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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 10h

Everything, onion, or garlic, with cream cheese and (if feeling rich) lox. If feeling poor, I've been known to make a toaster over pizza on one. See also, the last third of a baguette.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 14h

Also, if you aren't near one that's already planned, have your own. People will see you in real life and not as filtered by the media, so it will be harder to make lies about who protests stick.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 14h

It doesn't have to be one of the big rallies, either. The big ones in the big cities make the news individually, but seeing small and medium rallies EVERYWHERE means more people see them in real life and not as filtered by the media.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 14h

It's a nice day to vote early. I went yesterday.

Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 15h

Just got my protest sign, which I paid for with my own money. It's the Virginia state flag.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 17h

If you can't risk one of the big city marches in places with federal deployments (e.g., if you have physical limitations and worry about the need to get out fast), there are lots of smaller suburban events. Show strength in numbers wherever and however you can.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 18h

Putting a triumphal arch in a cemetery seems about right for Trump.

Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 18h

Most government trips land your in a Courtyard or Hampton Inn. Sometimes you can be clever and get a non-chain B&B, but it's extra work. Fancy places are only an option when (1) it's way off season and they have the government rate available, or (2) it's a major event and that's the last place left.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 18h

Doesn't matter. The courts have prevented us from limiting money in politics. So we have to take the money away from them if we want to have a free society.

(Note to Republican judges: it's all your fault.)

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 1d

I've learned to build in a gap between when I stuff the information I need to start a project into my head and when I actually start to put words down. The marinating time seems to be part of it, not a vice or something to fight. I can force myself to do the background reading, but not to write.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 2d

Health care is the big money issue in the budget fight. And I'm sure they've worked out that it's where they can get the biggest near-term win. A big, extremely popular win gives them more power for the next thing, especially as the 2026 election gets closer.

Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 3d

They're trying to figure out how to make shutdowns scary when we've all seen so many that we aren't scared. If they can't get leverage this way, what do they have?

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 3d

Civilians aren't obliged to walk around looking any particular way. Law enforcement is because they are using force on behalf of the government. The standards are much higher, not much lower.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 3d

And it's more interesting.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 3d

Trump himself signed a law that makes it automatic. I don't know who these legal analysts are, but there's a statute that contradicts them.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 3d

It used to be decided shutdown-by-shutdown, but Trump signed a new law after the last one.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 3d

Trump signed the law that guarantees back pay.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 4d

No, two separate things that can become recipes but are amazing as the half-prepped ingredients.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 4d

Try not messing around with fascism, surveillance, and plagiarism.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 4d

Please let this continue and make the public mad. I'm not ready for the shutdown to end yet, and the longer it lasts the better the Democratic deal will be.

Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 4d

When you're making cookies and you've creamed the butter and sugar together but haven't added the other ingredients yet.

Also roast a whole bulb of garlic till it's soft and pop the individual cloves like zits, but not at the same time as the butter and sugar.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 4d

In other words, the culture is getting more progressive, the institutions are following suit but not as fast, and both have pissed certain people off. But they still think it's an elite conspiracy and not something that's happening organically (and not always smoothly) among ordinary people.

Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 4d

If the line is redrawn to include Trump, by necessity you're saying that society no longer includes some very large groups that are currently included. It's a forced choice. If you include Trump, you automatically exclude (for example) me. There's no way to have both, and we will see who you pick.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 5d

The regular courts will still have to do regular court things. And since waging war on the American people is a very big undertaking that will cross all kinds of jurisdictional lines and create procedural headaches in regular court, it might make sense to create a tribunal for the whole thing.

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Maggie Marbles @maggiemarbles.bsky.social · 5d

And as a result they end up looking like Nazis, who are the secular demons for those of us who don't believe in supernatural ones.

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