The ease with which echo chambers are created and weaponized is unreal.

Watching my late father-in-law, also a Navy Vet, say John McCain was a traitor, was just … unreal. And he was on Medicare.

Don’t give up on your EE dreams. I went to school when I was younger, dug a huge GPA hole, and almost never went back.

I had to go to school part time because I had to work and was the main stay-at-home parent. Took me 7 years. (Also had undiagnosed ADHD. If I had then, the medication I have now, it probably would have been a different story 🤣).

But the real journey is finding what we love. Adversity and struggle suck, but it teaches you to fight.

Good luck, internet stranger, I hope you find the journey you need.

I’ve said this before but I want to scream it from the rooftops.

Fuck the GoP.

I am a white 50 year old man.

I grew up poor as shit. Moving constantly, sometimes living in a car, even dumpster diving for food.

I have been a Republican my entire life.

I thought a Republican meant personal responsibility and the freedom to carve out the life you work for.

I don’t even know where my ideology lies anymore.

I spent a career in the Navy and am now a successful electrical engineer.

I only know a few things with firm certainty:

The GoP is a tool for the rich. It gives zero fucks for right or wrong, etiquette, integrity, or the Christian teachings it supposedly lauds and fights for.

America is already an oligarchy, it just hides it better. The amount of wealth available to so few people allow them the ability to control narrative and flood the truth with bullshit. Their only goal is to protect and grow their wealth.

The Democrat party is worthless. Led so long by Pelosi who did champion some important issues, but was also enriching herself and allowing the Democrat Party to also become a tool for the wealthy.

My success is due, in part, to various assistance programs that were made available to me by the government. (I also have no doubt that my gender and race also made the path easier.)

I believe I have a responsibility to help those in need. But I am a terrible supporter of local programs. What I mean is I do not like volunteering. I want to, but it makes me uncomfortable and it reminds me of the shame I felt as a child. But I have no problem paying taxes. I see my success as the success of those that supported me. I am not so naive or arrogant to think I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps. Those same programs will help the next generation and so on.

We are not all equal. Some people ARE better than others, in many ways. That does not mean we are not all of equal worth or do not deserve good lives. Everyone deserves the same opportunity, even if it means part of my success is needed to fund it.

I don’t know how to fix this country, but I do know who is NOT fixing it.

History does not repeat itself. The real issue is that people don’t change. The people today act the same as the people 1000 years ago. Only the rules have changed.

I lost hope for this nation when Trump was elected this last time. I couldn’t understand how people could not see the obvious. But I also understand the disenfranchisement and lack of leadership the Democratic Party has caused.

If free healthcare, free child care, free education, UBI, affordable housing, and good old monopoly busting means I have to live in a home barely big enough for my family and lose half my paycheck… that is a price I would pay without thinking twice.

The election of New York’s newest mayor, despite the forces working against him gives me hope.

I’m 50. This is not my country anymore. My generation made its bed, we need to let the next make theirs.

I will continue to be a registered Republican and vote straight Democrat until there is a clearer path for me to take.

Oh, and fuck AIPAC and the ADL. They support genocide and have become what they supposedly stand against.

I have hope again and I have NY to thank for that.

A few more pearls that I always thought was obvious:

AI is a bubble.

STOP USING CRYPTO, IT’S A FUCKING SCAM FOR GRIFTERS AND WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A CURRENCY, NOT A FUCKING INVESTMENT. THANKS FOR RUINING IT, ASSHOLES.

I prefer, “…but his first love be the C.”

He’s not saying America isn’t bad though.

Thank you for proving his point though.

I was a conservative when Colbert Report was on and I thought it was obvious that it was a bit.

Cue Leslie Odom Jr singing, “Wait for it.”

Sure. That was the reason for the big initial split into a two party system.

Jefferson/Madison wanted weak federal government and Adams/Hamilton wanted a strong central government.

And never the two shall meet. (Both sides claimed it would be the end of the world if the other side ever gained power.)

Just want to make the point that the founding fathers were still alive as the industrial revolution started.

But yeah, their minds would be blown.

I would always imagine them oohing and ahhing over all the “magic”, but then shaking their heads at the same political shenanigans, SSDD.

John Adams had a reputation for honesty and his strong moral code, but then he still signed into law the alien and sedition acts.

And he WAS a founding father.

That was an interesting time though. I mean, they had almost no precedent for almost anything. So a president would do something, and if it worked or the other branches didn’t shut him down, it kind of became the standard. And they were really flying blind in some situations.

(And the Supreme Court letting the president do what he wants even though it was clearly bullshit… That was also not uncommon, at least before the civil war.)

One thing is for certain though… the states have always been full of hypocritical, ignorant jackasses, that vote along party lines without understanding the issue.

He’s objectively wrong anyway.

He clearly doesn’t know shit about our political history. We’ve done super shady shit since the beginning.

In fact the shit that’s happening now isn’t even new. It is so eerily similar to the shenanigans leading up to the civil war.

Ben Franklin was shagging French women for years. He also politically assassinated John Adams’s French diplomat assignment. Got him kicked out of Paris so he could keep shagging French women alongside Jefferson.

Wow, Game Theory called it?

George Washington fucking called it the minute we started electing people.

The fucking civil war happened over something incredibly similar to this.

This is pretty low hanging fruit to give anyone credit for “calling it”.

You proved his point, arguing against his point.

That’s some real lack of self awareness.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy there buddy!

Don’t forget that piece of shit Lt Gov., Dan Patrick.

Solid correction, thank you.

Shout-out to a fellow Houstonian!

Not just Mexican food…

You go to the back of any local restaurant, regardless of cuisine, and chances are, there is a Mexican cooking the food.

President Trump took extraordinary action on Saturday by calling up 2,000 National Guard troops to quell immigration protests in California, making rare use of federal powers and bypassing the authority of the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

It is the first time since 1965 that a president has activated a state’s National Guard force without a request from that state’s governor, according to Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an independent law and policy organization. The last time was when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators in 1965, she said.

Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, immediately rebuked the president’s action. “That move is purposefully inflammatory and will only escalate tensions,” Mr. Newsom said, adding that “this is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.”

Governors almost always control the deployment of National Guard troops in their states. But the directive signed by Mr. Trump cites “10 U.S.C. 12406,” referring to a specific provision within Title 10 of the U.S. Code on Armed Services. Part of that provision allows the federal deployment of National Guard forces if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

It also states that the president may call into federal service “members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws.”

Mr. Trump’s directive said, “To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement on Saturday night that Mr. Trump was deploying the National Guard in response to “violent mobs” that she said had attacked federal law enforcement and immigration agents. The 2,000 troops would “address the lawlessness that has been allowed to fester,” she said.

Although some demonstrations have been unruly, local authorities in Los Angeles County did not indicate during the day that they needed federal assistance.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a post on X late on Saturday that the Pentagon was “mobilizing the National Guard IMMEDIATELY.” But he did not say when or where the troops would assemble, or identify their units.

Mr. Trump’s directive authorized the secretary of defense to “employ any other members of the regular Armed Forces as necessary to augment and support the protection of Federal functions and property in any number determined appropriate in his discretion.” In Mr. Hegseth’s post on X, he said that active duty Marines were “on high alert” at Camp Pendleton, about 100 miles south of Los Angeles, and could also be mobilized.

Protests have occurred on Friday and Saturday in California to oppose federal immigration raids on workplaces. The latest is unfolding at a Home Depot in Paramount, Calif., about 20 miles south of downtown Los Angeles.

California Democrats have braced for months for the possibility that President Trump would seek to deploy U.S. troops on American soil in this way, particularly in Democratic-run jurisdictions. Privately, they have acknowledged that such a move, absent the state’s agreement, would have profound implications.

Mr. Trump suggested deploying U.S. forces in the same manner during his first term to suppress outbreaks of violence during the nationwide protests over the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. He opted against doing so at the time, but he has repeatedly raised the idea of using troops to secure border states.

In 2020, in the final days of Mr. Trump’s first presidential term, military helicopters were used to rout peaceful protesters demonstrating against police violence near the White House.

“For the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley. “It is using the military domestically to stop dissent.”

The National Guard was last federalized in 1992, Ms. Goitein said, when President George H.W. Bush sent troops to Los Angeles to control riots after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. That deployment was requested by the California’s governor at the time, Pete Wilson.

Mr. Trump and his aides have often lamented that not enough was done by Minnesota’s governor to quell protests that followed the death of Mr. Floyd in 2020.

During a campaign rally in 2023, Trump made clear he was not going to hold back in a second term. “You’re supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in — the next time, I’m not waiting,” Mr. Trump said.

Not really. Plenty of constituents are happy to get the revenue provided by these renewable projects.

With the tax incentives and batements with a PILOT, these communities stand to gain critically needed monies to support their communities’ infrastructure.

Austin doesn’t give a shit about rural Texans. They are literally suppressing them with this nonsense.

What doesn’t help is when they are fed crazy uncle BS rhetoric.

It is not too costly. That is fucking bullshit. It just won’t earn as much money for their shareholders.

Not just Americans. Wedge issues have been a political tool for a while now.

The Velveeta treason weasel is probably too dumb to realize it’s not even his idea.

That’s my new pass phrase.