President Sheinbaum trolled Trump good displaying the first ever full map of North America in 1600s naming the entire continent America Mexicana.
Republican Jesus: I was hungry, and you called me a moocher I was thirsty, and you smashed my water bottle I was naked, and you called me a pervert I was sick, and you cut off my insurance I was in prison, and you called for longer minimum sentences I was a foreigner, and you demanded to see my papers
A lawyer who represents Federal Employees.. the last bit is chilling.
Forget the belt! “Daddy” really needs to take the lifts off.
Today’s speeches were delivered from behind bulletproof glass. Meanwhile, Trump just gave violent anti-abortion zealots free rein to blockade clinics and probably much worse.
The proposed school is being defended by the governor and state attorney general.
In 2022, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt declared, “Father, we just claim Oklahoma for you. Every square inch, we claim it for you in the name of Jesus. Father, we can do nothing apart from you. We don’t battle against flesh and blood but against principalities and darkness.”
During his 2018 inauguration, Stitt pledged that his primary mission would be to “bring people to Jesus.”
Stitt last appeared here in November 2024 when he warned that “Satan is trying to take over my state” because a pagan woman gave the invocation at Tulsa’s city council meeting.
In June 2024, Still signed a bill allowing public school students to leave campus three times a week for “religious instruction.”
I was out buying eggs when I saw a video of Elon Musk giving a Hitler salute at the inauguration.
In the movies, this stuff is highlighted and separated: punctuation in itself instead of an event that you see in the background of your everyday life. Hannah Arendt talked about “the banality of evil” in the context of Eichmann, one of the core organizers of the Holocaust, telling prosecutors that he was just doing his job. But banality pervades. Sometimes, you need to buy eggs. And sometimes, when you get back in the car and pick up your phone, you get a notification about the richest man in the world signaling his intentions on the world stage.
There has subsequently been much discussion about whether it really was a Nazi salute. It’s insultingly stupid. Even if he truly didn’t intend to throw three successive Sieg Heils, he certainly knows what one is, and most of us have enough self awareness not to accidentally look like a Nazi on national television. He had to know what he was doing. It was a deliberate Nazi salute. The act itself, and the subsequent denials, serve to normalize fascism; just another banal event for you to scroll past on your phone.
Still, these conversations serve a purpose. It’s worth noticing who wants to downplay the Nazism, which, after all, is not “just” manifested in the world’s richest man doing a Hitler salute on national TV. Make no mistake, Musk’s salute was a clear signal, but it’s far from the only one. It’s part of a broader pattern of normalization, visible in policies and actions designed to dismantle rights and embolden oppression.
“Optimistic and celebrating,” Mark Zuckerberg said, on the same night that Musk Sieg Heiled the room three times. “I’m not going to agree with him on everything, but I think he will be incredible for the country in many ways,” Sam Altman said. Microsoft put out a statement saying that “the country has a unique opportunity to pursue […] the foundational ideas set for AI policy during President Trump’s first term”.
And those are public figures in technology. My Facebook feed, and likely yours, is loaded with acquaintances and extended family members who welcome the change; one on mine welcomed “the return to logic and reason”. My LinkedIn feed is worse, with many business leaders echoing Zuckerberg’s “optimistic” language, and some calling the Nazi salute into question.
We’ve tumbled into a deep, dark hole, and, as it turns out, many of us are glad to be there.
It’s just not always clear who.
Though dated in some ways, this 1941 Harper’s Magazine article still resonates. The question then was, “Who goes Nazi?” Who is going to be a sympathizer or even a collaborator with a regime that seeks to subjugate, deport, and, as it turned out in the 1940s, kill so many people?
And to be clear, collaboration doesn’t require slapping on an armband and goose-stepping behind a demagogue. Nice people made the best Nazis, as Naomi Shulman wrote eight years ago:
My mother was born in Munich in 1934, and spent her childhood in Nazi Germany surrounded by nice people who refused to make waves. When things got ugly, the people my mother lived alongside chose not to focus on “politics,” instead busying themselves with happier things. They were lovely, kind people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away.
The question now is not a million miles away. Who will support? Who will collaborate? Who will decide that they are “not political” and look away as millions of people are harmed? Who will make excuses for it all? Who secretly welcomes the push for theocracy, for in-groups and out-groups, for “traditional” values that prioritize rigid gender roles, segregation, and oligarchy? Who, in other words, is safe?
Are you “optimistic” about the new regime? Will you be complicit?
When someone needs help — when ICE comes after them, or worse — will you look away, or worse, cheer them on? Or will you be a point of safety for someone who needs it?
And what about when it gets worse? Because, left unchecked, it will.
In the face of rising fascism, what kind of person are you? What kind of person do you want to be?
I’m writing about the intersection of the internet, media, and society. Sign up to my newsletter to receive every post and a weekly digest of the most important stories from around the web.
January 26, 1784 Benjamin Franklin, noting the bald eagle was “a bird of bad moral character” who lived “by sharping and robbing,” expressed regret it had been selected to be the U.S. national symbol. Benjamin Franklin Franklin proposed the wild turkey, “a much more respectable Bird and a true original Native of America.” He said the eastern wild turkey, known for its intelligence, cunning and boldness, was a far better symbol of the United States. In a 1775 letter published in a magazine, Franklin made a good case for the rattlesnake as an appropriate symbol of “the temper and conduct of America.“ How the bald eagle became our national bird (Interestingly, the link on the P&J History page leads to “Forbidden.” I thought I oughta make a note of it. The link here is on History.com, not forbidden when I posted.) Frankin’s letter on the rattlesnake
January 26, 1930 Mohandas Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of the anti-colonial movement in India pledged to achieve complete independence, or Purna Swaraj, from Great Britain. Nehru said: “The British Government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally and spiritually . . . We hold it to be a crime against men and God to submit any longer to a rule that has caused this fourfold disaster to our country.”
January 26, 1950 The Indian Constitution became law and India proclaimed itself a republic. The new president replaced the King of England as head of state after nearly 100 years of British colonial rule. The Republic of India considered its sovereignty derived from the people, becoming the most populous democracy in the world. The day is now celebrated as Republic Day. The new President, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, after taking the oath of office: “Today, for the first time in our long and chequered history, we find the whole of this vast land . . . brought together under the jurisdiction of one constitution and one union which takes over responsibility for the welfare of more than 320 million men and women who inhabit it.” More About Republic Day
January 26, 1956 The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested for the first time, for driving 30 mph (48 kph) in a 25 mph (40 kph) zone in Montgomery, Alabama. This occurred shortly after the beginning of the citywide bus boycott he had helped organize. His home was bombed a few days later.
January 26, 1962 Bishop Joseph A. Burke of the Buffalo, New York, Catholic Diocese banned a new song and dance, “The Twist,” by Chubby Checker. It couldn’t be danced, sung, or listened to in any Catholic school, parish, or youth event. Later in the year, the Twist was banned from community center dances in Tampa, Florida, as well. It was claimed the Twist was actually a pagan fertility dance. “The Twist” by its originator
January 26, 1969 Police wielding truncheons and firing tear gas from pressure canisters broke up a march by hundreds of demonstrators in central Prague. Jan Palach The violence erupted as officers tried to disperse the crowd gathered at the foot of the Wenceslas Statue to pay tribute to Jan Palach, the student who burned himself to death in protest at the Soviet invasion the previous summer, and their ongoing occupation of Czechoslovakia. More about Jan Palach
January 26, 1991 Germans protested their country’s membership in the coalition prosecuting the first Gulf War against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after he invaded Kuwait. Rallying out in many cities, the largest turnout brought 200,000 to Bonn. The number of those claiming conscientious objector status jumped 35% in that month to 30,000.
I use NordVPN and have for years. They are hyper secure, lots of sites worldwide, and they do not log or record user data. The VPN also has its own security built in for detecting and blocking Malware and other threats. It works. Plus it has the kill switch mentioned in the article. When I first got it VPNs were new and expensive. The price has dropped way down. I wouldn’t dream of going online with it. Hugs
But will users of the surfing services face more exposure than they expect?
Demand for virtual private network (VPN) services surged in Florida after Pornhub shut down access in the state. But cybersecurity experts say Floridians using VPNs may find more exposure than they desire.
A report by vpnMentor found the interest in VPNs skyrocketed as the internet’s leading pornography publisher publicly punished states over age verification policies. No state witnessed greater enlargement than Florida, where VPN interest jumped by 1,150% immediately after Pornhub started limiting access on Jan. 1.
“This surge in VPN usage suggests users are circumventing the IP-block and accessing Pornhub (and other restricted websites) through IPs where the block is not implemented,” a report reads.
Pornhub beginning Jan. 1 prohibited users in Florida from accessing pornographic content on the site. A video now greets Florida porn consumers trying to access the site and urges them to contact state lawmakers to object to age verification requirements. The state imposed a requirement for third-party age verification on publishers of content “harmful to minors,” with rules in effect as of the beginning of 2025.
But VPNs allow users to work around geo-blocking measures, including those used by Pornhub, to restrict traffic from certain states. Sports fans have for years used such services to evade regional broadcast rights restrictions.
The vpnMentor report also mentions other contributors to a surge in demand for restriction-dodging technologies. Use of VPNs soared nationwide when a U.S. TikTok ban briefly went into effect this month.
But the researchers found interest in the location-masking software went up disproportionately in 17 states where Pornhub now limits access. They based findings on state-by-state search volume, web traffic and clicks to downloads for VPN services.
Florida’s 11-fold spike led all other states. In South Carolina and Tennessee, where Pornhub limited access the same day as in the Sunshine State, VPN demand jumped 171% and 40%, respectively.
Other states with content throttled also saw mass interest in VPNs. In Oklahoma, where Pornhub announced a ban in October, demand spiked by 1,060%. In Utah, where Pornhub blocked access in mid-2023, VPN demand rose by 967%.
In Louisiana, where Pornhub allows access but other publishers restricted visits after age verification states went into effect in 2022, VPN demand leapt by 200%
Of note, Pornhub saw a significant decline in U.S. traffic last year regardless of VPN usage. Researchers found 15 million fewer visits to the website from U.S. users (or at least those with U.S. IP addresses). But that likely matters little to the publisher as traffic to the site exceeded 1.8 billion visits before the end of 2024. The website continues to have around 500 million more visitors than its closest competitor, XVideos.
While Florida users may turn to VPN services to bypass Pornhub’s gateway restrictions, that brings certain unsafe surfing risks.
Many VPN services lack the same security of major internet providers. In 2023, vpnMentor reported that a cybersecurity security researcher had found 360 million records leaked online after a breach of SuperVPN users’ data. The records included passwords, email addresses, personal financial information and personal content from individuals’ personal devices.
The report recommends users only employ VPNs with strong encryption services, an enforced policy not to log personal data from users, a “kill switch” feature that automatically disconnects users from the internet if a VPN connection drops, and a built-in DNS leak protection.
GLAAD: “President Trump claims to be a strong proponent of freedom of speech, yet he is clearly committed to censorship of any information containing or related to LGBTQ Americans and issues that we face. This action proves the Trump administration’s goal of making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ Americans to find federal resources or otherwise see ourselves reflected under his presidency. Sadly for him, our community is more visible than ever; and this pathetic attempt to diminish and remove us will again prove unsuccessful.”
(January 21, 2025 — New York, NY) — Today GLAAD, the world’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) media advocacy organization, is breaking news that the Trump administration has eliminated nearly all LGBTQ and HIV focused content and resources from the White House website, as well as eliminated LGBTQ and HIV content from key federal agency webpages.
Mentions of “lesbian,” “bisexual,” “gay,” “transgender,” “sexual orientation,” “gender identity,” and related terms are no longer accessible on WhiteHouse.gov, and the search term “LGBTQ” now brings up zero results on the site. In addition, some LGBTQ-specific pages have been taken down from the Centers for Disease Control, Department of State, and more. GLAAD will continue to monitor federal agency websites in the coming days and weeks to track any LGBTQ-related webpage takedowns.
GLAAD’s President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis (she/her) released the following statement: “President Trump claims to be a strong proponent of freedom of speech, yet he is clearly committed to censorship of any information containing or related to LGBTQ Americans and issues that we face. This action proves the Trump administration’s goal of making it as difficult as possible for LGBTQ Americans to find federal resources or otherwise see ourselves reflected under his presidency. Sadly for him, our community is more visible than ever; and this pathetic attempt to diminish and remove us will again prove unsuccessful.”
GLAAD created an archive of mentions of LGBTQ terms and terms related to HIV on the White House website and other major federal government websites in anticipation of Trump’s second term. GLAAD broke the news about tracking these webpages’ in a story written by the Washington Bladehere. GLAAD previously monitored and broke the same story during President Trump’s first term.
In his inaugural address yesterday, Trump stated: “This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based. As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.… And I will sign an order to stop our warriors from being subjected to radical political theories and social experiments while on duty. It’s going to end immediately. Our armed forces will be freed to focus on their sole mission—defeating America’s enemies.”
About GLAAD: GLAAD rewrites the script for LGBTQ acceptance. As a dynamic media force, GLAAD tackles tough issues to shape the narrative and provoke dialogue that leads to cultural change. GLAAD protects all that has been accomplished and creates a world where everyone can live the life they love. For more information, please visit www.glaad.org or connect @GLAAD on social media.
Ice given unprecedented authority to expedite deportations as US cities face raids and troops arrive at US-Mexico border
A person sits inside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor building in Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday. Photograph: Erin Hooley/AP
Trump gives Ice power to deport immigrants who came legally under Biden
Ice given unprecedented authority to expedite deportations as US cities face raids and troops arrive at US-Mexico border
The Trump administration is issuing a new round of heavy-handed measures that could rapidly deport immigrants who entered the United States through recently established legal pathways, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security memo obtained the New York Times.
The directive, signed by the acting homeland security secretary, Benjamine Huffman, grants Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials unprecedented authority to expedite deportations for immigrants who entered the country with government authorization through two key Biden-era programs.
These programs, which have allowed more than a million immigrants to enter the country since 2023, had provided scheduling for migrants or asylum seekers through the government-run app CBP One or temporary legal status for up to two years through a parole program for certain countries.
US asylum seekers in despair after Trump cancels CBP One app: ‘Start from zero again’
Read more
The newly reported memo instructs Ice officials to identify and potentially rapidly deport immigrants who have been in the country for over a year and have not yet applied for asylum, in effect sidestepping traditional immigration court proceedings.
In no waste of time, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, posted on X on Friday: “Deportation flights have begun,” accompanied by official pictures of people boarding a military-style aircraft.
Despite such flights being routine under successive administrations, the White House is promoting such images strongly and also deployed troops to the border late on Thursday, including US marines arriving in Boeing Osprey aircraft in California.
The developments come as so-called sanctuary cities like Chicago, Newark and Denver are experiencing direct impacts of the administration’s hardline immigration stance. In Newark, Mayor Ras Baraka condemned a small-scale local Ice raid on Thursday that he claimed resulted in the detention of both undocumented residents and citizens – including a US military veteran.
And Denver’s mayor, Mike Johnston, told CNN the city would cooperate with Ice to deport “violent criminals”, but pushed back against arrests in schools and churches.
A DHS spokesperson defended the new policies, writing in a statement that “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” and that the administration “trusts law enforcement to use common sense”.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already challenged the policy in federal court, with the senior staff attorney Anand Balakrishnan characterizing the approach as a “mass deportation agenda” that circumvents constitutional due process.
Stephen Miller, a key architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policies, has been vocal in his opposition to the immigration programs of the last administration, previously criticizing the admission of immigrants from what he termed “failed states”.
Thousands who had received or were waiting for CBP One appointments south of the border were left devastated this week after the app was abruptly shut down moments after Trump was sworn in, while those already in the country using the app and who were preparing to apply for asylum may now be in the line of fire.
Later on Friday, the Trump administration followed up, announcing that it was expanding a fast-track deportation authority nationwide, allowing immigration officers to deport people without appearing before a judge.
The administration said it was expanding the use of “expedited removal” authority so it can be used across the country, in a notice in the Federal Register outlining the new rules.
“Expedited removal” gives enforcement agencies broad authority to deport people without requiring them to appear before an immigration judge. There are limited exceptions, including if they express fear of returning home and pass an initial screening interview for asylum.
Critics have said there is too much risk that people who have the right to be in the country will be mistakenly swept up by agents and officers and that not enough is done to protect immigrants who have genuine reason to fear being sent home.
The powers were created under a 1996 law. But these powers were not widely used until 2004, when homeland security said it would use expedited removal authority for people arrested within two weeks of entering the US by land and caught within 100 miles of the border. That meant it was used mostly against immigrants recently arrived in the country.
In the notice on Friday the administration said the authority could be used across the country and would go into effect immediately.
The notice said the person put into expedited removal “bears the affirmative burden to show to the satisfaction of an immigration officer” that they have the right to be in the US.
I want to thank Ten Bears who also had this in his post. I am not sure if I can find it again but I will put a link below to his main channel if I can find the specific post. I also had it in my list to post but as he got it done first I wanted to give him credit along with Joe My God.
When people tell / prove to you who they are believe them the first time. Republicans are totally in to gaslighting, changing reality from what is real and happened to what will help keep them in power, and they feel keeping the power of their seats in congress / their job is worth more than the people of this country or protecting the country. They are out for themselves and what they can milk from the job for their family wealth. For the republicans and some democrats it has long stopped being about leading the country to a better place, to securing the needs of the people, providing for the good of the people as the constitution requires of them. They see being elected as a golden ticket to wealth and power. So if being a Nazi is the way to that they will do it, if agreeing with the demented mentally deficient convicted felon in all his absurd whims is how they need to keep that golden ticket they will do it no matter who it hurts or the consequences. Hugs.
The Tennessee Federation of Republican Women is coming under fire for providing parents a reading list for children that cites Adolf Hitler as an example of leadership. “Hitler and all intelligent leaders throughout history have understood that the way to change a country was through the training of its youth, to get them while they are young,” the group’s reading list says.
The list is titled “Growing American Patriots Through Literacy” and posted on the group’s website. “How do we make the changes necessary?” the reading list says, just before the Hitler quote. “Proverbs 22:6 teaches us that if ‘we train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.’” The books suggested include “Camilla Can Vote” by Sen. Marsha Blackburn and “A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing Americans” by Lynne Cheney.
Read the full article. The group’s president, Sharon Boreing [photo above], is not returning calls from reporters.
The Tennessee Federation of Republican Women is coming under fire for providing parents a reading list for children that cites Adolf Hitler as an example of leadership. https://t.co/QsRL8NCZ0k
Forget the belt! “Daddy” really needs to take the lifts off.
Scottie's Playtime 