As someone who has worked in the Federal sphere before, this happens anyway; Ron Swansons are all over the place and have been for a long time. The idea that this would happen deliberately, en masse, is actually kind of awesome in a terrifying way.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but even if we just remodel it later (for all it’s gaudy “splendor”), the taxpayers are going to wind up paying for this boondongle twice. The fact that it’s clearly a money-laundering-grift scheme is just salt in the wound at this point.

Un-doing all of this is the right thing to do, but it’ll be seen as divisive and will ultimately cost more, making it politically problematic for anyone in office that cares about all that. You’d need another authoritarian to pull this off, and I’m not sure we want that.

The fuck is going on with that organization?

My two-cents on the matter: The NFL’s relationship with problematic decisions and/or optics, have been a thing for a long time now.

• Military flyovers¹
• Strictly IMO: player “draft” process resembles an auction
• Predominantly black player base with white team ownership
• “Redskins” as a team name for far longer than the public felt it acceptable
• Entire league suffering from concussions², life-altering injuries after retirement
• History of team owners doing all kinds of problematic stuff, but keeping their jobs regardless

1. My problem here is that we’re talking commercial sports, an institution one could feasibly use as a refuge from politics. But we add rah-rah military back in, opening the door for nationalism, because screw all that.
2. There are lawsuits out regarding a possible cover-up (going back a long time) by the league in this area, as highlighted in recent news.

I’m on Tim Kaine’s mailing list.

Since last November, his entire office/campaign has been heavy on optics throughout the state, all with a heavy lean towards business as usual. Only recently (late October) did he write about “challenging trump’s reckless tariff policies”, which was little more than a statement of fact than any actual coherent plan to solve anything. Most shockingly, this communique had ZERO mention about DOGE, and the thousands out of work right now in his state, let alone the government shutdown and the hungry poor people out there right now. Or any of the other politically relevant horrors we have going right now. It was easily one of the best written, carefully crafted, barely educational, worthless, tone-deaf, rage-inducing pieces of literature to hit my inbox, and includes a bottomless cornucopia of spam mail.

There’s an old saying in politics: “never waste a good crisis.” Well, this is a big one, and opportunities to be a hero with accolades and job security for life can be had at minimal effort. I can only conclude that the man’s brain is located somewhere in the vicinity of his spine, both of which went missing back in 2024.

While I’m no longer a Virginian, I emplore those of you who are to vote this trash out.

DOGE fired most of these people, or at least their friends, family, and neighbors. Read the room, donnie.

No idea. Not even the most meta-gaming-est members of that party had a workaround.

Exactly. Pragmatism wins the day. Or at least it does at my table.

I’ll have to shop around for more and better tools. Thanks for reminding me that there’s a wider world out there.

But give me the nitty gritty so I can decide for myself.

This resonates with me. But I also have to give an obligatory nod to Palladium Games where the nit and grit is the entire point. If you’ve never had the pleasure, the RIFTS character sheet makes (American) taxes look easy to file by comparison. You practically need a session zero and a session zero-zero to get started.

Considering that was probably penned in the late 1980’s, why isn’t that standard kit for every other system?

Still, as a DM, it’s far too tempting to give a little bit of this away and join in on the hijinks.

Me: You find yourselves in a hidden library. On one shelf you see a series of tomes named “How Not to be Seen”, volumes I-XX.

Newbie Fighter: Oh sweet, those look handy.

Seasoned Rogue: Aw fuck. NOBODY TOUCH NOTHIN’!

Ten minutes later:

This right here. It’s not isolated to NYC. It’s a crack in the pavement of ossified ideas and outdated politics. If a more progressive platform works in one place, it could work in many more.

the fact that both the DNC and RNC fought this is incredibly telling of how big a deal this is.

isn’t sure or approves

I know it’s not you, but those really need to be different categories.

Boy, is Trump gonna be mad when he finds out that Trump beat his ratings.

Maybe?

I don’t have the time or energy to dive into the methodology to figure out if any poll is conducted scientifically. What I do know is that it’s way easier to build a bad poll, and easier still to hit the bricks and generate heaps of bad data.

What I really wish these would ask are things like: “if you had the only vote and could write-in anyone that is eligable, even if they’re not on the ballot, who would you choose?”… or: “Who is your favorite person in politics right now?” Disregarding of all the nonsense answers, you’d probably find out a lot more about hearts and minds versus whatever controlled choices major parties are propping up.

He knows this particular string of hurtful words because he’s heard it before.

Not really, at least, not anymore.

There are some people that come to RPGs to escape reality and man, do they need it. D&D holds out a promise of agency, power, and control, in a fantasy setting free from real consequences. Provided a player lacks these things in real life, they can cling to it like a life-preserver. Then, take any of that away - as a DM must do - and things can get ugly.

I really want to say that there’s a known and practiced way to get people like this some real help, like a free hotline or website. After all, if it’s going to come up, this is the place it’s going to happen. Sadly, I know of no such resource.

Eh, not really. This is not an admission of support. Here’s why.

I’ve seen firsthand what it looks like when these creeps invade tolerant spaces. We’re talking clubs packed full of goths, punks, metal-heads, very gay people, and the occasional furry. First, it’s just one or two. Then their friends show up. You may not even realize it until it’s too late. And there they are, happily mixing it up with everyone else. Their bigotry is usually only evident when put to the test, and there aren’t a lot of situations where that’s called for. But provoke their sense of ‘correct’ social hierarchy and things get bad, fast. Then the bouncers get called in to handle the really stupid/violent ones.

And that’s where the problem lies with this statement. Nazis have zero issues standing side-by-side with the people they hate. Just as long as they know they can seize control or maintain the upper-hand whenever they want, is enough. In this situation, we have someone running for public office, versus someone who’s just a voter. They’d be holding all the power in this situation, and didn’t admit to lending that power to a trans person in any way; something that would divorce him from Nazis support. So, the assertion of “stand by your side” isn’t even worth the electricity it took to get it to our screens.

Honestly, I dread this day for the political fallout, lavish wake, and who knows whatever “dear leader” horseshit we’ll be forced to endure. That said, I’m still counting the hours.

/me looks around.

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Ctrl+F O N I O N

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Huh. Satire writers really are having a tough time right now.

The problem is that, with enough money, it really does look like one can have enough to never face consequences. That makes puling stunts like too good to pass up.

Exactly. “it’s not so black and white” when the motivations behind it all were indeed, printed in black and white and very much about black and white people at that.