#autocracy

Ice hunted and killed another man for fun, a legal immigrant with a work permit and social security number, then destroyed evidence as part of the cover up:

Big turnout at Suffolk ICE Protest after video of arrest goes viral

Here are some ways to help Immigrants and the anti-ICE Protesters:

An account of Occupied D.C.: It BUUURRRRNNNNSSS!!!

One of my RL friends has a radically different idea for the reflecting pool:

Turn the reflecting pool into modular gardens.

Could we get healthcare back instead of wasting money on things like this?

The amount of money is tiny and it's a comparatively small number of children compared to all the children alive in the country. Why don't we give the children health care instead of a thousand dollars? That would be so much more valuable and a better investment in the country's future.

I admit, my first thoughts on hearing this were:

Who is paying for this? How much corruption is involved? Is it a straight up bribe to the service station chain or are things like pardons involved?

Interesting how it is only happening in a swing state and to a lesser extent a possible swing state. Bet it's happening where it's happening in hopes of buying Pennsylvania votes.

Trump says he’ll ask Supreme Court to rehear birthright citizenship case

This is technically a thing, but in the whole history of the country it's worked exactly once.

Shameful.

This is so clearly a murder and cover up:

ICE Killing in Houston Puts Focus on Surge in Immigration Arrests

ICE ramps up arrests in Puget Sound region under new nationwide quota

Here are some ways to help Immigrants and the anti-ICE Protesters:

Yesterday I heard a happy Republicancrediting President Trump’s self-proclaimed successesto his training and experience with consumer-driven accountability;meaning,I presume,his for-profit experience with promotion-driven consumerism. Now I realize this for-profit wealth of experienceoutside Washington,untainted by prior pubic sector experience,appears compelling for how he became President…

Is American democracy going to die?

Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat argues that democracies usually do not collapse all at once. They are weakened gradually through electoral manipulation, loyalty tests, attacks on independent institutions, intimidation of the press, normalization of extremism, and efforts to remain in power after losing an election.

That is what makes her warning so important.

The United States is not yet a full autocracy. Courts still push back. Independent journalists still investigate. Civil society still organizes. Elections still matter. But the damage is real, and pretending otherwise is not optimism. It is denial.

I agree with Ben-Ghiat’s diagnosis far more than I share her confidence that American democracy will definitely survive and return stronger. I hope she is right, but no democracy is guaranteed to endure simply because people assume it will.

Democracy survives only when institutions remain independent, elections remain free, political violence is punished rather than celebrated, and citizens refuse to accept authoritarian behaviour as normal.

The most dangerous belief in a declining democracy is that it cannot happen here.

It can.

I am old enough to remember how fun the bicentennial was. It was basically a year long party for History nerds, which my family all was.

They spent all this money refurbishing, expanding, and upgrading historical sites and museums. I am from Philly, which was a great place to be for it. My family went to so many things. There were all these extra field trips.

There were fairs and parades and special events. My school went all out with a historical reenactment fair and plays and things.

It was so much fun, you know? And it felt good.

They didn't go around sanitizing and rewriting history and dismantling exhibits like the Republicans are doing now.

They left in the slaves and truth about the personal behavior of the founding fathers. Again, I'm from Philly. Ben Franklin is big there. His house is there. There is a whole ass museum with inventions and these cool dioramas with dolls and stuff. Independence hall is there. They left in Ben Franklin's life long philandering and alcoholism late in life. They left in the slaves and the messy situation with his illegitimate loyalist son. I was too little at the time to understand all the sex bits, but they were still showing the film with it in as I got older.

I would rather love America enough to want to make it better instead of papering over the past and current problems in order to make is so much worse.

Instead of a nation wide year long party we get this piss dribble on the National Mall and propaganda trucks touring the South to tell lies about history and the censoring of colleges and museums and historical plagues.

Seriously, Our county fair here is so much bigger and better than the embarrassing mess on the national mall, and our State fair is exponentially better and those things are pure fun instead of boring ass nonsense with things like "a baptism tent" and dangerous stages that nearly kill musicians and guys trying to convince children that the only thing wrong with the witch trials was they weren't fascist enough. O.o Also, I'm pretty sure the Bicentennial didn't involve government officials embezzling and doing wire fraud. Allegedly, but the reporting sure lines up with everything we are seeing.

Republican Governance: why we can't have nice things.

White House awarded no-bid contract for East Wing ballroom, Washington Post reports

Trump Reports Earning $26 Million From Foreign Real Estate Deals