“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. [It is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Justice Antonin Scalia District of Columbia V. HELLER, 2008
Attribution: A child’s plea: Minnesota Shootings by Jonathan Brown, PoliticalCartoons.com
[Jonathan Brown was the editorial cartoonist for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, for many years, winning many awards. He became a freelance cartoonist, drawing for scores of clients and he created the comic strip “Analog,” which follows roommates Bradley, a human, and Nigel, a dog who identifies as a cat, as they navigate life in the digital era.]
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now,” Frey said at a news briefing. “These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/maga-responds-trey-gowdy-gun-comments
earlier also on huffpo at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trey-gowdy-minnesota-gun-control
I saw Charlie Kirk on X blaming Gov. Walz for this one. We’re back to the bathroom hoax.
62 Years ago today – March on Washington
nowhere is safe now? another outrage that’s been normalized in addition to those maher spoke about as re “the slow-moving coup”
https://x.com/i/status/1959084612803572181
Blue Georgia
@BlueATLGeorgia
Bill Maher warns of a “slow-moving coup — masked police, troops in DC, federalized forces setting up a permanent security state so even if Dems win, Trump won’t give up power.
“The next coup will go a lot smoother than the last one.”
1:52 / 2:08
10:45 PM · Aug 22, 2025
·
1M
Views
Read 582 replies
OPEN MIC Dupont Circle
4pm ET
📍 Big day in the park — the FREE DC Rally is rolling right into our open mic. Bring your voice, your questions, your side-eye, whatever you’ve got.
How To Enter (or just watch on YouTube):
https://www.advocate.com/news/demetre-daskalakis-blistering-resignation
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, one of the nation’s most visible public health leaders and a longtime trusted voice for LGBTQ+ communities, has resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He denounced what he describes as a wholesale dismantling of science under President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Daskalakis posted his blistering resignation letter on X and Instagram on Wednesday evening.
“I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health,” Daskalakis wrote. “I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough.”
Daskalakis warned that “radical non-transparency” and “unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end” risks returning the country to a “pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive.”
“The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines, favoring natural infection and unproven remedies, will bring us to a pre-vaccine era,” he wrote in his resignation letter.
“Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.”
*EUGENICS. RFKJ is our Mengele.
Getting in the mood for today’s 4pm ET rally, here is clip reel from our last Dupont Circle protest..
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36467482/russia-air-strikes-kyiv-ukraine/
THIS is the horror moment Russian missiles hit and damaged the British Council building in Kyiv during devastating strikes that killed 18 people.
Footage shows the strike hitting the education and cultural organisation and causing massive damage to the civilian infrastructure.
*Putin will gladly kill Brits in Ukraine, just like he gladly hit a US company there.
Meanwhile, red states are gearing up to take DC by sending their NG troops there. If blue cities are to be infiltrated by red state NG, how do the blue state NG respond?
Anyway, it seems that both a world war and a civil war are afoot.
“You think people actually think this guy’s serious about having another election? You think he’s joking about 2028?” Newsom said.
Newsom further pointed to Trump’s National Guard deployments and argued the president was already exercising “not just authoritarian tendencies, but authoritarian actions.”
He continued: “You have the largest private police force in the world. When they’re done with this, all that funding and that big beautiful portrayal allows more resources for this private police force that increasingly is showing a tendency not to swear an oath to the Constitution, but to the president of the United States. And he’ll be sending them to voting booths and polling places all across this country.”
Newsom said: “You’ve seen it. He tried to steal the last election. He’s trying to rig it in plain sight this time. He wants to get rid of vote-by-mail. He’s talking about eliminating voting machines he doesn’t like. He’s setting up the contours where he can declare a declaration of emergency for anything. ‘Just cause’ means whatever he just said on Truth Social.”
As Cadelago tried to push on with questioning, Newsom interrupted: “Wake up everybody! Wake up!”
He continued: “I know it’s impolite. We have to be more calm and demure. But I’m not calm and I’m not going to submit myself to niceties, not when this guy has tried to wreck our Goddamn country.”
*We know! How do we fix it? The Philippines ended martial law under the Marcos regime bloodlessly, after a dozen bloody years. How do we skip to the end?
Don-Old tRUMPsky will not live out this term (which I still believe was stolen by MuskRat), and he may not even live out the year.
The crap weasels propping him up will be much more ruthless, but without the personality running the cult, it will crumble. That doesn’t mean the structure in place will crumble, but the will of many to do their bidding will turn to dust. The more quickly Orange Adolf shuffles off this mortal coil and becomes an ex-parrot, the better.
Newsom got Joe Rogan’s favorable attention. He might be getting somewhere.
Promo for rally livestream now on TikTok and YouTube
today’s meme…
Craig – Do you have an Attack The Messenger or Listen Up, Mr. President tee to wear to the rally? Might market the trail a bit, especially if you go early and talk to folks.
Jeanine Pirro can’t indict a ham sandwich — LITERALLY!..
https://abovethelaw.com/2025/08/doj-fails-to-indict-d-c-sandwich-thrower-fate-of-ham-sandwich-still-unknown/
BiD. I might have one of those somewhere, gotta look. Wish i had a TrailMix tee
Interesting that RFKJ-Mengele intends to kill off a lot of folks in the US. Meanwhile, other countries will continue to use taxes to provide healthcare, including vaccinations.
Once there are only the very wealthy and the young and healthy, it will be easy for another country, maybe China, to take over of just absorb the US.
Oligarchs are mean, but also very short-sighted. When they lock themselves in their bunkers, why not just put armed guards outside to make sure they never get out. A prison of their own making. Are there air shafts, can they be found? Asking for a friend.
meme #2…
***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Power_Revolution
The People Power Revolution, also known as the EDSA Revolution or the February Revolution, were a series of popular demonstrations in the Philippines, mostly in Metro Manila, from February 22 to 25, 1986.
There was a sustained campaign of civil resistance against regime violence and electoral fraud.
The nonviolent revolution led to the departure of Ferdinand Marcos, the end of his 20-year dictatorship and the restoration of democracy in the Philippines.
*The song is the finale of a musical about the People Power Revolution. “God draws straight, but with crooked lines.”
DC this morning, says it all
All the brave, freedom-loving Americans are rolling over pretty quick, eh?
was nonsense the whole time
it would’ve been helpful if the CDC director explicitly called them Nazis
I realize he did, but only for people like us who read between the lines
https://www.npr.org/2025/08/28/nx-s1-5520674/lisa-cook-lawsuit-trump-fed
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook has sued President Trump, who had ordered her removal from office.
Cook argues her firing violates her due process rights as well as the law that governs the Federal Reserve, known as the Federal Reserve Act.
Her lawsuit argues that his rationale — that she made false statements on mortgage agreements — is based on “an unsubstantiated allegation” about private applications she submitted prior to Senate confirmation as governor.
Cook’s lawsuit names Trump and the board of governors of the Federal Reserve. It also names Powell “to the extent that he has any ability to take any action to effectuate President Trump’s purported termination of Governor Cook.” The Fed declined to comment on its board the Powell being named in the lawsuit.
*Kudos for not complying in advance. A social media post doesn’t mean jack-squat.
Too bad that MSM has complied from the get-go. They’ve made themselves obsolete. Do we need more than one state-media channel? No more big ad dollars anyway, because (F)Elon has been looting the treasury, in one way or another; nobody will have funds to buy anything anyway.
No more EV tax credits, but you can get a $10,000 tax credit for an American-made, gas-powered vehicle.
Too bad we don’t have a train system like China or Europe.
Secretary MTV has taken away management of DC’s Union Station from Amtrak. Pretty soon there will trains falling out of the sky. If anyone can muck it up that badly, Sean can do it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/08/27/nx-s1-5515503/fda-covid-vaccines-restricted
The agency is limiting the updated shots to people who are at risk for serious complications because they are 65 or older or have other health problems. Until now, COVID vaccines had been available to anyone 6 months and older regardless of their health.
The decision is expected to make it harder for many people, such as healthy children and healthy younger adults, to get a shot ahead of the expected winter COVID surge.
Kennedy said the FDA has approved Moderna’s mRNA vaccine for those ages 6 months and older, the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine for those ages 5 and older, and the Novavax vaccine, which uses an older technology, for those ages 12 and older.
“These vaccines are available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors,” Kennedy wrote, adding that the emergency use authorizations for the vaccines that made them available quickly during pandemic had been revoked.
“It’s a welcome but overdue end to a policy,” says David Gortler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
Gortler adds, “Although the CDC very recently stopped publishing how many adults and children are still getting the COVID boosters in 2025, at last count it was around 23 million adults and 9.5 million kids, none of whom should be getting any mRNA covid injections.”
*So, now you have to pay for a doctor’s visit to get a RX, and will insurance even cover the vaccination?
The Heritage Foundation = NAZIS!
NOBODY should travel to the US. End tourism. Countries should issue warnings for many reasons, but add health concerns to it. If I could self-deport to Canada, I would, despite my family being here for hundreds of years. I want out. But since that won’t happen, I’ll have to settle for being a dissident.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-fumes-over-sick-rumor-about-late-night-host-seth-meyers-in-truth-social-meltdown/
President Donald Trump vowed in a late-night social media rant to get to the bottom of what he sees as a “sick rumor” that long-time Late Night host Seth Meyers’ contract has been extended.
“There is a sick rumor going around that Fake News NBC extended the contract of one of the least talented Late Night television hosts out there, Seth Meyers,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at about 2 a.m. Washington time. “He has no Ratings, Talent, or Intelligence, and the Personality of an insecure child. So, why would Fake News NBC extend this dope’s contract. I don’t know, but I’ll definitely be finding out!!!”
*It’s time for A Closer Look! LoL
“Despite a very high popularity and, according to many, among the greatest 8 months in Presidential History, ABC & NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the worst and most biased networks in history, give me 97% BAD STORIES,” he ranted. “IF THAT IS THE CASE, THEY ARE SIMPLY AN ARM OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY AND SHOULD, ACCORDING TO MANY, HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC. I would be totally in favor of that because they are so biased and untruthful, an actual threat to our Democracy!!! MAGA.”
Poll after poll has revealed the president’s approval ratings are in the low 40s, and that he’s deep underwater on key issues and with crucial demographics.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-threatens-countries-failing-to-show-him-respect-in-deranged-late-night-meltdown/
“With this TRUTH, I put all Countries with Digital Taxes, Legislation, Rules, or Regulations, on notice that unless these discriminatory actions are removed,” he added. “America, and American Technology Companies, are neither the ‘piggy bank’ nor the ‘doormat’ of the World any longer. Show respect to America and our amazing Tech Companies or, consider the consequences! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
*Diaper Donny is also foreign policy-ing by royal edict. Although his time is quickly running out, nobody would blame another country for a little help with regime change. The receipts are somewhere and they show that Harris/Walz won.
Blue
Not that I expect it, but there is an active California secession movement. After all, they were once a republic for two whole weeks under John Fremont’s Bear Flag rebellion. Personally, I would favor the whole west coast departing as that was all part of Hudson Bay colonies. Washington, Oregon and California could either declare independence or opt to join Canada,
The red states have been living off of us long enough.
“So let’s get this out of the way first: As I wrote in a previous post, Donald Trump’s “takeover” of Washington, DC, is authoritarian thuggery. It’s a projection of power, driven by retrograde racism. It has nothing to do with recent crimes, or actual crime, or actual crime rates. We know this because it’s been in the works for more than a year.
That said, I think it’s still important to point out when they’re lying. And everything they’re claiming in justification of the deployment of National Guard troops to DC is a lie.
The lying starts with the first bullet point:
In 2024, Washington, D.C. saw a homicide rate of 27.3 per 100,000 residents.
That was the fourth-highest homicide rate in the country—nearly six times higher than New York City and also higher than Atlanta, Chicago, and Compton.
Nope. The linked study is only a sampling of 23 cities. It does not purport to be a list of the 23 most dangerous or murderous or crime-ridden cities. It does not purport to be a comprehensive list of any kind. The point of the study was to compare year-over-year statistics among a diverse selection of cities around the country. DC’s homicide rate was the fourth highest out of these 23 cities. Not out of all US cities.”
*This is why MAGAt here keeps saying DC is 4th on the list.
“As of April, DC’s murder rate this year ranked not fourth highest, but 19th. It ranked behind red state cities like Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, New Orleans, St. Louis, and Tulsa.
Again, the whole point of the study the White House itself cited was to compare year-over-year homicide stats—to see which cities improved from 2023 to 2024. And here, DC comes out very well. Of the 23 cities the study surveyed, DC had the fourth-highest drop in its homicide rate from 2023 to 2024.”
*Wake UP!
“If Washington, D.C. was a state, it would have the highest homicide rate of any state in the nation.
This is true of nearly every large city in the country. Most cities have higher crime rates than most states because cities have more density.
But if you want to compare states, we can do that. Six of the seven states with the highest homicide rates are all deep red, and 17 of the 21 highest crime rate states all voted for Trump in 2024.”
Jamie – My CA family are church-MAGAts who think their own sweat doesn’t stink. I won’t be fleeing thataway.
Blue,
My CA relatives aren’t speaking to me either for the exact same reasons.
do you think the fascists let you keep the nice parts?
what military is California seceding with?
https://dorseteye.com/the-real-blame-for-the-annunciation-school-murders/
“A massive scandal has erupted in the wake of the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting as Americans realise that Donald Trump’s head of counterterrorism and threat prevention is a 22-year-old former intern who fired 75% of his staff.
KTSP reported that the killer appears to have posted videos to YouTube in the leadup to the shooting. They showcased their guns, ammo, and a manifesto while flashing “a white supremacy sign” and saying racial slurs. If Fugate and his prevention hub were doing their job properly, the shooter might have been flagged before they were able to carry out their attack.
Under Fugate’s woefully inept leadership, CP3 slashed its workforce from 80 employees down to fewer than 20, meaning that those who remain are spread incredibly thin. Crucially, Fugate pivoted the hub away from combatting domestic extremism towards drug cartels and border security.
This staggering institutional incompetence, coupled with the Republican Party’s adamant refusal to pass even the most rudimentary gun safety laws is a recipe for continued disaster. Conservatives are constantly complaining that Democrats “politicize” mass shootings, but mass shootings are a political issue. We have the means to stop this gun violence epidemic; we just need lawmakers willing to do it.”
yeah, except you don’t want gun control after the fascists take power
You want gun control in a civil society, we don’t have that now
liberals lied to each other for years and now you’re* all fucked
*we’re
😭
all the warnings I’ve given for years and years here I gave to my friends and family and they all acted like I was crazy and now they’re behind the eight ball and guess who seems less crazy and more hated
California is loaded. Washington has Joint Base Lewis/McChord, Kitsap Naval Base and Fairchild AFB which have been supplying global weapons and manpower. Have a feeling a large number would elect to stay put.
Here is YouTube live stream for watching the rally, starts at 4:00 p.m.
fun times when we’re discussing these types of hypotheticals!
🤮
I think many Americans wrongly believe there would be one clear unambiguous moment where we go from “democracy” to “authoritarianism.” Instead, this is exactly how it happens — a blurring here, a norm destroyed there, a presidential diktat unchallenged. Then you wake up one morning and our country is different.
Something is materially different in our country this week than last.
Everything else from here on out is just a matter of degree and wondering how bad it will get and how far it will go? Do we end up “merely” like Hungary or do we go all the way toward an “American Reich”? So far, after years of studying World War II, I fear that America’s trajectory feels more like Berlin circa 1933 than it does Budapest circa 2015.
Crowd beginning to gather, local constabulary only so far, keeping their distance
Rethuglican vindictiveness does not bode well
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/08/rfk-eviscerated-for-saying-he-knows-kids-health-is-in-crisis-since-they-look-stressed-at-airports/
“I know what a healthy child is supposed to look like. 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,” he rambled. “You can tell from their faces, from their body movements, and from their lack of social connection, and I know that that’s not how our children are supposed to look.”
***
“Scientist here.
Mitochondria do not present challenges to faces, movements, or social connections.
Maybe those kids just don’t like you because you’re staring at them like a creep who wants to give them measles!”
– DR. ANGELA RASMUSSEN, PhD Virologist, Columbia University
*Funny because it’s true. Terrifying because it’s true.
Craig some numbers on DC violent crime year over year, 2023 to 2024.
Murders dropped 32%, rape dropped 23%, robberies dropped 39%, assaults dropped 27%
These numbers are from my calculator and this site
Here are the numbers, so you can check my calculator skills. Right now IMO if you want to make a case for DC crime being out of control then you need to start coming up with some numbers from credible sources. Like the FBI, not some airheaded first year journalist, or worse some partisan hack.
Jack
Supposedly there will be bigger crowds Sept 1st – 3rd, but not necessarily at DuPont.
Oldie but goodie
How many flushes…
NG has even been seen picking up trash. What a waste of money.
Craig – tRUMP is actually talking about a Repug midterm convention!
Crime still running rampant in D.C. but it’s concentrated in the White House.
It’s encouraging that 600+ people can find their way to an unadvertised rally. Looks like a fun event for pre-Labor Day and 62nd March on Washington commemoration.
Down with Dodo.
Of course he is. We’re now in a cycle of all campaigning all the time.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/08/28/trump-republican-convention-midterm-elections/
Poobah, I was on that Pirro joke yesterday right here. Half an hour later I heard Chris Hayes make the same joke.
I wonder whether Pirro thinks the kevlar vests the police and guard guys are probably wearing aren’t sandwich proof.
…from my grand jury experience, it’s not even true. Grand jurors are well aware they are sworn officers of the law but they are not push-overs either.
If your D.A. is effective, the jurors will naturally align with their leadership. If the D.A. is a bully, there will be resistance.
Springs eternal
Ivy, federal grand juries return indictments in over 99% of the cases presented to them. The prosecutors only present strong cases and all the indictment means is the GJ believes a crime was committed. State GJs are a different animal. stats on them are hard to come by. My sense is that they are lower than federal stats, but that most cases presented result in the return of a true bill.
Local judge, formerly prosecutor, says GJs in East Bumfuck return 99% or better.
Skep, completely agree. My experience gave me confidence the system works, however imperfect. It makes sense that prosecutors don’t present weak cases. Something Judge Jeannie apparently hasn’t learned in her new job.
Free DC Rally today..
https://www.newsweek.com/why-trumps-quest-north-korea-deal-more-urgent-ever-2120176
There is a real and growing risk of Kim Jong Un initiating a renewed conflict in Korea,” Markus Garlauskas, director of the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, told Newsweek. “I am concerned that just because there has not been major aggression by the North recently, and because Kim appears to have abandoned Korean unification as a goal, too many Americans have become complacent on this risk.”
“Too many Americans are locked into a very backward-looking view of deterrence in Korea, focused on deterring an all-out offensive, which is setting the bar in the wrong place…and glossing over how much has changed,” added Garlauskas, who previously served in a number of U.S. intelligence positions focused on North Korea as well as at U.S. Forces Korea, “particularly in North Korea’s improved nuclear and non-nuclear strike capabilities and the strategic alignment of China, Russia and North Korea.”
…
Bungling Bobby Brainworm
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-rfk-jr-cdc-vaccine-politics-0d388544?mod=hp_lead_pos8
HOODSPORT, Wash. — Two firefighters working on the Bear Gulch Fire were arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Wednesday.
Decomposition
Ivy, Judge Jean-ninny is a fucking idiot. She is to the legal profession as Dr. Oz is to the medical profession. It’s amazing either one of them has a license.
Gray is not to grey
As pray is to prey.
Oliver Kornetzke said it as well as can be
they will have ice goons at the polls to intimidate liberals
credit to the Pod Save guys for not sugar-coating anything, they are no more optimistic than i
They will have goons at the polls to intimidate POC and maybe women. White women can hide by dressing conservatively and wearing a giant cross; perhaps the last privilege of voting and only because of skin color.
The farmers are getting bailed out; they may get MAGAt amnesia and be fully onboard, again.
Oliver is eloquent in his discourse.
https://newrepublic.com/post/199726/rfk-jr-finds-twisted-reason-take-away-anti-depression-meds
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is investigating whether antidepressants can be linked to homicidal ideation after a mass shooting in Minneapolis.
Minnesota Senator Tina Smith slammed Kennedy’s comments in a post on X Thursday.
“I dare you to go to Annunciation School and tell our grieving community, in effect, guns don’t kill kids, antidepressants do,” she wrote. “Just shut up. Stop peddling bullshit. You should be fired.”
*Someone should ask Bobby Brainworms if Sirhan Sirhan was on antidepressants.
Sadly,
RFK, Jr also believes the conspiracy theory that Sirhan Sirhan was hypnotized and was not the lone assassin. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirhan_Sirhan
The then-and current president of the US is responsible for her death. The family is being paid off for their silence or, in some case, lies.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/28/ashli-babbitt-military-honors-funeral/?
NEW THREAD