It Gets Clearer

Don't start thinking these assholes aren't dangerous - the murder of Renee Good should tell us all about that - but understand that their stupid little game is becoming very obvious.

Erika Jordan

They're convinced of the absurdities, and they've begun committing the atrocities.

Jess Craven

Don & Marco's Greenland Adventure

It's Always A Threat

Look At Yourself

• When a young girl is raped, and you defend the rapist.
• When a guy shoots and kills a woman on the street, and you defend the shooter.
• When a guy is being totally disrespectful of the women around him, and you say nothing.

• Your cynicism doesn't make you interesting.
• Your smug dismissal of anything that moves normal people to feel sorrow doesn't make you manly.
• Your support for somebody who gets a kick out of pushing people around sure as fuck doesn't make you strong.

Women see and hear your reactions to the shitty things going on all around us - especially when you cheer it on, or you just shrug it off with some stupid epithet that you think is cute.

You're not being clear-eyed and pragmatic - you're being an asshole.

So the "crisis of male loneliness" isn't because there's a problem with women - it's because women are very much aware of what a big fuckin' jerk you are.

It's A Problem, Mr President

"So throw some money at it."

People tend to see money as the universal problem-solver.

It isn't.

You can pay people to grapple with the problem for you. Money is something you can use to buy tools and hire a mechanic, but money itself don't fix nothin'.

Weirdly - or maybe so weirdly - when you throw as much money at the problem as you think you need, then you get to pretend you solved the problem.

You didn't.

Maybe the people who got paid to do the work solved it for you, but you sure as fuck didn't.

And as likely as not - especially when we're talking Geopolitics - you end up making the problem worse.

Trump is transactioning this joint right over the fuckin' cliff - as he has always done with everything he's ever tried.

BTW, Trump - the great business brain - the all-powerful deal maker - Mr Cost-Containment - has already added more than $2,230,000,000,000 to the national debt.

$2.23 Trillion

Try writing that on a check

Two-trillion, two hundred-twenty-three billion & no/100ths

Maybe It's Not Them

Maybe it's you.

Iran

Iran supreme leader signals upcoming crackdown on protesters ‘ruining their own streets’ for Trump

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — European leaders urged Iran late Friday to allow its citizens to demonstrate without reprisal after Tehran signaled security forces would crack down on the protesters whom U.S. President Donald Trump has pledged to support.

At least 62 people have been killed in the protests that began in late December over Iran’s ailing economy and have morphed into the most significant challenge to the government in years.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump as having hands “stained with the blood of Iranians” as his supporters shouted “Death to America!” in footage aired by Iranian state television. State media later referred to the demonstrators as “terrorists,” setting the stage for a violent crackdown as in other protests in recent years.

Protesters are “ruining their own streets ... in order to please the president of the United States,” the 86-year-old Khamenei said to a crowd at his compound in Tehran. “Because he said that he would come to their aid. He should pay attention to the state of his own country instead.”

Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei separately vowed that punishment for protesters “will be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.”

Late Friday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a joint statement condemning reported deadly violence against the protesters, and urged Iran to allow its citizens to express themselves without fear of reprisal. The Associated Press could not independently confirm local media reports that state forces had opened fire on protesters in Tehran on Friday.

There was no immediate response from Washington, though Trump has repeatedly pledged to strike Iran if protesters are killed, a threat that has taken on greater significance after the U.S. military raid that seized Venezuela’s former President Nicolás Maduro.

Internet cut off

Despite Iran’s theocracy cutting off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls, short online videos shared by activists purported to show protesters chanting against Iran’s government around bonfires as debris littered the streets in the capital, Tehran, and other areas into Friday morning.

Iranian state media alleged “terrorist agents” of the U.S. and Israel set fires and sparked violence. It also said there were “casualties,” without elaborating.

The full scope of the demonstrations that began Dec. 28 couldn’t be immediately determined due to the communications blackout.

The protests also represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Pahlavi, who called for the protests Thursday night, similarly has called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. Friday.

Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.

So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 62 people while more than 2,300 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

“What turned the tide of the protests was former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s calls for Iranians to take to the streets at 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Per social media posts, it became clear that Iranians had delivered and were taking the call seriously to protest in order to oust the Islamic Republic.”

“This is exactly why the internet was shut down: to prevent the world from seeing the protests. Unfortunately, it also likely provided cover for security forces to kill protesters.”

Thursday night protests preceded internet shutdown

When the clock struck 8 p.m. Thursday, neighborhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah, shouting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!” Thousands could be seen on the streets before all communication to Iran cut out.

On Friday, Pahlavi called on Trump to help the protesters, saying Khamenei “wants to use this blackout to murder these young heroes.”

“You have proven and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word,” he said in a statement. “Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pahlavi’s appeal to Trump.

Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The internet cut also appears to have taken Iran’s state-run and semiofficial news agencies offline. The state TV acknowledgment at 8 a.m. Friday represented the first official word about the demonstrations.

State TV claimed the protests were violent and caused casualties, but did not offer nationwide figures. It said the protests saw “people’s private cars, motorcycles, public places such as the metro, fire trucks and buses set on fire.” State TV later reported that violence overnight killed six people in Hamedan, some 280 kilometers (175 miles) southwest of Tehran, and two security force members in Qom, 125 kilometers (75 miles) south of the capital.

The European Union and Germany condemned the violence targeting demonstrators as new protests were reported in Zahedan in Iran’s restive southwestern Sistan and Baluchestan province.

Trump renews threat over protester deaths

Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the 12-day war, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran’s theocracy.

It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” America “will come to their rescue.”

In an interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt aired Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge.

Iran has “been told very strongly, even more strongly than I’m speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they’re going to have to pay hell,” Trump said.

He demurred when asked if he’d meet with Pahlavi.

“I’m not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that as president,” Trump said. “I think that we should let everybody go out there, and we see who emerges.”

Speaking in an interview with Sean Hannity aired Thursday night on Fox News, Trump went as far as to suggest Khamenei may want to leave Iran.

“He’s looking to go someplace,” Trump said. “It’s getting very bad.”

Hey, MAGA

• You can choose to own a gun or not to own one.
• You can choose to carry it around, or not to carry it around.
• You can choose to shoot your gun, or not to shoot it.
• You can choose to threaten people with your gun, or not to do that.

So -  you're Pro-Choice

Good for you