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Brett's avatar

It’s so funny because the no kings protest last time was the most milquetoast and non-disruptive protest ever - very mainstream liberal stuff. I expect mostly the same and the Trumpers will get all butt hurt about the number of people that hate their cult leader.

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Ken Klippenstein's avatar

right, totally harmless

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Mathew Foresta's avatar

Ya, I was there. It was one of the tamest protests I've ever been to. That said, the clear point of this is to define an opposition to the regime as terror. I fear we already live in a dictatorship. A mass general strike may be our last hope.

-Mathew

https://bettergracesandliberations.substack.com/

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Brett's avatar

Instigation from government would make no sense otherwise, so I agree.

If there wasn’t an intent to ramp up crack downs on opposition, the best approach would be to ignore this altogether and let liberals feel better about “doing something” and then going back to their day to day lives.

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Denise O'Leary-Siemer's avatar

By small steps a mass general strike is coming as the people gain confidence seeing their strength in numbers. Just the increasing numbers of expected protesters have Trump increasingly nervous. This is all a practice run.

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Klaus's avatar

These inscribed bullet casings that keep showing up seem dubious.

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Mark Huseby's avatar

It looked as if Patel planted the casings to stir the pot

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Geoff Grove's avatar

How long until inflatable frog costumes are NSPM-7 list?

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Annie North 🍁🍂's avatar

That is a terrifying thought and I wouldn't put it past this administration to claim that.

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Michael Wallace's avatar

Two thoughts.

1. I think it's very telling where the feds' headspace is at right now as they are trying desperately to link engaging in first amendment rights with terror adjacent behavior. It's asinine and meant to intimidate normal citizens into compliance with their brutish authoritarian bender. MY FELLOW CITIZENS, DO NOT LET THEM GASLIGHT YOU INTO OBEYING.

2. Gotta be honest, Ken, I'm skeptical about the bullet writing. Ever since the United Healthcare CEO shooting, it's become the easy to go to motive indicator. For instance, Charlie Kirk's alleged shooter's bullet writing, I saw two prevailing rumors - that the 'TRN' stamp on the bottom was trans ideology (not the bullet manufacturer) and that the meme quotes were anti fascist quotes (and not from a video game). It is going to be a very, very easy thing to fake too. Anyone at that scene with a sharpie can pick up a casing and write something on them, especially with hyper politicized police departments right now.

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J. Rock's avatar

Talk about projection! It's the Trump administration leading all the people who actually hate the American Constitution. I wonder who could possibly believe this nonsense but there are millions of Fox News viewers who constantly conditioned to be afraid of their own shadows. On the other hand, considering the upcoming No Kings protests are projected to be the largest protest in American history it shows that the administration are really afraid of the power of the people. That's a very good thing.

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Ak's avatar

Right? It's the No Kings protesters that hate America, but the yes-Trump-is-the-new-King-George Republicans in control of all 3 chambers of government love America? Fascism is anti-American, but they've duped so many with propaganda.

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Educated Fool's avatar

So setting up to accelerate invocation of the insurrection act?

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Randy's avatar

Every American is a potential terrorist or an actual terrorist now. Absurdity has no limits in the land of the "free".

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John Reynolds's avatar

WTF, protesting this incompetent corrupt oligarchic government is linked with Hamas hahahahaha. Instead of the best and brightest of the JFK days we have the anti-vaxers, health care deniers, and Zionist bootlicks of the RFKjr goofball era

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Mathew Foresta's avatar

This is an attempt to criminalize all dissent. We can't divorce this from the complicity of Liberals. They were perfectly ok with crackdowns on the pro-Palestine Movement. I saw one of the worst examples of that when I was at the UCLA encampment as it was attacked by a Zionist lynch mob while the cops stood by. This is an extension of that effort.

https://bettergracesandliberations.substack.com/p/i-was-attacked-by-zionists-at-the

Make no mistake, we are witnessing a regime try and set itself up as a dictatorship. People are going to have to be brave if they value their freedom.

-Mathew

https://bettergracesandliberations.substack.com

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Rob Bird's avatar

In the words of Ben Folds (mostly), "Once you wanted revolution, now you're the institution. How's it feel to be The Man? It's [so] fun to be The Man."

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Joy in HK fiFP's avatar

They are grasping at straws, and one of them is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back of democracy, sooner more likely than later. Thanks for the update on the state of the union. Are we satisfied to just watch?

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James Gregg's avatar

DVE is what Trump is trying to call transgenders. Domestic Violence Extremist. Its a new buzz word of the DOJ to describe nihilism. Tyler Robinson was apolitical as was Joshua Jahn (Dallas ICE shooter). Apolitical or against political parties is often part of nihilism. So DOJ is labeling anyone who would be nihilistic and since Tyler Robinson is most likely a nihilist and his girlfriend was transgender, Trump wants to link transgenders to nihilism and being NVE. And those who support transgenders may be at the No Kings rally which the DOJ will identify as DVEs as well. Apparently protesting the President’s actions is unlawful in Trump’s view.

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Mark Huseby's avatar

I have shared a link of this post on the 50501 FB group.

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Alexandra Barcus's avatar

Oh no…

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Sean's avatar

Republicans don't make liberals sound cooler than they really are challenge: impossible

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David Van Loo's avatar

“Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer, House Republicans’ third-highest ranking leader, also called that the upcoming No Kings protest a “‘Hate America’ rally,” attributing it to the “terrorist wing” of the Democratic Party.” Hmm, I wonder if the Republicans are going to start calling out some of the Democrats in both chambers as party to the DVE and start rounding them up, perhaps then detaining them so they can’t be present to vote; Would that scenario be plausible under our current state of government authoritarianism?

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Ak's avatar

This is pretty normal under authoritarianism. You seem to be predicting the future. A scary one.

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