been enacted, Jewish people have always suffered as a result. Anti-Semitism was never limited to Nazi Germany or to today radical Islamists, it has been with us for centuries and all over the world. While I don’t know if another Holocaust or the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition would exactly be repeated, American Jews will not be safe should Donald Trump and the GOP succeed in destroying our constitutional republic. I guarantee that most of these evangelical and Republican types who publicly profess love and support for Israel engage in Anti-Semitic rhetoric behind closed doors. In years past, I’ve heard it with my own ears from people I have known. Far too many people when I stop to think about it. Considering there is also considerable Anti-Semitism on the radical left, this should be a scary time to be a Jew in America. Yet, as Yoffie points out, most Jews don’t seem to be alarmed. Well, I implore the Jewish community to be alarmed, and push back before it’s too late. #NeverAgain. Excerpt -  

Our liberal democracy is in profound danger, and it is impossible to know if the chaos that a Trump presidential run might bring will lead to an unravelling of the entire system.   

Why exactly there is so much indifference to these dangers is not clear either. As noted above, Democrats and liberals are strangely apathetic, despite the warnings of Robert Kagan and others in the mainstream media.  

Part of the problem, I believe, is that it may have been a mistake to banish Trump from Facebook and Twitter. His irrational rantings were infuriating, but they reminded most Americans of what a charlatan the man is. Taking away his microphone allowed him to plot his return to power out of the public eye, with the help of political collaborators from his party who seem entirely prepared to risk the enabling of dictatorship. 

The second question: What does all this mean for American Jews? 

Nothing good, that is for certain. If we learn anything from Jewish history, it is that mayhem and mob rule always — and I do mean always — threaten Jewish welfare and Jewish lives.  

Jewish wellbeing in America is directly related to America’s stability, pluralism, and relative tolerance, along with established constitutional guarantees of freedom and equality. No other Diaspora community has come close to offering its Jews the security and peace of mind that they enjoy in America. 

But now, imagine a paralyzed, post-election Congress, unable to resolve an election crisis, while mobs rampage in the streets, demanding a Trump restoration. Imagine anti-Trumps mob surging forward to meet them. Imagine the chaos that will ensue, and Donald Trump looking on, a barely suppressed smile on his face. 

Jews fear chaos and angry mobs for good reason. They know that if a mob is yelling for blood, it will be yelling for Jewish blood as well. They know that they will never be safe in such an America, and neither will other minorities. (Read more)

Copyright 2021, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here.

American Christian dominionists increasingly becoming more like Middle Eastern Islamists and preparing for war

AP

Another vital piece on Christian nationalism and vaccine resistance. Excerpt -   

Appeals to Christian identity were common during the Trump administration, and Christian nationalist themes were widely visible during the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But with Trump out of office and hundreds of insurrectionists now facing federal charges, hard-line Christian nationalists are increasingly fueling their movement with opposition to COVID-19 vaccines and mask mandates, which they cast as threats to their religious and constitutional freedoms. 

A June poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and Interfaith Youth Core reported that among the 13% of Americans who said they would not get vaccinated, white evangelicals make up the largest religious chunk, representing 28% of “vaccine refusers.” White evangelicals also happen to be one of the faith groups most likely to embrace QAnon, which claims the world is secretly run by Satan-worshipping pedophiles. Among vaccine refusers, too, a full 42% believe conspiracy theories associated with the movement. 

There’s also a historical subtext: (Pastor Greg) Locke’s call to “stir up” school board meetings harks back to the strategy of the religious right in the 1980s and 1990s, which agitated at — and eventually took control of — school boards and other local government bodies in an effort to shift American culture from the grassroots up. 

But today’s Christian nationalists are arguably more confrontational than their religious right progenitors. At a school board meeting in Lee County, Florida, on Aug. 30, protesters who gathered outside to oppose an impending mask mandate wore shirts that read “Jesus is my savior, Trump is my president” and the logo of the recently launched “Conservative Christians of Southwest Florida,” which features an outline of the state emblazoned with the American flag. 

As protesters and counterprotesters bickered, eventually exchanging blows, a pair of white-coated doctors attempted to walk by the crowd. They were promptly shoved and glared at by apparent opponents of the mask mandate. 

Inside the meeting room, two men wearing the conservative Christian group’s shirt spoke against the mask order. Later, a woman gripping a cross pointed at school board members and denounced them as “demonic entities,” saying people like them are in “all the school boards” in the U.S., but that “all of us Christians will be sticking together to take them all out.” (Read more)

Copyright 2021, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here.

Proud Boys leader sentenced to five months in prison on weapons and vandalism charges

Getty Images

CBS News -  

Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced Monday to more than five months in prison for burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a church in Washington, D.C., and for carrying two high-capacity firearm magazines when he was arrested weeks later, the Department of Justice said.  

Tarrio pled guilty to one count of destruction of property and one count of attempted possession of a large-capacity ammunition feeding device in July. Tarrio said Monday that there was "no excuse" for his actions, adding that he made "a grave mistake" that day.  

"I'd like to profusely apologize," he said, adding, "What I did was wrong." 

But D.C. Superior Court Judge Harold Cushenberry was not convinced.  

"Mr. Tarrio has clearly, intentionally, and proudly crossed the line from peaceful protest and assembly to dangerous and potentially violent conduct," the judge said. "He could not have cared less about the laws of the District of Columbia." (Read more)

Copyright 2021, Sunking278. Stay up-to-date: Twitter – @Sunking278 and Facebook – click here.