Free-dumb

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Attribution: Federal Troops to Keep Us Free From Democracy by Monte Wolverton, Battle Ground, WA

[Monte Wolverton is best known as a contributor to MAD Magazine and son of Mad great Basil Wolverton. He is also the editor of The Plain Truth. magazine. He draws two editorial cartoons per week and is syndicated to newspapers around the world by Cagle Cartoons.]

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63 thoughts on “Free-dumb”

  1. on “freedumb” 9 years ago. warning: colorful language and odd concepts


    Comedian Jim Jefferies talks Freedumb on his Netflix special FREEDUMB.

    some of the comments:
    ” I’m from Canada, and that is the single greatest impression of a Canadian I have ever heard.”
    “Americans are free to do as they are told.”
    “I mean, this isn’t really a comedy special, he is just speaking the truth.”
    “The amount of dislikes on this video is proof that a large amount of Americans just simply can’t process objective facts.”

  2. one more time of jeffries making fun of us 4 years ago

    Just some advice if you’re allowed to travel to Australia for the holidays

  3. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/aug/29/neil-young-donald-trump-new-song-big-crime

    Neil Young confronts Donald Trump in new song Big Crime: ‘Don’t want soldiers on the streets’
    Veteran rocker characterises US administration as fascistic in song recorded at Chicago sound check

    Neil Young has released a new song lambasting Donald Trump, entitled Big Crime.
    The Canadian-American rocker has long been a critic of the US president, suing him (but later dropping the lawsuit) over the use of his songs at campaign rallies and calling him “the worst president in the history of our great country”.
    He has stepped up that criticism in the new song, which has been posted to Young’s YouTube channel. Featuring his backing band the Chrome Hearts, it was recorded during a sound check at a concert on Chicago’s Northerly Island.
    “There’s big crime in DC at the White House,” Young sings in the chorus, as a comment on Trump’s previous legal difficulties, as well as a sarcastic reference to Trump’s current crackdown on crime in Washington DC.
    Trump declared a “crime emergency” in DC earlier this month, seized control of the city’s police force and deployed national guard troops. He claimed the move was aimed at “halting the precipitous rise in violent crime”, though in January the city’s police department and US attorney Matthew Graves had announced a 30-year low for crime there.
    “Don’t need no fascist rules / don’t want no fascist schools / don’t want soldiers walking on the streets,” Young sings. “Got to get the fascists out / got to clean the White House out … no more money to the fascists, the billionaire fascists”.
    Riffing on Trump’s “make America great again” slogan, Young adds: “No more great again.”
    […]
    Trump used Young’s song Rockin’ in the Free World when announcing he was running for president in 2015 – possibly taking its anthemic chorus at face value rather than understanding the ironic meaning of a song charting social collapse during the Reagan era. Young said he supported Bernie Sanders for president and Trump dropped the use of the song, saying he “didn’t love it anyway”.
    But it reappeared on the playlist at a 2020 rally along with another Young song, Devil’s Sidewalk. Young sued Trump over the use, with the lawsuit stating that Young “cannot allow his music to be used as a ‘theme song’ for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate”. Young later voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit.
    Young, who became a dual US-Canadian citizen in 2020 and called Trump “a disgrace to my country” that year, expressed worry earlier in 2025 that his criticism of Trump would mean he would not be allowed back into the US. “When I go to play music in Europe, if I talk about Donald J Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminium blanket,” he wrote on his website.

  4. Ladies and gentlemen, your new director of the CDC,… Jim O’Neill, Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur, non-physician, non-scientist and buddy of Peter Thiel …WAPO

    …Some physicians and Democrats were publicly critical of the selection. Atul Gawande, a physician who helped oversee the Biden administration’s global health strategy, asked on social media why the Trump administration had again selected a non-physician to run the nation’s premier public health agency. Monarez was the first non-physician to head the CDC since 1953.
“Has America run out of actual health practitioners with demonstrated experience improving public health outcomes?” Gawande wrote in a post on X.
Pressed by lawmakers in his confirmation hearings in May about his public health beliefs, O’Neill said that he is a staunch supporter of vaccines.
“I’m very strongly pro-vaccine, I’m an adviser to a vaccine company, I support the CDC vaccine schedule,” he told senators in one exchange. But he also said that the federal government had overreached during the coronavirus response, and he criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to mandate coronavirus vaccines for federal workers.
Democrats in those hearings said they were skeptical that O’Neill would serve as a check on Kennedy, noting his praise for Kennedy’s controversial response to a measles outbreak and other parts of Kennedy’s agenda. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and other lawmakers who pressed O’Neill to explain how he would advise Kennedy dismissed his answers as vague and evasive.
“We’re trying to determine what kind of advice this guy’s going to give, and all he can do is mumble around and say Kennedy is doing a great job,” said Warren.
    […]

    Let’s see if the Senate makes the same mistake twice. My money is on YES.

  5. https://www.npr.org/2025/08/12/nx-s1-5498451/dc-federal-control-history-home-rule-trump

    Since Orange Adolf can only (initially) keep troops on streets for 30 days (in an emergency, which he admitted there was none the other day) – was the August start date meant to coincide with an end date (if he weren’t to get an extension, which he will go for) of 9/11? Is the timing also theatrical, trying to play on old wounds?

    Fortifying DC, the physical seat of power.

  6. GOP proposal could extend federal law enforcement surge in D.C. for six months

    Republican Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) has proposed legislation to amend the D.C. Home Rule Act, so that a president would be allowed to assert control over D.C. police for 180 days.

    “My legislation ensures that President Trump has the necessary time and authority to quell the chaos that has reigned in woke D.C.,” Biggs said in a statement.

    Cosponsors of his legislation include Maryland Rep. Andy Harris (R-1st).

    Other Republican lawmakers have proposed legislation to extend the federal surge in D.C. indefinitely, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who has introduced a competing bill.

    *Republicans are fascist pigs. Apologies to pigs.

  7. https://www.salon.com/2025/08/29/hey-mr-president-what-about-rural-crime-in-red-states/

    The six Republican governors who have sent additional National Guard troops to stand around and do little in the nicer parts of Washington have cities in their states with far higher crime rates than the nation’s capital. Ohio, West Virginia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee each have at least one metropolitan area with more crime than D.C.

    But if we’re talking about a crime problem, Mr. President, let’s talk about crime in rural America. Some 80% of the U.S. population lives in urban areas, and the crime rates in those places, broadly speaking, are higher. But crime in rural areas ain’t nothing — and much of it goes unreported for various reasons (e.g., more people know each other, the deputy sheriff is friends with the family of the alleged perpetrator and so on).

    According to the nonpartisan USAFacts, crime rates are, as anyone would expect, significantly higher in urban than in rural areas. In 2021, 24.5 out of 1,000 people above the age of 12 and living in urban areas reported being victims of violent crime, and 157.5 out of 1,000 were victims of property crimes. In rural areas, those numbers were much lower, 11.1 and 57.7, respectively. The number of reported crimes in suburban areas fell right in between.

    But — and there’s a pretty big but: According to a 2023 paper published in JAMA Surgery, the “most rural” areas in this country have higher rates of death by firearm than the most urban areas. It should be noted, and then underlined, that suicide is by far more prevalent than homicide in both areas. If guns are present, suicide attempts are much more likely to be fatal. People in rural America — yes, it’s a stereotype, but it’s true — simply have a lot more guns.

    Still, the main takeaway is that overall rates of reported crime victimization across America, in both urban and rural areas, have been dropping for decades: They are 58% lower in 2022 than in 1979. This may qualify as the most misunderstood or disbelieved fact in modern-day America: No matter what cable TV and social media may tell you, crime is a lot lower now than in decades past.

    *But now we have ICE bounty hunters kidnapping folks, and vandalizing their property to get to them, and where are their wallets?

  8. https://www.newsweek.com/anti-trump-protesters-mass-labor-day-demonstration-2119329

    Protests against President Donald Trump and his administration—billed as “Workers Over Billionaires”—are set to take place across the country on Labor Day.

    Potter said more than 900 events are planned in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

    A statement posted on the May Day Strong website says: “Labor and community are planning more than a barbecue on Labor Day this year because we have to stop the billionaire takeover. Billionaires are stealing from working families, destroying our democracy, and building private armies to attack our towns and cities.

    Well, that they can join one near their town, village or city, and they can go to maydaystrong.org and there’s a map that will show you the AFL-CIO sponsored events, in addition to ones that different labor leaders and activists have decided to host. And if they don’t see one and would like to host something that’s certainly welcome. It’s organized similar to the Indivisible model in no kings. And my understanding is that, Indivisible, and many of the organizations, you can see all the partnering organizations on the website that were responsible for “Hands Off” and “No Kings” and “May Day” have joined forces again to make sure that this Labor Day is one to remember.

  10. FASCISM IS NOT A LOOMING THREAT. IT IS UPON US NOW.

    Humanity’s only hope is for the decent people of this country to rise in our millions. We cannot wait for future and rigged elections. We must drive the Trump Fascist Regime from power.

    Beginning November 5, the one-year anniversary of Trump’s election, flood DC in nonviolent protest.

    Don’t stop until Trump is removed.

    Read Full Call

    Initiated by RefuseFascism.org
    welcoming everyone to join the biggest nonviolent mobilization in US history

    *If it’s “upon us now,” why wait until November?

    The good thing about hundreds of smaller protests on Labor Day v a few huge protests, it’s easier for a lot of little protests to overwhelm the system.

    There is also a protest planned for September 2nd, when Congress returns.

  16. Do the Democrats have a candidate lined up for Iowa

    Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst has decided not to seek reelection to a third term, two people familiar with the decision say, and is poised to make an announcement next week.

    Ernst has been wrestling with the decision for months but began telling friends in recent days. Her retirement creates an open Senate seat in Iowa.

  20. you don’t have the youth and if you don’t have the youth, you don’t have anything

    Your generation ended Vietnam, this generation made a TikTok

  21. admittedly, the media doesn’t cover anti-Trump resistance so you’re trying to use their channels to promote your message which you already know they won’t do

    New approaches needed

  22. “Come out to the big protest the media will ignore so it’ll be like it never happened!”

    I appreciate the spirit, but I’m not gonna put money on it toppling the regime

  25. it’s just a fucked up security environment in 2025 and there’s too many variables at these protests, you can have 100,000 peaceniks with the right spirit but one idiot doing something stupid at these things can be spun against you

    and what protests worked once, maybe, 50 years ago? That’s always liberals big plan? Honestly? small thinkers. fucking small potato thinkers.

  26. I realize it’s easier to post a protest then field thousands of candidates for uncontested local and state government seats, but one of those approaches could result in real power, and the other approach has achieved nothing in my lifetime* (in this country. If you want to call the Maidan Revolution and the Arab Spring “protest movements”, fine)

    But you know what some very intelligent person didn’t say!

  27. They must assemble peacefully. Chaos and mayhem is the pretext Dodo is waiting for to bring out the riot act.

  28. The most recent liberal protest movement backfired spectacularly – the Gaza protests

    …still trying to think of what that really smart guy didn’t say hmmmmmmmmmm

  29. The most effective thing any of you can do is besides giving your hard earned money to somebody is spread the message and that means not on trailmix and it also means you have to distill it and dumb it down for people that don’t have the time, patience, or intelligence for the wonkiness we get into

    Which would make Renée likely the most influential poster here because those memes are succinct and easily shareable

    …and if your next question is “what’s the message?”, that’s the problem

  31. I was a Jim-fan during his Comedy Central years. He became an American citizen during the show’s run, I recall. Wondered what happened to him after.

    On 3 March 2017, Comedy Central announced The Jim Jefferies Show, a new ten-episode weekly series,[28] that premiered on 6 June 2017.[29] Jefferies, hosting the show, takes a look on culture and politics behind his desk, and travels around the world to tackle the week’s top stories and most controversial issues. On 25 July 2017, the first season was extended with ten additional episodes,[30] that completed airing on 21 November 2017. On 15 January 2018, Comedy Central renewed the series for a twenty-episode second season,[31] which premiered on 27 March 2018.[32] The network renewed the show for a third season in January 2019, which premiered on 19 March 2019. The series concluded on 19 November 2019, after the end of its third season.[33] – wiki

    https://www.jimjefferies.com/

    Oct. 1, 2025
    Helsinki, Finland
    House Of Culture

  33. Brainworms❗️

    “I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today, as I walk down the street, and I see these kids that are just overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation—you can tell from their faces, from their body movements, and from their lack of social connection. And I know that’s not how our children are supposed to look.”
    — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  34. Maga wants to take us back to Jim Crow; Oligarchs want to take us back to the Gilded Age; Bobby Brainworm wants to take us back to The Black Death.

  35. It’s going to take long boycotts (which is easy since folks are underpaid, underemployed or unemployed), a long, tolling work stoppage (for those who still have jobs), flooding Congressional phone lines (just complain about tariffs, funding cuts, AI taking jobs, DOGE data theft, Palantir surveillance, or whatever floats your boat on any given day), contacting anyone you know overseas (because most countries are covering US news better than our state-controlled media), and going to protests if you’re near any.

    The one day most protest sites are suggesting everyone stay home (if possible) is Constitution Day, September 17th.

  38. How to rank the madness? I guess RFkjr killing us might top the list.

    he might end up as one of history’s greatest monsters

  39. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-revokes-kamala-harris-secret-service-protection/

    President Trump has revoked former Vice President Kamala Harris’ U.S. Secret Service protection, a senior White House official confirmed to CBS News.

    Former vice presidents, their spouses and children younger than 16 typically only continue to receive protection by the Secret Service for up to six months after leaving office under a law passed by Congress in 2008. But for recent administrations, an outgoing vice president’s detail has been extended beyond that allotted time because of a heightened threat environment.

    Former President Joe Biden had signed an executive order in early January that extended Harris’ detail to 18 months after she left office, two senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security told CBS News.

    But Mr. Trump made the decision Thursday to revoke that continued protection, and an executive memorandum was issued to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem directing her to rescind Harris’ Secret Service detail, effective Sept. 1, the officials said.

  40. to deliberately rollback generations’ worth of scientific progress because you read the headline of an article about the summary of a study

    criminal

  41. Senate Democratic candidates Zach Wahls, Nathan Sage pitch to potential primary supporters

    Wahls said in the time since launching his campaign, he has heard from Republicans and independents who have expressed frustrations with Ernst and Republicans in power in Congress. Democrats have to be willing to “extend an open hand” to these voters and ensure these voters will be able to support Democratic candidates, he said.

    “Because I will tell you, the agenda that this administration is putting forward, and that Senator Ernst has been a complete rubber stamp for, it is uniquely bad for a state like Iowa, right?” Wahls said. “… But when you talk about things like the Medicaid cuts, the tariffs, the fact that you are now talking about this mass deportation scheme, you almost could not design a worse agenda for our state. And fundamentally, the job of being a U.S. senator is to say, you’re going to have your party politics — they always have to come second serving your constituents.”

    ***
    Sage said he is coming into the race as someone who is not a seasoned politician, and can offer a perspective — and a disruption to politics as usual — that people of different political backgrounds can appreciate, as a veteran and business leader who grew up in poverty.

    “I’m not your run-of-the-mill politician,” Sage said. “I don’t have one-liners. I’m not going to say things just to say them, I’m not going to talk about political rhetoric, I’m not going to joke around about things that are not funny to a lot of people. I’m here to fight. I fought in Iraq three fun-filled times. I stood up and did that. And right now, what I feel like, we have a lot of people in this world that need somebody to fight for them. They need somebody to look up and go, ‘This guy’s willing to do it.’ That’s what I’m trying to do.”

    *Joni isn’t running. That’s could be rough, depending on how much noise any Republican has made in favor of the big, awful law.

  42. Katrina,
    When The Republicans ability to deliver competent government became obvious. Trump is just the logical conclusion that was obvious 20 years ago.

    Jack

  45. https://futurism.com/elon-musk-grok-concern

    While the billionaire’s mental state was arguably frayed during his stint as DOGE czar — thanks in no small part to what’s been reported as a constant stream of illicit drugs — it’s become visibly more concerning since his dramatic departure earlier this summer.

    Seemingly trying to distract himself from the decline of Tesla, the world’s richest man has embarked on a number of bizarre side projects to fill the days, including an anti-Microsoft company called “Macrohard,” and an anti-establishment political party known as the “America Party.”

    A topic first explored by Rolling Stone, Musk’s posts on X have become increasing frisky in recent weeks. While his tweeting habits were never exactly PG, the tech magnate has made it a point to show off Grok’s more risqué image generation abilities, sharing scenes of scantily glad Colombian twins, or a topless woman bedazzled with space dust.

    “Why do you have to sexualize a chat bot like Grok?” one user asked. Another fan complained that it’s hard to take Grok’s development seriously when its main use seems to be generating porn.

    Even sadder than Musk’s apparent obsession with his personal sex bot is the cost it takes to run the thing. It takes an inordinate amount of energy to power Grok, and the civilian grid connected to Musk’s data centers in Memphis is struggling to keep up. To compensate, the billionaire is operating some 15 methane gas generators, which residents say are choking their neighborhoods with noxious smog.

    Evidently, it’s a price Musk’s willing to make others pay so he can enjoy some synthetic skin flicks.

    *And now he can feed of the SSA data that DOGE scraped to train it to…?

  47. https://www.engadget.com/ai/the-white-house-reportedly-ordered-xais-grok-to-be-approved-for-government-use-165625891.html

    The White House reportedly ordered xAI’s Grok to be approved for government use

    Despite some fallout between President Trump and Elon Musk, the White House appears to still be in Musk’s corner. Wired is reporting, based on documents obtained by the outlet, that the White House allegedly directed leadership at the General Services Administration (GSA) to include xAI’s Grok on its list of approved AI vendors.

    xAI is owned by Elon Musk and was not included in the slew of approvals the GSA issued in August that saw the agency add OpenAI, Google and Anthropic to its list of vendors. In emails sent last week and published by Wired, agency leadership demands xAI’s products be included. “Team: Grok/xAI needs to go back on the schedule ASAP per the WH,” writes Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, one of the branches of the GSA. “Should be all of their products we had previously (3 & 4),” likely referring to Grok 3 and Grok 4, which are iterations of xAI’s LLM chatbot.

    xAI announced a version of Grok for US government agencies in July, when it appeared that GSA approval for the chatbot was all but certain. Shortly beforehand, the chatbot went off the rails and started spouting Nazi propaganda and antisemitic rhetoric while dubbing itself “MechaHitler.” This came in the wake of Musk and Trump’s public spat over the president’s spending bill, after which GSA approval of Grok seemed to stall. Why the change in directive now is unclear.

    *Did Elon threaten to release the Epstein files? After all, the uproar was because of his tweet. Whatever it is, Elon had yea to spill, but he couldn’t admit to interfering in the election. Plenty of other stuff.

  48. BTW, the Bama Breeze was shot on location after Katrina. What we often forget is Katrina devastated not just New Orleans but the whole Mississippi gulf coast and It has yet to recover even after 29 years.
    Jack

  51. Auburn v Baylor on now.

    Last night, Taylor got to watch my Huskers win. I did not get to watch it because it was on ESPN.

  53. 9/1 4pm Protest at DC National Labor Relations Board HQ

    9/2 10am Welcome Congress back by flooding the halls

    9/2 4pm Protest at the WH

    9/3 10am Congress, again; flood the halls

    9/3 Not sure where the presser is for victims of tRUMP/Epstein

  57. Were I currently a former vice-president, or former president for that matter, I would keep a wary eye out on any secret service protection provided by the present pack of jackals and be quite relieved to see them go.

    Questions about J6.

  58. When you take an honest view of general Kennedy behavior over the last century and this one RFKjr comes as no real surprise.
    Now, do he……

  59. It’s tragic actually that his once high degree of referent power succumbed to years of self-inflicted abuse.

  63. Bama Breeze. Jimmy was probably singing about bars like the Flora-Bama, Ponk Pony Pub or any number of beach bars on the Gulf Coast. Spent more than a few bucks in those places in my ill spent youth.

    Jimmy’s sister Lulu opened a bar/restaurant called Lulu’s (go figure) in Gulf Shores and named a bar area Bama Breeze and created a drink of the same name, but it’s not a beach dive bar for kids by any stretch. Discovered LA Caviar there-black eyed peas in balsamic vinaigrette with various other flavors like shallots , onion, jalapeño… for a little kick.

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