Sound Familiar?
“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
“He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
“He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.
“He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
“He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
“For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
“For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
“For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
“For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
“He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging Waragainst us.
“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
“He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
“He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
Kiss My Rump, Donald Trump (2025 Updated Ed.)
Goody, Goody!
Donald Trump’s commerce secretary told Americans to buy stock in Elon Musk’s electric car company, only for shares in Tesla to keep falling.
“I think, if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Howard Lutnick told Fox News on Wednesday. “It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is this cheap. It’ll never be this cheap again.”
He added: “I mean, who wouldn’t invest in Elon Musk? You gotta be kidding me.”
Regarding Tesla at least, the answer appears to be: lots of people. In the last month, shares have lost a third of their value. After Lutnick spoke, Tesla was down again in pre-market trading on Thursday.
Musk donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump’s re-election campaign and is now slashing government staffing and budgets under the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) – work proving increasingly unpopular and damaging to his businesses. Amid protests that have included vandalism of Teslas and dealerships, Musk has claimed to have done nothing wrong.
On Tuesday, he told Fox: “It turns out when you take away the money people get fraudulently, they get very upset. They basically want to kill me because I’m stopping their fraud, and they want to hurt Tesla because we are stopping this terrible waste and corruption in the government. I guess they are bad people. Bad people do bad things.”
Republicans have attacked Democrats for speaking out against Tesla. Observers have pointed out how the same Republicans have attacked companies for promoting values they do not share, celebrating financial reverses.
Tesla’s problems continue to grow. Last week, JP Morgan said: “We struggle to think of anything analogous in the history of the automotive industry, in which a brand has lost so much value so quickly.”
This week, Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush and a major Tesla backer, said brand damage caused by Musk’s work for Trump “has spread globally over the last few weeks into what we would characterize as a brand tornado crisis moment”.
Lutnick spoke to Jesse Watters, a Fox primetime host and Trump cheerleader.
“It’s just so outrageous,” the former Cantor Fitzgerald CEO said. “You have probably the best entrepreneur, the best technologist, the best leader of any set of companies in America working for America, and you have this sort of weird side of the Democratic party attacking him.”
Lutnick repeated the claim that Musk “rescued” astronauts from the International Space Station via his SpaceX company on Wednesday – yet in fact, Nasa chose to wait for SpaceX to be ready for the mission.
Lutnick urged viewers to “buy Tesla” and expressed disbelief about the shares’ performance.
He continued: “When people understand the things he’s building, the robots he’s building, the technology he’s building, people are going to be dreaming of today and Jesse Watters, thinking, ‘Gosh, I should have bought Elon Musk’s stock’ … Whether today’s the bottom or not, I tell you what, Elon Musk is probably the best person to bet on I’ve ever met. And I think we all know that.”
Lutnick and Watters then engaged in cheerful promotion of $30,000 robots for domestic chores that the commerce secretary said Musk would soon bring to market.
Concern is growing about conflicts of interest involving Musk and whether he is profiting from his government work. This week, as Musk’s Starlink internet service was installed at the White House, senior Democrats called for investigations.
Lutnick told Fox: “Elon Musk is the best entrepreneur and technologist in America, and I bet on him. I wish I was allowed [to buy Tesla stock]. I’m not allowed to buy any stock.”
The Big, Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs: An Allegory for Our Time
No doubt as to who the Big Bad Wolf is.
Notice, please, that the Big Bad Wolf has only two ways of getting what he wants. The first is that he huffs and he puffs and he blows things down.
Huffing and puffing works fine on the First Little Pig, who built his house from straw—and even on the Second Little Pig, who chose wood as his building material. But huffing and puffing has no effect on the Third Little Pig, who used bricks to build his house.
The Big Bad Wolf’s second and last technique is telling lies. We don’t know whether the lies would have worked on the first two pigs, because they succumbed to the huffing and puffing—and got eaten—even before the Wolf had to resort to mendacity.
As to the Third Little Pig, not only does he build a brick house—and thus survive all the huffing and puffing—but he also responds to the Wolf’s bullshit with effective counterstrategy. And, so, at the end of the day, it’s the Big Bad Wolf who gets eaten, not the Third Little Pig.
One might say that the Third Little Pig knows his Sunzi:
Know yourself.
Know the enemy.
Hundred battles.
No peril.
As I said, we know who the Big Bad Wolf stands for.
The First Little Pig stands for the Republican members of the House and Senate. They are afraid of their constituents. Many of them are unintelligent and gullible. The others, the ones who understand what’s going on, do not have the character and moral courage to do their jobs. As the poet said, the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.
And so, the house made of straw stands for our first branch of government, the United States Congress.
The Second Little Pig and his house of wood stand for those parts of our institutions that are made of somewhat sterner stuff than the house of straw, but that still succumb to the huffing and puffing. Think of Jeff Bezos as the Second Little Pig and the Washington Post as the wooden house.
The Third Little Pig and his brick house stand for those of us who’re going to survive this shitstorm. We go into battle armed with skill, flexibility, and moral conviction. In the end, it will be the Big, Bad Wolf who winds up in the pot. Not us.
France Wants Its Statue Back, and I Understand Why
“They Have Seen the Sick and the Hungry in Their Own Land, and Passed by on the Other Side of the Street. They Have Done it in Your Name. Have Mercy on Their Souls. Amen. Oh, P.S., Help Us Pass the Damn Test.”
AL.com, Archibald: Alabama wants to pray or pay
The Alabama Legislature is worried about your soul.
So it is considering a bill that would hold education for ransom, slashing funding for school districts that don’t start their classroom days with a prayer.
Good bread, good meat, time’s wastin’ let’s eat.
HB231, sponsored by Pike Road GOP Rep. Reed Ingram and a host of disciples, is clear. Your students, no matter their faith, creed or lack thereof, must hear a prayer “consistent with Judeo-Christian values.”
Or risk losing 25% or their state funding. More than $63 million in Jeffco, for instance. Almost $100 million in Mobile. That’s $37 million in Madison County, and $34 million in Huntsville.
Can I get an amen?
So let’s just take a quiz. What prayers might meet that standard?
It is, of course, not as simple as all that. The bill, a constitutional amendment that would require a vote of the people, would withhold the money from school districts that show a pattern of refusing to comply. But the point is very real.
Freedom of religion in Alabama means “our way,” or to hell with you. Literally.
If this bill, this public piety for political purpose is passed, teachers should print that final prayer out and read it every single day in class.
Bow your heads and say it with me.
Oh Lord, help those men and women in the Alabama Legislature. They have taken food from the mouths of children, medicine from the sick and hope from the hopeless. They cast your people into prisons without mercy, rail against the poor and the immigrant. They have seen the sick and the hungry in their own land, and passed by on the other side of the street. They have done it in your name. Have mercy on their souls.
Amen.
Oh. P.S. Help us pass that damn test.
___________
Thanks to old friend and fellow Tuscaloosa High grad WA for sending along the article.
A Message from the People of Canada
The Coming Implosion – and the Attack Vector
He Didn’t Have the Cards
Facing MAGA 