Month: September 2025

How Do Ya Like That First Amendment?

Posted on by documentingdescent

Hope you enjoyed your Bill of Rights, because even more than in prior years, it’s the Bill of Rights* – with the asterisk denoting ‘some limitations apply’.

The natural outgrowth of this Charlie Kirk shit has been, rather predictably, for Trump and his minions to decide that cracking down on the Left and the Democratic party is the only way out of this horrible state of affairs. I mean, why wouldn’t they? They’ve been itching for some kind of leftist to punch a cop or look sideways at an ICE agent, to give them an excuse to declare martial law and start crushing people under their boots.

The alacrity with which the administration is moving right now certainly suggests that Stephen Miller already had this plan waiting in the wings, prepped for him to push the button and fire up his brownshirts. Of course, there’s no actual connection between left wing policies and murderous intent, but truth is not a quality that matters much to this admin. The fact that Tyler Robinson may have had a trans roommate or may have been dating them and may have been tired of Kirk’s hate-spreading is less important than The Message: The Left Is Here To Destroy America.

Concurrent to all this, the Department of Justice removed a study they themselves commissioned during Trump’s first term, because it indicates the vast majority of all political violence in the United States is perpetrated by the right wing. Even if you don’t want to spend your time reading through the NIJ report on how conservatives will gleefully murder their opponents, it’s easy to count the attacks and compare figures.

If your memory is bad, go back a few days ago, when Fox News talking head Brian Kilmeade suggested the solution to the homelessness epidemic in the United States would be to just kill anyone who’s homeless. Oh, sure, he walked it back and apologized, but don’t get it twisted: this ghoul meant it, and he’s sorry he got called out for being a psychopath. He’s just saying the quiet part out loud.

And people like him have the temerity to lecture others on being heartless about Kirk’s death? Get fucking real.

Speaking of which, Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk has gotten him removed from the air indefinitely – ABC (aka Disney) followed suit after Nexstar (owners of a lot of local, rural TV stations) pulled him. Both pulled him after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr basically said “No mocking Trump or I’ll go out of my way to fuck you over.” Good thing Trump vowed not to weaponize government. So what did Kimmel say that was so horrible?

We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.

That’s it? I say worse things when I stub my toe on the way to the toilet. Sinclair Media’s gone so far as to say they won’t reinstate Kimmel unless he both apologizes and donates an undisclosed sum to Kirk’s Turning Point USA group. Which will happen around half past never.

Make no mistake as to why ABC/Disney and Nexstar are doing this, however: they have no deep-seated love of Trump or his crew. But they do both love money. Nexstar as a proposed merger with TV giant Tegna, and ABC/Disney is trying to buy streaming service FUBO. Both of these require FCC approval. This is 100% pay to play bullshit from the FCC and Carr.

Carr’s gone even further after his success with Kimmel: he says the FCC is gonna pull the licenses for anyone who’s critical of the Trump administration. The linked article says Trump said this – and he did – but earlier today Carr concurred with what Trump suggested. That’s not how FCC licenses work, but when has legality or “how shit works” ever stopped these clowns?

You know you done gone too far into Fascism Central when both Karl Rove and Tucker Carlson are speaking out against what you’re doing. When you lose Bowtie Franco and Turdblossom, you fucked up.

The Feds are also actively grasping with their little hands at voter registration rolls across the United States, claiming they need to “examine voter registration to safeguard election integrity”. Yeah, that’s not within your power or purview, and states rightly should tell you to go fuck yourself.

Transparent efforts to see who to target for intimidation and/or malicious prosecution.

The FBI is also rolling full tilt into insanity, with Kash Patel at the helm. Mr. Internet Troll, Mr. 4chan Shitposter himself. He’s got two big winners here, and I can’t even really comment on them, they’re both so fucking horrifying and stupid.

#1: Backing up Trump’s play, Antifa is a terrorist organization! This doesn’t actually mean shit; only designating something a foreign terrorist organization has legal meaning and unlocks things. Domestic? Well, we generally don’t give a shit about that. He coulda done this at any time, so why now? Somebody pointed out that he’s like a shark when it comes to being in the news: he has to keep swimming or he’ll die. He’s thrown his base red meat, because if he’s not in the headlines, he’s losing. Besides, it’s not like an official declaration will meaningfully change how law enforcement will kick the shit out of you. They were always gonna.

#2: FBI to Categorize Trans People As “Nihilistic Violent Extremist” Threat Group, Report Says. This is coming from Ken Klipperstein and he’s rarely wrong, so I expect this to happen. How the fuck do you categorize a sexuality/identity as… a political movement? You know what, I’m not even gonna bother. It’s evil and it’s stupid and these people should never be given a moment’s peace for the rest of their goddamn lives.

Rumors, Venezuela, No Citizenship for You!

Posted on by documentingdescent

Lots of rumors flying around about Lance Twiggs, who is supposedly Tyler Robinson’s roommate. Several right leaning news outlets are using the word “partner” in their headlines, implying Robinson and Twiggs were romantically involved. There is no evidence for that at this point, not even in those articles. Even Twiggs’ identity is actually speculation at this point, but speculation amplified by Fox News tweets.

Naturally, conservative outlets are taking this as gospel, along with claiming that being in college ‘radicalized’ Robinson – never mind he was in college for one semester and dropped out, several years ago. They are also claiming that since he is reported to have “become more political lately” this means he veered left. Again, there is no evidence for this, for or against.

Some are claiming he’s a member of Nick Fuentes’ followers, the Groyper Army, and maybe his assassination was due to the long running beef between Fuentes and Kirk. Again, no evidence for or against this as of yet.

We just do not know his motivations at this time. What we can determine from his bullet engravings: dude was terminally online and deeply steeped in meme culture, but definitely steeped in Groyper meme culture. Maybe he was one, maybe he just used there memes (as many do), but dude is a terminally online mofo.

We will not speculate on his motives.

A new bill in Congress would give the Secretary of State the discreet and unopposed right to strip and deny passports from citizens at his sole discretion. Basically if Rubio (or whoever) decides you’ve been bad, they can take your passport away without due process. Sure, you can complain to get it back… but you’re complaining to the Secretary of State who took it away.

The key provision of the bill is that you can have your passport taken away merely by being charged with material support for terrorism, including writing and speech.

I don’t think I need to belabor the point that this is incredibly illegal and vile but I’m sure they’ll try and push it through regardless. I don’t think it’ll make it, but something to keep our eye on.

Remember I was talking about how we might be gearing up for military action in Venezuela? Well, we’re moving F-35s to Puerto Rico, which while not confirming the prep, certainly points in that general direction. I don’t think we generally keep F-35s stationed there for the most part. They only report 5 being repositioned there, however, which seems more like a surgical strike group than anything larger. Probably anti-cartel bombings, if Trump’s posturing is to be believed.

Eulogizing Charlie Kirk, and Rewriting History

Posted on by documentingdescent

Charlie Kirk’s body wasn’t even cold, when the right wing started calling for war. Calling for the annihilation of “the left”. Saying that those not in their camp had caused this, after years of “stoking the fires of hated” by calling people like Kirk and Rufo and Miller “nazi” online. And already, Kirk’s legacy is being rewritten to proclaim him as a titan of modern conservatism, whose peaceful politics got him killed when others could not win debates with him. That he was a kind and loving man who was fundamentally a family man, a giving man, and whose death is like unto the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Fucking. Bullshit.

I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass and say I’ll miss Kirk. He was a vile son of a bitch and the world is better off without his rhetoric. I’m sure as shit not gonna eulogize that slimy toad of a grifter. He preached the sword – or more accurately, violent oppression via the 2nd amendment – and he’s now another body stacked on the pile because of it. Let’s look at some of his political positions, shall we?

A cartoon of Charlie Kirk's talking points, featuring direct quotes from his twitter account.
  • Kirk advocated imprisonment and execution for doctors who treat Trans folks.
  • He believed gay and queer people should be put to death.
  • He believed anyone who wasn’t white couldn’t be competent at a complex job, and was a DEI hire.
  • He called black people “cockroaches”.
  • What’s more, he called them innately mentally inferior to whites.
  • He believed the death of schoolchildren to be a reasonable price to pay for the 2nd amendment.
  • He advocated bailing out the nutjob who attacked Paul Pelosi.
  • He believed empathy to be ‘made up’ and the cause of the nation’s woes.
  • He said MLK Jr was “awful” and “not a good person.”
  • He said the civil rights act of 1964 was a terrible mistake.

Charlie Kirk embodied everything vile, corrosive, and smugly cruel about modern politics in the United States. He was a grade A, USDA prime piece of shit.

Too many people are either complicit in normalizing his hate, have been gulled into thinking he wasn’t that bad, or are too cowardly to call out his rhetoric for what it was: racist, christian nationalist poison.

The United States will be better off without his brand of politics, and I will give him exactly as much grace and kindness as he gave the people he spoke out against.

So am I glad he got assassinated? Fuck no.

Because his assassination – any political assassination – has those unintended knock-on effects that Gust Avrakatos cautioned Charlie Wilson about. “We’ll see” when talking about how something may have good or ill effects. Or to put it another way: violence has inertia, and inertia doesn’t care who or what is in the way.

As I noted: his body wasn’t even cold before the right wing in this country started calling for war, for murder, for persecution of the “other” who didn’t believe in Kirk’s brand of venom. Never mind the killer hasn’t been caught. Never mind there’s no indication of his ideology. They need only the excuse to begin their purge, and Charlie Kirk may be the Horst Wessel of our era.

And so, without evidence one way or another, these ghouls can and will call for war – unironically – because they claim the ‘other’ has declared war on them.

A collection of screenshots from twitter, featuring prominent right wing pundits and politicians such as Elon Musk and Donald Trump calling for the death of democrats and leftists.

Supreme Court: Being Brown is Sus

Posted on by documentingdescent

The Supreme Court today lifted a restriction on ICE/CBP that prevented them from stopping and questioning people based on their job, the language they were speaking, or color of their skin. In essence, being brown or working blue collar jobs is now considered grounds to suspect somebody doesn’t have valid immigration status in the United States.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the order went too far in restricting ICE/CPB, and furnished us with this gem of wisdom:

To be clear, apparent ethnicity alone cannot furnish reasonable suspicion; under this Court’s case law regarding immigration stops, however, it can be a ‘relevant factor’ when considered along with other salient factors.

To paraphrase LawDork, aka Chris Geidner, “Brett, do you know what the 4th Amendment is?” Or more succinctly, since ICE/CPB was grabbing people SOLELY on these factors, why are you pissing on us and telling us it’s raining by suggesting there are other factors they give a shit about?

I guess I didn’t expect anything else from the Supreme Court right now, but I’m still disappointed and infuriated.

RFK Jr. and Chicago Getting the National Guard Treatment

Posted on by documentingdescent

There’s been a lot of stuff in the “No Shit” file lately, so I haven’t posted about it. A little recap on the no shit department files:

  • Ray Dalio, a billionaire, is warning Trump is turning the United States into an autocracy.
  • US job growth has ground to a halt, thanks to Trump, and no amount of firing of statisticians can hide it, because now the report is coming from staffing firms.
    • Of course, Trump says we won’t see the real numbers for another year.
  • They keep trying to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The judge in the case – Boasberg, I think, still? – said “Under no circumstances are you to remove Abrego Garcia from the country” and the lawyers said ‘yeah, we get it’ but now ICE is threatening to deport him to Eswatini.
    • Naturally, this is all just their revenge for making them look stupid. And, as usual, the right wing nuts are talking about his criminal record (there isn’t one) and gang connections (which he doesn’t have).
    • User AdventurerBKRB on Reddit: “Are we just picking countries out of a hat now?”
  • DEVGRU, aka “Seal Team Six” (don’t make me go down that rabbit hole) botched a North Korean mission during Trump’s 1st term and killed some civilians to cover it up.
    • Honestly, nobody should be surprised by this – during a mission of this sort, that’s what they do. I’m not mad about it, I’m just surprised any info about this has come out. The details are gruesome, but this isn’t even in the top 50 of “fucked up stuff the US has done internationally”.
  • For instance, attacking Venezuela to weaken Maduro and make Trump feel like the big-dick in the room. All potential at this point, but nothing has happened yet. This comes after missile striking a “drug boat” that wasn’t carrying drugs, but migrants, and was carrying them to Trinidad rather than the USA. Rubio changed the report because Trump wanted it to say USA and for it to be a drug boat.
    • You don’t load a drug boat with 11 non-crew members. You load it with drugs. You also don’t load a boat that cannot physically make it to the USA with drugs, if its destination is to the USA. Also you don’t aim it at Trinidad.

RFK Jr. did so badly during his hearings this week that his own family is calling on him to resign. Naturally, the folks in the hearing – the government folks, that is – would rather yell and make a spectacle than take concrete action on RFK and his lunatic, anti-scientific, disastrously stupid policies. The Republican members refused to even allow him to be sworn in as a witness, probably because they knew he wouldn’t be able to keep from lying the whole fucking time.

If RFK is allowed to remain in his position, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people will die as a direct result of his policies. Indirectly, I can’t even start to count. RFK should be confined to a small padded room for his beliefs, not allowed to determine if you or I can have vaccines.

Luckily for me, Washington, Oregon and California have formed the Western States Health Alliance so we don’t all die due to his fuckery. Some of the first steps in what people were calling “soft seccession” – something Ireland did, I guess, during British rule? Just basically doing shit their own way and ignoring federal mandates by saying “Okay” and then not complying.

Trump’s gearing up to pull a Los Angeles in Chicago – deploying National Guard troops from other states there to “bring crime under control.” Never mind, Chicago’s safer than it’s been in about 35 years. Never mind that there are MUCH more dangerous red-state cities. No, this is again – like Operation Excalibur – an ego thing and an optics thing and a public flex. Courts have already ruled the LA deployment violated posse comitatus, albeit like four or five days ago. This will not go the way he thinks it will. It will likely be a giant nothing, especially with the reticence of Guardsmen to have anything to do with it. Oh, they’ll go. They’ll just most likely end up picking up garbage like they did in DC.

Basically, I don’t think Pritzker is gonna stand for this shit. Some more hot headed folks online have been calling for Pritzker to activate the Illinois National Guard and station them on freeways and whatnot to physically keep the other NG troops out. While I think this would be an interesting turn of events, I don’t see it happening because Pritzker plays a longer game than that, and that’s more of an escalation than he probably wants to risk right now.

This action is causing even some MAGA pundits to pull back and say hold up there, hoss. Megyn Kelly, despite being a first order piece of shit and wishing Pritzker would “ask Trump for help with Chicago’s rampant crime” noted that this would be an illegal deployment.

Reddit user whichwitch9 kinda hit the nail on the head, IMO:

It’s the influencers starting to panic. The American public is getting fed up, and it’s no longer profitable to be fully Maga. They need to get the double speak going to start giving themselves plausible deniability. This is what Rogan is doing, as well. Stephen King is right when he says in a few years people will be denying they voted for Trump. Don’t let them forget we know who they are. People like Rogan and Kelly are responsible for elevating and sane washing Trump leading up to the election. He was already saying batshit stuff, but conservative news outlets were brushing it off as jokes or playing small video snippets. It’s very clear none of it was a joke now, and the signs he was mentally declining were real.