Elon throwing up a couple Nazi salutes, good times...
(He'll of course deny that's what it was and say this just shows how oversensitive the libs are because that's always the game right wing edgelords play, from the OK/white power sign to whatever stupid frog meme he posted this month)
What is the social media experience like? It's a little uncanny for me to have nothing: no Twitter, no blogosphere, no group chats or whatever. (I never used TikTok or other video platforms, and no FB since 2010ish; I haven't really explored substack beyond my one subscription + friend's newsletter.) I don't want to mainline panic and doomscroll, but silence is not actually reassuring.
My twitter feed is filled with Musk sieg heiling his heart out
Bluesky doesn't seem any gloomier than normal. But you can see the way Trump just sucks up all the bandwidth. There's much less posting about anything else. Maybe that's just because it's inauguration day.
Yeah. Bluesky is fun sometimes, but even trying to follow more not-politics people, it gets really depressing when the world does. Which is probably useful, but I stay away for a while.
Someone needs to step up and do a "Nazis on Mars" sequel to "Whitey on the Moon," but I'm not sure who's best positioned to nail it.
Idly wondering over on bluesky whether that sieg-heiling might be enough to get him banned in Germany.
Ideally, we'd want to see him booted from both Tesla and SpaceX as acting contrary to the interests of the companies, right?
Oh hey, turns out that's obvious and photogenic enough that it's already hit German media. Yay!
Stern (low-rent but not tabloid), ntv (mainstream cable news), Bavarian public tv/radio, numerous others. Nice.
Honestly, I think I'm just looking for a read on the sense of menace and volatility on the ground.
Our ground is covered in ice and salt.
Border news: CBP One app disappears, etc.
Federal law enforcement officers have been using unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters since at least Tuesday. Personal accounts and multiple videos posted online show the officers driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off. [. . .]
Speaking to NPR's All Things Considered on Friday, Homeland Security Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli acknowledged that federal agents had used unmarked vehicles to pick up people in Portland but said it was done to keep officers safe and away from crowds and to move detainees to a "safe location for questioning."
"The one instance I'm familiar with, they were, believed they had identified someone who had assaulted officers or ... the federal building there, the courthouse. Upon questioning, they determined they did not have the right person and that person was released," Cuccinelli said.
(Seriously, almost no one else is here? I'm chatting with myself?)
I was shoveling snow and then eating. I made little cheesecake cupcakes.
My thought was that I thought inaugurations were on Tuesdays. And that turned out to be a thought after the inauguration.
I know we're not supposed to be speculating about crazy shit the admin says, at least not in comments, but I had a thought about how X might keep ordinary people* from fleeing altogether: mandate that US government agencies use it as an official communications platform.
*Which I will arbitrarily defines as "not extreme right wing and not people who are keeping tabs on the extreme right wing."
To finish the thought in 17: that's pure speculation on my part, not based on any crazy shit I've heard the new US admin say.
12: I read about the sudden cancellation of appointments and the app. I wonder if they want in person apprehensions again, to look tougher?
So far, I haven't heard a lot of details - but that's probably because I was catching up on over the weekend posting and anticipation.
I do have friends who got too little snow to built snowmen, so they drew them on the ground instead. It was a bright moment.
11, 14: Mobes - 4 degrees F in Kane, "The Icebox of Pennsylvania." I think an "Icebox" is something like a SubZero refrigerator....
You'd think that if Lauren Sanchez can't afford a blouse, Bezos could have bought her one.
Hoping that consigning a bunch of prominent pols to the overflow room to make room for oligarchs will generate some payback down the road.
There's wind and fire danger weather out here again. I look forward to being required to show a voter registration card before receiving help in the event of a disaster.
I had thought the Nazi salute included striking one's chest, but I can't seem to confirm that. Most video is just of people with outstretched arms.
Am I making up the chest-pound prior to the salute, or is/was that a thing?
I don't know if that was always the motion, but there is footage of Hitler doing that exact chest thump-extend arm action.
And now Trump has his own little Brownshirt army, pardoning nearly* all Jan 6 criminals including head of the Proud Boys.
*Commuted 6 instead of pardoning, not sure which 6.
Commuted the seditious conspiracy convictions, pardoned everyone else, dropped all remaining cases. Everyone freed.