The Tentacles of Yesterday

Abandon Cable TV

Cut the damn cord already! A blog analyzing current events from an historical perspective

Is it the fear that matters? Or the outrage that fear inspires?

It doesn’t actually matter what the “liberals are coming for your X!!!” Scare du jour happens to be, it all feeds into the same big lie conspiracy theory: “secret cabal wants to enslave you”. Republican authoritarians have gotten so good at it and have trained their reprogrammable audience so well that they don’t even need to say that part anymore.

“New study suggests that if we did X (where X is some small change that could increase efficiency, protect the environment, or make some other improvement) it would create Y (Y being a benefit)” right wing commentator: “Liberals want to take away X!!! Buy guns!! Scream real loud!!!” Liberal commentator “there’s no plan for X, and no one is coming for X.” Wingers’: “How dare liberals take away X!!!!!”

(T) No one is coming for your washing machine.

Despite some egregious typos and grammar errors that preclude a pull quotation, the thesis of recognizing that there is almost no real binding to the Union is solid. It was a fiction after the civil war that the United States was now singular instead of plural and many historians are guilty of using that line. Journalists regularly accuse Liberals of threatening unity and dividing the country as though the right wing was the norm and tout some fictional idea of bipartisanship as an end unto itself.

We should drop the idea of the United States of America being one country Among the Editorial Board’s myriad mandates, as I see them, is bursting dogma, flaying stigma, and otherwise defenestrating ideas that make cohering American politics harder than necessary. For instance: The United States is one country. Nope.READ MORE: House Democrat rips Republicans for refusing...

This is something I have commented on for years, but I am just as guilty of surrendering to the tide. Journalists seem to use the term “conservative” in describing right wing extremists because of the destruction of language. One side is liberal and the other is automatically conservative even if the dominant ideology of the gop is authoritarianism. Journalists are on the one hand lazy about the words they use and on the other hand worry that by breaking from the restraints of conventional wisdom that they will be outcasts.

Conservative sounds grown up and responsible, of course the whiny baby bullies with no regard for language will cling to that label. Conservative also sounds wise, so in keeping with Orwell, the gullible morons will cling to the label lest their naïveté be revealed. Beat that perversion of language into the heads of all political actors long enough and it becomes rote to use conservative as simply the not-liberal side of politics regardless of the validity of the term.

Who's a "conservative"? Not these folks — the word has become meaningless Describing radical extremists and insurrectionists as "conservative" is an insult to Orwell — and reality

Imagine working so hard to strike a blow for the cosplay patriots only to be disowned as a gay pr******te and leftist.
"Broke into the Speaker's house and all I got was excommunication from the people I was trying to impress"

"Broke into the Speaker's house and all I got was excommunication from the people I was trying to impress" It's not easy being Depape A blog analyzing current events from an historical perspective

The old “poisoned candy” scare happens every Halloween. This year it was particularly imaginative. Why? Did fox run out of October surprises? Was it somehow more plausible this year? No, not really but it sure caps off the year of child safety panics stoked up by the republican noise machine and gets morons like the lady in this clip afraid of the unknown.

Maybe learn from the nothing that happened and don’t let them scare you with made up panics. The real world is scary enough.

What Happened To Halloween Rainbow Fentanyl Pills? What a tragedy that US democracy hangs in the balance.

I'm back

A Spark of Life from the Depths A blog analyzing current events from an historical perspective

Republicans flood polling aggregators with BS

Bad Faith Polling and Inflation A blog analyzing current events from an historical perspective

And what do they claim they want to do instead? Hire 87,000 security guards for schools. Which is a suspiciously uniform proposal coming from lots of commenters with American flags in their profile pictures, wonder who is in command of the gop talking points these days. Anyway, it’s a distraction in the same way they used to screech about helping homeless vets over “illegals”. And just as empty.

So, just yesterday ABC was finger-wagging about how hiring was slipping and oh goody goody how this is another ominous sign of recession. Nope actually it was more than double and wages rose. Remember, inflation is bad for the wealthy, so that is the centerpiece. And this report will be glossed over and forgotten just like all the previous months and revisions upward. Eric Boelhert would have pointed that out too, just like every other time.

Rule 1, it seems, has to be how bad the economy is every time the midterms roll around for a Democratic president. And if it isn’t, mainstream media will just cherry pick gloomy data to scare people so they can have a horse race in the fall.

US Job Growth Surges, Tempering Recession Worry and Pressing Fed Bloomberg Markets The Close The fast-paced program is the quintessential market close show leading up to the final minutes and seconds before the closing bell on Wall Street with the latest news, data and expert analysis.

It would be funny if not so deadly serious that this “pro-life” group is acting like a full blown death squad.

Anti-abortion zealots target Sotomayor aide as source of leak: Their threats are no joke Evidence is thin for Operation Rescue's claim — and the group's harassment has repeatedly gotten people killed

“In reality, of course, the kids are still expected to get the right answers. The debate is about the journey to the right answer. Are they simply told the answer and expected to parrot it back? Or are they being taught how to think through problems? The latter is a far more valuable skill, of course. But it's also threatening to authoritarians, who prefer an unthinking citizenry that simply follows the commands of their right-wing leaders. The battle is not over whether two plus two equals four. It's over whether students know why that equation works. If they do, then they are less likely to believe Trump or DeSantis when they push alternative facts.”

In the Authoritarians, author Robert Altemeyer has a whole section about high RWAs eschewing logic in favor of rote memorization that silos all the information in their brains. ‘Of course a shark is a fish, that’s common sense’ but there’s no interest in knowing why or putting together information from different compartments to logically figure it out.

What's the matter with SEL? Successful, well-adjusted adults are the GOP's kryptonite Empathy and kindness are right wing kryptonite — so Republicans want to stop schools from teaching social skills

How many t-shirts with the journalist + tree theme do MSM reporters have to see at fascist republican gatherings before they break out of the false equivalence straitjacket their corporate overlords have stitched around them?

Or is the sifting/internalizing of journalism so engrained, a la Chomsky, that there is no breaking out of it? Josh Marshall said on the podcast yesterday that the eliminationist rhetoric coming out of MTG et Al’s pie holes has reached Rwandan levels of dehumanization. The danger hasn’t passed with ‘s nadir, it’s entered a new phase of hostility.

Sorry, New York Times: Republicans aren't "concerned" about democracy — they want to destroy it The Times describes GOP voters as "impassioned about electoral issues" — quite a euphemism for the fascist Big Lie

They’ve always been able to change the channel, they just don’t.

Can Fox News viewers be deprogrammed? Paying them to watch CNN makes them less gullible Participants were paid $15 an hour to watch CNN instead of Fox News: Is it a cheap solution for fake news?

All true and exactly the inverse of reality, but the refusal of republicans to accept Democratic presidents as legitimate goes back at least to Bill Clinton and probably Jimmy Carter. The idea presented here, that white Christian “conservatives” are entitled to rule has grown and become a more widely accepted theory to justify reactionary, scorched earth moves.
“Trump’s incessant lies represent a vulgar, clumsy, narcissistic strand of conspiratorial thinking; those lies are shared by some, opportunistically used by many, and widely accepted on the right because they adhere to a “higher truth”: “we” are entitled to rule in America. That’s what is behind the widespread support for, or willingness to accept, any kind of suspicion, regardless of whether or not there is any shred of empirical evidence. If an election doesn’t result in “us” being in power, it must be illegitimate, as we are “real America”; if it puts “them” in charge, it cannot be accepted, as they are out to destroy the nation.”

https://portside.org/2022-03-26/real-and-far-scarier-reason-republicans-think-biden-illegitimate?fbclid=IwAR0S-9bicGOSxUM1gDY8e3tmYl6BLWD3dQYPCTHpR6R7XsOALk8Yk1B2jY8

First thing to understand about republicans, they are liars; second is that they are shameless. Third is to understand how much republican viewers and consumers of those lies need them and can never question the nonsense because doing so would shatter their self-image.

The GOP's four biggest lies about Joe Biden and fossil fuels Republicans are attacking his administration with industry talking points—and nonsense.

Not that it will make a lick of difference, people believe what they are programmed to believe, but here are some facts about fuel prices with sources.

“As demand for oil has resurged from its mid-2020 lows, producers have been under pressure from shareholders to “put profits over production increases” and “return cash to shareholders rather than pump it back into drilling,” to quote the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal, respectively. As a result, companies have only expanded production slowly.”

As anyone who paid attention to OPEC’s decision not to increase production to pre-pandemic levels as people begin traveling and getting back to work, thus increasing demand, could tell you, rising prices were inevitable.

Why Blaming Joe Biden for High Gas Prices Is Completely and Utterly Absurd Profit-hungry oil companies, not the White House, are responsible for Americans’ pain at the pump.

Again, either the republicans spouting this are too dumb to know the difference or they are lying. Either way they should be disqualified from being taken seriously. But the real problem is that they had to turn 180 degrees after the Russian invasion faltered and pretend republicans don’t actually love the dictator and his authoritarian state, so they are reaching for the thing conservatives used to hate about Russia. But if conditions change they can flip flop again and their right wing authoritarian followers will not even notice.

Bewildered conservatives call Putin a "Soviet dictator" who runs a "communist country" Former football coach Tommy Tuberville isn't the only Republican who needs a refresher on Russian history

I can’t help but think of Sallust and his characterization of Jugurtha declaring that Rome was a city for sale, pitting factions of the hegemon against each other in service to the tyrant. Thankfully neither side had nuclear weapons.

All actions and words by the Biden administration in this very real crisis are nothing but domestic political jockeying to republicans. Siding with a foreign authoritarian leader against your own country and legitimate government sidles right up to that line of the T word doesn’t it?

Ugh, this is definitely above my pay grade.

Putin leaves Republicans splintered and confused Russia may successfully fracture Republicans, but a growing faction yearns for a white, nationalist strongman here

Skelator surfaces to roll out the latest republican atrocity; shall we call it the Contract on American Freedom.

It contains the greatest hits of the small government, low tax, individual freedom party of personal responsibility. LOL! No. Schmuck!

This is a manifesto for totalitarian rule by a bitter minority. If Democrats don’t want the boot stamping on their faces forever they had better turn out in November or gridlock and endless witch hunt investigations will be the nice part.

GOP Senator introduces dark right-wing blueprint for the future Beginning in 2016 and continuing into 2020, the Republican Party’s platform has essentially parroted whatever former President Donald Trump has wanted. United States Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is trying to change that.Scott, who was a...

“Ocasio-Cortez said she was in Texas ‘to support two incredible game-changing candidates — both, I think, for the Democratic Party, but, frankly, for the country writ large."’

In 1864, Lincoln ran as a national unity candidate to drive home the fact that he and his supporters represented The United States as a whole, it’s ideals, traditions, and aspirations. It is time for Democrats to do something similar, draw a line in the sand that they represent America and republicans represent authoritarianism, anathema to real America. We all feel it, and by now there’s no excuse for “swingyness” you either know that the republicans are the bad guys or you are one of them.

AOC rallies for Texas progressives: New hope for midterms? Ocasio-Cortez stumps in San Antonio for left-leaning Democrats: "If we flip Texas, we flip the country"

Yup, it was when the Bundys walked after the occupation of the wildlife refuge that I realized no responsible leader had any idea what kind of hell they were going to face in the near future. My worst fears after doughfacedonny’s machtergreifung, an ever-escalating and increasingly coordinated campaign of right wing violence, weren’t realized but every step of inaction gets us closer to that fear.

The Bundy takeover is now complete: How the GOP has embraced pro-terrorist politics The GOP's embrace of the Bundy occupation opened the door for January 6 and the Ottawa trucker tantrum

Hannity is really losing his edge, he never used to stammer and pause like that. When the propaganda narrative is more complicated than “noun, verb, ‘blame Democrats’” he puts his feeble-mindedness on display.

Sean Hannity issues a warning to Justin Trudeau: “People may die” if truckers are arrested Sean Hannity issues a warning to Justin Trudeau: “People may die” if truckers are arrested Hannity: “That will be the government starting a fight” Written by Media Matters Staff Published 02/11/22 9:38 PM EST Share Comment Video file Citation From the February 11, 2022, edition of Fox News' ...

If goes down over tampering with records it would be such a disappointment after all the crimes he committed in plain sight. But it would give a weird kind of closure after “but her emails”-gate.

Trump’s attacks over Clinton’s emails could come back to haunt him in court — here’s how Former president Donald Trump's attacks on Hillary Clinton over her emails could soon come back to haunt him, according to former federal prosecutor Elie Honig. The New York Times reported Wednesday that the National Archives discovered potentially classified information in the boxes of documents fo...

“The effort may violate federal law.”

You think?

Erik Prince convinced right-wing heiress to fund political espionage against Trump critics: report The billionaire founder of the Blackwater mercenary company played a key role in setting up a domestic spying venture against critics of Donald Trump."During the summer of 2018, as Richard Seddon, a former British spy, was trying to launch a new venture to use undercover agents to infiltrate progres...

Of all the white riots of the last year, this one is the least impressive and the least threatening. https://thetentaclesofyesterday.blogspot.com/2022/02/party-like-its-1931.html

Party like it's 1931 A blog analyzing current events from an historical perspective

“Happy Centrist Pundit Gumdrop Land”

What a perfect description of the very comfortable and completely out of touch thought “leaders” in corporate media.

Their latest crime against democracy and common sense: “in the interest of both his re-election and of national unity, the president should pick a prominent member of the fascist-adjacent, half-mad opposition party. In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman proposed a Biden-Liz Cheney ticket. In those same pages, Ross Douthat pitched a Biden-Romney extravaganza. Meanwhile, in the pages of The Week, Damon Linker may well be funnin’ us with the idea of pairing the president with Larry Hogan, the charisma-parched Republican governor of Maryland.”

Not kidding.

Let’s think for a second about the last “national unity” ticket, Lincoln/Johnson, after the assassination Andrew Johnson took over and let all manner of vile, unrepentant confederate rebels to come back in with barely a slap on the wrist. A precedent for leniency that haunts us to today. I’ll pass. Bravo to Charles Pierce for pointing out the absurdity before it gains steam.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a38750277/centrist-pundits-2024-liz-cheney-split-party-ticket/

Everyone in Centrist Pundit Gumdrop Land Picked the Same Week to Go On an Acid Trip All of these wacko 2024 predictions involve the defenestration of Kamala Harris.

“The lesson here is clear and should remain clear: Fascists lie. That is the nature of the authoritarian ideology, which doesn't value good faith discourse in a democracy. Indeed, they spit on democracy, or, as rioters in the Capitol reportedly did, they s**t on it. All that the fascist respects is power and domination. Lying, if anything, is valorized in the authoritarian ideology because lying is an expression of power. To lie to someone else — a judge, a journalist, randos on social media — is a display of dominance over them and contempt for their petty attachment to Enlightenment values.”

It’s about time someone with credibility said it. At the base of it, these are the same people who constantly tell you that they don’t care what others think about them. The lying and bullying follows naturally.

Republicans are the enemy.

Republican voters don't actually "believe" the Big Lie about January 6 — they're in on the con Don't take what Republicans say to pollsters at face value — they are happy to lie in service of the fascist cause

Whether doughfacedonny drops dead tomorrow from his despicable lifestyle or spends his sunset years rotting in jail (either is the optimistic outcome), the die is cast and republican fascism will persist until defeated.

Donald Trump may finally face prosecution in the New Year: But the trauma won't end there American greed and ignorance created Donald Trump. Will America finally muster the courage to rid ourselves of him?

This is supposed to be the highest rated (most watched) late night comedy show. How? Do Fox News viewers fall asleep after the three hour fascist parade before it comes on and forget to turn off the 📺? Are nursing home residents not allowed to change the channel? Even if hippie-punching with a smirk is your style of comedy, this is still cringe worthy.

Gutfeld!: A Monument To Lazy Conservative Comedy Gutfeld! is Fox News’ weekday late night show hosted by Greg Gutfeld...

It really is that simple, a for-profit propaganda network has broken America. Fox News is the problem. Any hope of backing away from the precipice of fascism begins and ends with solving that problem. Without a steady diet of manufactured outrage to sustain it, most “conservatives” would probably start to burn out on the constant anger.

The real reason Americans are so damn angry all the time

Guaranteeing a republican form of government is one of those phrases that you kind of gloss over when you study the constitution in school. It’s almost never stressed or elaborated on, it’s just common sense right? Only in times of crisis do things like this become meaningful.

This 232-year-old power has never been used by Congress — but it could save the republic The Founders of this nation, and the Framers who wrote our Constitution, created (as Ben Franklin famously said) a constitutional republic: a government “deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed” through citizens’ (then white men) right to vote. They referred to this as “rep...

Intentional obtuseness is a great descriptive word for ’wingers these days.

The real reason right-wingers get so triggered by Dr. Fauci "Whatcha reading for?"

Same as it ever was…

Theocrats are coming for the school board — but parents are starting to fight back Right-wing Christians launch an assault on public school, starting in Colorado. Parents find a secret weapon: humor

The bullying of educators and librarians is nothing new, it happens every time a Democrat is president, but the scale and intensity of violence and threats is new.

Ron DeSantis escalates his authoritarian purge: GOP bounty hunters are the next frontier His Stasi-style bill adds bounty hunting to national efforts to purge school officials for insufficient bigotry

A few Christmas’s back I stumbled into a theory that Capra was really a conservative republican and just hid it from everyone. This verbal diarrhea doesn’t surprise me in the least. Pinheads like Shapiro need to bend reality to fit their delusions. Burn in hell pipsqueak.

Ben Shapiro Claims Mr. Potter Is The Real Hero Of 'It's A Wonderful Life' Mr. Potter stole $8000 dollars from George Bailey's brother that lead Jimmy Stewart on a su***de mission, but he's the hero?