Good Commentary Here

This was linked in a substack I was reading, I found it worthy of sharing, and also of the author getting the clicks on their own page.

(Also Not April Fools. I’m gettin’ to it! Probably.)

It’s Time for a Republican Sickout

If you can’t find the strength to take a stand, at least lie down.

Ali Davis March 31, 2025

Hello, Congressional Republicans who still care about the republic! I know you’re out there because I kept hearing how differently Trump’s cabinet confirmations would have gone if only the votes have been secret.

We have reached a crisis point. We have reached so many crisis points. We reached like three new crisis points between me starting and finishing this article.

We have flipped our foreign policy so radically that we are now the villain of the world. All decision on that end seems to have been handed over to Putin and a bunch of preening technofascists. Our economy is crashing toward a depression and the only trick the Trump Administration pony has is more insane tariffs. High-level cabinet members endangered the lives of our servicemembers by discussing classified information on the already-hacked Signal app, and that doesn’t even cover gloating over civilian deaths, adding a journalist to the group text, and further damaging our relationship with Europe. The Trump administration is trying to start wars with freaking Denmark and Canada. DENMARK AND CANADA, for chrissakes.

And the most insane thing is that this is an abridged list. There are paragraphs and paragraphs of human rights horrors that I have skipped.

This is it. You are a part of an authoritarian government, a twisted and vile parody of what we once had. Elon Musk is stripping it for parts and awarding himself lucrative contracts while Donald Trump threatens Republican judges and lobs all of our state secrets straight to Putin.

The window for stopping this is small and vanishing. The most patriotic thing you could do is stand up and impeach Donald Trump, but, whether it’s due to a fear of Trump or fear of his zealots, you’re not doing that. The second most patriotic thing you could do is resign and leave your seat open to a flip by the Democrats. But you don’t seem to be doing that either. So here it is: The third most patriotic thing you can do, your last option for saving your beloved country from falling completely into authoritarianism: Get sick.

Get terribly sick and refuse to discuss your personal health information during this challenging time. Or get just a little bit sick and keep insisting that you’ll be as right as rain in a week or two. Have a family emergency. Or just take some dearly needed personal time.

Just drop out for a while. Hole up at home or get out of the country if you need to and let some trusted Democrats know that they’ll have the majority for a while and the time and leeway to move. (BE SURE YOU KNOW WHO IS ON THE SIGNAL CHAT.)

But what if someone is blackmailing me?

No offense, but this is bigger than you. Putin wants to break the United States. And he wants to break the United States so that he can roll over Western Europe. Do you really want to go to your grave knowing that you held onto your secret at the expense of Permanent Global Fascism? For that matter, do you really think complying now will stop them from burning you with it when you become inconvenient later?

Let’s be honest: A lot of us are already kind of assuming that you’re being blackmailed. And the fact that you’ve abandonedyour principles when the stakes are so high is making people think that the thing you’re being blackmailed over is much worse than what it probably really is. If Matt Gaetz can brazen it out, what on earth must you be hiding?

The good news is that there is nothing better for blowing your blackmail material straight out of the news cycle than a fiery Presidential impeachment that the nation can’t stop watching. There’s no better time to get out from under someone’s thumb.

But if the Democrats are smart, they’ll remove Johnson and prosecute Vance for the Signal debacle. That means a Democratic President will be in. I’ll lose some of my own power. What about that?

More real talk: Donald Trump has screwed the Republican party’s chances for decades at a minimum. You are now the party that let the Nazis in. You are the party that closed the national parks and tried to put Grandma out on the street. You are the party that kneecapped scientific research right when it looked like there might be a cure for pancreatic cancer. You are the party that crashed the stock market, the party that made us hated by the world, the party that let Musk and Putin take the reins. You are the party that just came out as pro-measles and made room for polio. The Republican Party is going the way of the Know-Nothings. You’re going to have to scrap it and start over.

And that’s if we ever have real elections again.

The only hope of you, personally, ever coming back into power is if Trump gets impeached and you become a zealous reformer. Toss out everyone who helped Trump, Musk, Thiel and Putin, support real jail time, and legislate us back out of Citizens United. Throw the bastards out and keep on throwing or you are surely getting tossed out yourself.

You can start right now, of course. That would be ideal. But you can also start after you take a little break to let the Democrats get the ball rolling.

Can’t I just keep my head down and appease Trump until things are magically better?

No. If you have read this far instead of screaming about George Soros and fake Venezuelan gang members, you are a Republican who thoughtcrimes against Trump. He and his barrel of vipers who the nonbelievers are. You won’t make it.

Fascists always need a villain to rail against. They always have a list. It is not a question of whether you are on the list, it’s a question of how far down you are. Right now, it’s foreign students and random brown people with innocent tattoos, but Trump is going to crave new meat and fresh news stories soon. You know that he needs to ritually humiliate and cast out a Republican every so often to reassert his dominance. You’re higher up the list than you think.

And if we hit the era of No Real Elections, which is more likely every day, there is no way you are keeping your elected position. Only perfect toadying cult members will make it through, and there is no way you can tap dance fast enough to make up for the past.

Besides: Is “enthusiastic supporter of the fascist regime” the way you want your grandchildren to remember you?

If you aren’t moved by the idea of saving the democratic republic we’ve all grown fond of, think about the fact that your only path to staying in your elected office is to get Trump out of his, and your chance to do that is slipping away.

It’s time to come down with a severe but undefined and conveniently curable medical issue. Play hooky. Go AWOL. Bunk out. Chuck a sickie. But do it quickly.

If you can’t bring yourself to impeach Donald Trump, you need to get the hell out of the way so someone else can. (snip)

Some news items I wanted to post that got lost in the short time I have to share stuff.

These four articles come from March 17 / 18th and I really wish I could have posted them then. Hugs

How many eggs can you send? U.S. asks countries to help lower soaring prices

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-many-eggs-can-you-send-us-asks-countries-help-lower-soaring-prices-2025-03-14/

The above is the tRump admin trying to get other countries with higher standards in their food to send us their eggs to protect tRump from the soaring prices.

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Hungary To Use Facial Recognition Against LGBTQs

Hungary To Use Facial Recognition Against LGBTQs

This scares me because the fundamentalist and white cis straight male supremacists will demand it be used here. First on trans people to protect the children then expand it to the entire LGBTQ+ as they have been doing everything else they tried to use against trans kids / people.

Famed Navajo Code Talkers Axed From Pentagon Sites

Famed Navajo Code Talkers Axed From Pentagon Sites

Yes I know that these were restored. But now tRump is demanding Vance who is on the board of the Smithson and the National Zoo to remove all illegal (purge) references to race, gender, the LGBTQ+ and so much more. He is demanding a national landmark the US government doesn’t control to toe the fundamentalist straight cis white supremacy Christians agenda to deny anything but them into history or society. We really are seeing a complete take over of society and we must do all we can to prevent the rollback of all rights and equality of anyone not white straight cis Christian males. This is horrifyingly scary. Because these hate groups have learned if they can control information, control education, control what is considered good or bad by their standards they can force the youngest people in the country to voice that belief and grow up to enforce it. It is what theocratic Islamic nations do. Are we now a nation taken over by theocratic Christian fundamentalist demanding a change in even the constitution to force everyone to follow their god and their rules? Please kill me first.

Kentucky Republicans Overturn Ex-Gay Torture Ban

Kentucky Republicans Overturn Ex-Gay Torture Ban

Every accredited organization except those directly driven by fundamentalist religiously motivated agree this is simply torture. The religious just simply refuse to believe sexual orientation is not a choice and no one wants to be like that no matter what has to be done to change it. Including electroshock therapy to the genitals. Think of yourself, gay straight, or any other orientation. If you are cis and straight, how much conversion therapy would it take to make you believe you were gay / lesbian and desire that. How could who you are attracted to be changed. That all comes from the idea that it is a mental illness and a sickness that needs to be cured. Which the majority of medical organizations reject, agreeing it is an inborn part of a fetus development. Plus if you could change a sexual orientation … look at my childhood. I was forced to please sexually both males and females. But the only rapes that totally crashed me in the military was the one by a woman with more rank than me who demanded I have sex with her … four times. The last time I was so upset and humiliated that I ran nude up the stairs of the housing unit for higher enlisted and pounded on my soon to be E-7’s door. I was sobbing incoherently. I have been raped all my life and was able to stand that. Why did what this woman force me to do reduced me to that state? Because it was against my very nature of who I was. I was having same sex relations with another young guy and loving it. What she was forcing me to do was against everything I felt inside. That is what the people of these gay conversions want to do.

Some of them think that being gay is a choice because … well when did they decide instead of men they would like to have sex with women? No they just felt it, but what gay / lesbian people feel is not valid and must be forced to change. The rest of this group feels their interpretations of their view of what their god wants must be enforced on everyone even those that don’t follow their god. Because it is their god and he must be pleased because their god hates what they hate. Even if it is not in the bible or they misunderstood it, their hate preacher told them it was so. They can not let others live their lives, everyone must live by their church dictates. Why??? Because only that way their god will love them? I am an atheist that is willing to let religious people believe as they wish as long as they don’t try to force their beliefs on others. You do you … but why can’t they do the same. They insist that no one can be different from them and their beliefs. That is scary just that they think like that and more that they are now running the US government.

PS. When James was a newly teen of 13 his parents went to the Florida Keys with a group of us. They always stayed apart even though they asked to be part of the caravan of RV going. Well I caused an issue. His … maybe abusive parents had lots of tattoos and were highly Catholic religious … even had a statue of the mother Mary in the entrance of their home. Yes the husband ruled the house and told the wife what she would do at all times. Which included the abuse of the child which is where we came in. In a year or so after this even the boy started staying at our home because he was not allowed home until the mother was there. I had seen a young kid come in with a Mohawk. The boy had his hair shaved on both sides of his head and long in the front and back. We had already talked to their son at our table because the parents they were trying to force the boy to get Christian tattoos.

When I spoke up and said there is …. next hair cut … it will look grand on him. His stepdad exploded and said he wouldn’t ever allow the boy in the house with that and he would hold him down and shave all his hair off. As anyone can imagine I got triggered, I had been held down and had my hair cut. I flew up from the table as Ron was grabbing at me and yelled you want him to have tattoos which is against the bible but a simple haircut which can be changed or grow back and has no mentioned in the bible upsets you so much you’re threatening the kid. I loudly said, “What the fuck is wrong with you”! They took the boy from our table and left his meal uneaten. I was furious. Others who did not know of my childhood tried to calm me down. The family of the boy left that day from our group at the campground. Next time the boy came to our home his hair was cut short and the parents never went on another trip with us. Hugs

FL GOP Advances Ban On City Diversity Initiatives

FL GOP Advances Ban On City Diversity Initiatives

Again an attempt to turn the country into a while male cis straight only nation. How much clearer can it be. And all these republicans or most of them are fundamentalist Christians who were funded by their church in a steal run to get elected. This not what the publican wants. But these republican fundamentalist groups understand … politicians can force change in public opinion if they support something loud and forcefully enough. Which is one why Kamala Harris l think lost the election, the democrats refused to respond to the attacks on trans people fearing it would hurt them. That is how you bring people along to a new understanding. The republicans are doing it in reverse of what the progressive movement did with government support in the early 2000s. Now that democrats have retreated only the hard right republicans are getting their voices heard returning the countries view to pre-rights for LGBTQ+ people. Hugs

Republican Projection

Deranged MAGA by Clay Jones

Republicans want to classify their opponents as insane Read on Substack

Let’s make one thing clear. Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS if you prefer, is not a thing. It’s not like it’s ever been featured in the New England Journal of Medicine or been studied at the Mayo Clinic. It’s about as legitimate a medical condition as rock-and-roll pneumonia, a bad case of loving you, or being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Sure, Cocoa Puffs is delicious, but it doesn’t make people cuckoo any more than Trix is exclusively for kids and not weird, stalkery creeper rabbits. I always felt like the cereal was just a cover for what that rabbit was really going after.

That rabbit probably wanted what Justin Eichorn wanted, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

Five Republican men in the Minnesota state senate have introduced a bill that would include TDS in the statutory definition of mental illness. The bill defines the syndrome as characterised by “verbal expressions of intense hostility toward” Donald Trump and “overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting [Trump] or anything that symbolises [Trump].”

According to Republicans, if hate that Trump sucks up to Putin, then you’re deranged.
If you think it’s weird that Trump wants to “date” his daughter, then you’re deranged.
If you don’t like that Trump is a grifter, you’re deranged.
If you hate that selling products while in office, you’re deranged.
If you hate tariffs, you’re deranged.
I think Trump shouldn’t be attacking our allies, you’re deranged.
If you don’t think the president of the United States should be Elon’s personal sock puppet, then you’re deranged.
If you think the president shouldn’t be a felon, you’re deranged.
If you believe the president of the United States should know more words than a
Beagle, you are deranged. In a Beagle’s defense, after you start spelling words so the Beagle won’t know what you’re saying, the Beagle learns how to spell.

It’s easier to dismiss your political opponents’ arguments as crazy or irrational than to counter with an argument of your own. You would think the deranged person is the one who supports deranged positions he can’t defend.

Deranged is living through the worst administration in US history, then voting for it again.

Recently, Kentucky Congressman James Comer issued a statement comparing town halls to “therapy sessions for left-wing activists suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome.” If someone asks you to justify Elon’s unconstitutional assault on the government and what right he has to work as an unelected fourth branch of government, it’s easier to dismiss that person as crazy than to answer the question. TDS is a very handy argument for Republican chickenshits.

Harriet Hageman, Wyoming’s lone representative in Congress, dismissed town halls as “hysteria,” and her reason for not holding any. Derangement is kicking out Liz Cheney because she investigated an attack against our nation and replacing her with a representative who’s going to accuse you of “hysteria.”

It’s a common Republican tactic to dismiss your opponents instead of countering facts. Instead of taking accountability for leaking classified information to a journalist, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Jeffrey Goldberg is a “deceitful and highly discredited, so-called journalist who’s made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.” Even if any of that were true, it still doesn’t answer the question or explain why he was added to your chat.

If Jeffrey Goldberg was truly deceitful, highly discredited, and has made a profession of peddling hoaxes, then why did you have him in your group chat discussing classified information? Doesn’t that make it worse? And your answer to that question would probably be, “That cartoonist has Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Pete Hegseth isn’t even smart enough to deflect, less alone to possess classified information.

The chances of this TDS bill passing into Minnesota law are slim and none, but what makes these five Republican state senators qualified to diagnose a mental illness or identify a fake condition as one? Are they doctors? I’m glad you asked.

The sponsors of the bill are Glenn Gruenhagen, Nathan Wesenberg, Steve Drazkowski, Eric Lucero, and Justin Eichorn. These men must be doctors, right? I looked into it.

Gruenhagen’s career is in finance, NOT medicine. Wesenberg is a wildlife biologist. Maybe he can tell whether or not squirrels are crazy (they are), but not you. Drazkowski is a firearms safety instructor who probably votes to protect the rights of mentally ill people to purchase guns, but he’s not trained to determine who is and isn’t because he’s NOT a doctor. Lucero is NOT a doctor but should probably see one because he’s a chem-trail conspiracy theorist, which is not a thing either. And finally, Justin Eichorn is NOT a doctor either but is a possible pedophile and realtor.

So these guys who want to make TDS a mental condition demand that…hold up. Did I write that one of these guys is a possible pedophile? How could Justin Eichorn be a pedophile? How could any Republican be a pedophile? Aren’t they the ones who spent the past four years calling us “groomers?” Eichorn has also taken a conservative stand against young children learning about gender diversity and sexual orientations, yet…I’m sure he was planning to show his sexual orientation to the 17-year-old girl he believed he was talking to before To Catch A Predator busted his ass.

It wasn’t To Catch a Predator that caught him. That show ended years ago, but now I wish it was still on. I would have loved to see the surprised look on Eichorn’s face as he walked in with a six-pack of wine coolers while discovering his underage date was a bunch of cops. My money is on the entrapment defense.

Last week, more Republican state senators were arrested in Minnesota for soliciting a minor than drag queens.

But what happened? Was Eichorn rushing the TDS bill with the other four guys and saying, “Hurry this up, guys. I have a date.”?

According to the Bloomington (MN) Police Department, 40-year-old Eichorn was arrested after allegedly arranging to meet up with someone whom he believed to be a 17-year-old girl. When he got to the location, he was met by uniformed police officers and booked into jail before being transported to the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center. He must have been disappointed it wasn’t the Juvenile Detention Center.

According to the cops, when the fake minor told Eichorn she was only 17, his response was, “Cool. Do you like raspberry or watermelon-flavored wine coolers?” or something to that effect.

Police said, “Felony charges of Soliciting Under 18 Year Old to Practice Prostitution are pending from the Hennepin County Attorney’s office.” But then, federal prosecutors took over the case, and now Eichorn is facing a federal charge of attempted coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution. This might be his lucky break because a Trump-appointed prosecutor could drop the charges, and federal charges can be pardoned. I mean, pedophilia is bad, but Trump once endorsed a pedophile for the US Senate. He’s done business with pedophiles. He’s appointed pedophiles. He’s partied with pedophiles and even rode on their planes. It’s not like Eichorn did something “illegal,” like boycotted Tesla or said something “treasonous” about Trump’s tiny fingers.

Eichorn has resigned from the state senate because it’s not a place for pedophiles, but there may be an opening soon in Trump’s cabinet. Trump did try to make a pedophile his Attorney General.

Ya know, I’m starting to think it’s not the Left who’s deranged.

Creative notes: I had two ideas for this one, and it was difficult for me to choose between them, and not just because I already used Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs back in 2021. Both roughs will be featured in the next Blog o’ Roughs, coming soon.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see)

Let’s talk about the GOP refusing to work for disaster funding….

Got a Republican State Legislature? Watch out carefully for this…

This is an opinion piece that contains news, and cites. Also, all Republicans are not Magas, but they’re still Republicans. This is important.

Lawmakers plan brazen power grab, pushing aside Kansas voters and Gov. Laura Kelly

Snippet (it’s not a long piece, and it’s full of info.)

Let’s be clear about what Kansas Republican legislative leaders are doing with their planned overhaul of budgeting: They are launching a personal and political power grab against Gov. Laura Kelly.

They have never accepted or respected her mandate. Despite Kelly winning a second term and having two years left to go, they have continually attempted to usurp the executive branch’s authority. They have tried a constitutional amendment and prohibiting her ability to negotiate Medicaid contracts. Now they’re going after her yearly state budget proposal.

Usually, the Legislature begins its yearly budget process with a proposal from the governor. Her office submits it when lawmakers arrive for the annual session, in January. Now an interim committee wants to start the process earlier, as soon as October of the previous year.

In this new process, the governor’s budget would be a suggestion, not a starting point.

And never mind that it’s a direct attack on Kelly. House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, assured the audience that these changes had nothing to do with the governor.

“This process has nothing to do with the governor,” he said at the meeting earlier this month, according to Kansas Reflector reporter Tim Carpenter. “If you’re going to focus on the governor, probably not the wisest thing to do, because this process has happened over time with many, many different governors.”

He was contradicted by Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, who let the proverbial cat out of the figurative bag.

“You’ll have a Republican governor, for example, or somebody you trust, and you trust the administration to build the budgets, and then you kind of rubber stamp stuff,” Masterson said. “And, then, you switch, and you have (the) opposition party and then there’s all that same power.”

Oh. So it’s like that, then.

(snip-More; also a vid of the sausage becoming sausage)