Weary Throat
LightNews LightNews
sfomel.bsky.social
Weary Throat
@sfomel.bsky.social
770 followers 1.4K following 2.2K posts
professional amateur
Posts Replies Media Videos
sfomel.bsky.social
In March 2011, Trump was launching his short-lived 2012 presidential campaign. abcnews.go.com/Politics/don... That was also when Stormy Daniels got threatened into silence about her story.
Stormy Daniels: I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. T-- taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin' all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, "Leave Trump alone. Forget the story." And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom." And then he was gone. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stormy-daniels-describes-her-alleged-affair-with-donald-trump-60-minutes-interview/
November 13, 2025 at 2:47 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
A photo of Obama with Rita Schwerner Bender, Michael’s widow. After her husband's murder, 22-year-old Rita remained in Mississippi and continued fighting for civil rights.
November 8, 2025 at 3:12 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Charlie Kirk hired Candace Owens when TPUSA was under scrutiny for racism and violating its non-profit status. www.newyorker.com/news/news-de...
As Turning Point’s profile has risen, so has scrutiny of its funding and tactics. Internal documents that I obtained, as well as interviews with former employees, suggest that the group may have skirted campaign-finance laws that bar charitable organizations from participating in political activity. Former employees say that they were directed to work with prominent conservatives, including the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in aid of Republican Presidential candidates in 2016. Perhaps most troubling for an organization that holds up conservatives as the real victims of discrimination in America, Turning Point USA is also alleged to have fostered an atmosphere that is hostile to minorities. Screenshots provided to me by a source show that Crystal Clanton, who served until last summer as the group’s national field director, sent a text message to another Turning Point employee saying, “i hate black people. Like fuck them all . . . I hate blacks. End of story.”
November 8, 2025 at 2:45 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
And "clean coal" is coal that has been literally cleaned. www.factcheck.org/2018/11/clea...
November 6, 2025 at 10:45 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Kevin Roberts uses a simpler language when asking Heritage donors for money.
Your monthly support will help advance three key policy initiatives needed for America’s future prosperity and flourishing. Mass deportations: Your support will help Heritage’s immigration experts create and advance policies that will help the Trump administration rapidly increase deportation rates—making American communities safer in the process. Voter Fraud: As the 2026 midterm elections approach, your support will help strengthen election integrity laws and develop innovative solutions to combat the Left’s voter fraud schemes. Combatting Leftist ideology: The Charlie Kirk assassination proved the radical Left is more violent than ever. Your support will help defeat leftist ideology in the public square and root out radical groups that wish to kill patriotic Americans. This work can only succeed with your generous monthly support. Now is the time to stay on offense and double down on our efforts.
November 3, 2025 at 12:30 PM
sfomel.bsky.social
The picture on the cover of the first issue of Ebony was related to the cover story by Rev. Ritchie Low about his program to bring Black children from Harlem for a summer vacation in Vermont. Rev. Low died in 1948 at the age of 49. www.nytimes.com/1948/12/25/a...
https://archive.org/details/sim_ebony_1945-11_1_1/page/4/mode/2up
November 2, 2025 at 3:07 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
I think of Mezhyhirya. The former Russian puppet’s residence is now a museum of corruption www.usatoday.com/picture-gall...
A view of a bathroom inside President Viktor Yanukovych's Mezhyhirya estate, which was abandoned by security, on Feb. 26, 2014 in Kiev, Ukraine. Jeff J Mitchell, Getty Images A bathroom at the Mezhyhirya. (Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP/Getty Images)
November 1, 2025 at 11:05 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Yes, the original Nazis had a similar problem. "For example, Röhm. A lovely skull… Streicher - the main preacher of racism, obscurantism and anti-Semitism. He also obviously believes that he has a perfectly shaped skull." From the Soviet film Triumph over Violence (1965).
https://youtu.be/kqvGiRJ4yto
October 26, 2025 at 4:08 PM
sfomel.bsky.social
Modern fascist regimes rely on mythical history to engage in what Timothy Snyder calls "politics of eternity." Depriving people of their future and altering their sense of historical progress is a highly effective propaganda strategy. www.theguardian.com/news/2018/ma...
In power, eternity politicians manufacture crisis and manipulate the resultant emotion. To distract from their inability or unwillingness to reform, they instruct their citizens to experience elation and outrage at short intervals, drowning the future in the present. In foreign policy, eternity politicians belittle and undo the achievements of countries that might seem like models to their own citizens. Using technology to transmit political fiction at home and abroad, eternity politicians deny truth and seek to reduce life to spectacle and feeling.
October 26, 2025 at 3:43 PM
sfomel.bsky.social
We know where they have something much better.
October 25, 2025 at 5:10 PM
sfomel.bsky.social
The fear of Saul Alinsky is fittingly Putinesque. In a 1972 Playboy interview, Alinsky predicted the arrival of a "guy on horseback promising a return to the vanished verities of yesterday." scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/saul-...
Their fears and their frustrations over their impotence can turn into political paranoia and demonize them, driving them to the right, making them ripe for the plucking by some guy on horseback promising a return to the vanished verities of yesterday. The right would give them scapegoats for their misery — blacks, hippies, Communists — and if it wins, this country will become the first totalitarian state with a national anthem celebrating “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” But we’re not going to abandon the field to them without a long, hard fight — a fight I think we’re going to win.
October 23, 2025 at 2:08 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
The fucker looked miserable when he first visited the White House in November 2016. deadspin.com/donald-trump...
https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/white-house-correspondents-dinner/time-when-barack-obama-seth-meyers-roasted-donald-trump-n565081 https://deadspin.com/aldkgsjghj-dsgljalakdjg-gfjosdgjcfakjslakd-1788816844/
October 23, 2025 at 1:52 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
While on Fox News, Glenn Beck introduced his viewers to Soros-bashing and the "color revolution" scare, effectively echoing the talking points of Russian propaganda, which has kept Putin in power for 25 years.
It kind of feels like we're being prepped for something doesn't it? Like we're being GROOMED for something on election night. We all need to be familiar with these two words: Color Revolution. If you live in Eastern Europe you know exactly what I'm talking about. They always occur after a contested election. Street activists come out in force the night of or the day after the election. Violence ensues. Government buildings are occupied, eventually — if successful — culminating in a successful revolution. We've seen it successful in both Georgia and Ukraine, and it was ATTEMPTED in Russia in 2011. Ukraine and Russia... What did those two revolutions have in common? The Obama Administration, the Obama State Department, organizations like USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy, and allied outside agitators like George Soros. The SAME people and strategy behind Eastern European style Color Revolution are planning the EXACT SAME THING for mainstreet U.S.A. https://www.glennbeck.com/research/the-documents-for-civil-war-the-way-america-could-end-in-2020
October 22, 2025 at 11:25 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
In November 1961, JFK mentioned them in his speech on the danger of the far-right lunacy. www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/ad...
They look suspiciously at their neighbors and their leaders. They call for "a man on horseback" because they do not trust the people. They find treason in our churches, in our highest court, in our treatment of water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the welfare state with socialism, socialism with communism. They object quite rightly to politics intruding on the military--but they are very anxious for the military to engage in their kind of politics.
October 22, 2025 at 2:16 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
In 2020, Stephen Miller’s fantasy of deploying troops on the streets was rebuffed by both the DOJ and the DOD. He didn't forget.
Barr did most of the talking; Esper had wanted Barr to take the lead because the military should be the course of last resort. Barr proposed that Trump let the team confer with local authorities and then come back to him with a strategy for restoring the peace that did not necessitate a massive federal force, which could appear heavy- handed considering the protest was still relatively small. “I think it would backfire,” Barr told Trump. Milley was unusually quiet in the meeting, but added his voice at that point to say he agreed with Barr. Eventually, Miller piped up to argue that there would be nothing wrong with a large show of force beating back a small group. He said something along the lines of, “If you only have a few demonstrators and you can handle them, just han- dle them and it will go away. “Clearly the city has lost operational control of the situation,” Miller added, arguing for invoking the Insurrection Act. Perhaps it was the number of times Barr had been summoned to the White House for this same discussion, or the number of times he had had to beat back the idea of military troops on American streets, but the attorney general cracked at Miller’s suggestion.
October 20, 2025 at 9:17 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Stephen Miller can't forget being told to shut the fuck up by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Alone...
Going into that weekend, Trump gathered Meadows, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, and other top advisers in the Oval Office to plan an end to the protests. The president wanted to deploy the military, both in Washington and elsewhere in the country. Sitting in front of the Resolute Desk, facing the president, Esper and Milley warned Trump that deploying active-duty troops on American streets was almost never a good idea, and especially not to handle civil unrest. Milley’s opposition to the use of military force domestically was well known throughout the Pentagon. From the back of the room, Stephen Miller piped up. Though Miller had previously only worked as a congressional staffer and had zero military experience, he was highly regarded by the president for his hard-edged nationalism and innate under- standing of how to cater to Trump’s political base. He egged on Trump to use armed troops. “Mr. President, you have to show strength,” Miller said. “They’re burning the coun- try down.” Milley, nothing if not blunt with his counsel, whipped his head around and locked eyes with Miller. The general didn’t like much of anything that Miller had to say about dealing with protests. He had told aides he considered him a Rasputin character, always whispering devilish ideas in the king’s ear. Milley raised his arm to point a finger in Miller’s direction, staring at him as he did so. “Stephen, shut the fuck up,” Milley snapped. “They’re not burning the fucking country down.” Then he turned back to Trump. The president’s obsession with tapping the mili- tary’s might led the Pentagon to keep at the ready data it had never needed before, so Milley could fight fire with facts. The chairman’s office got updated counts of the total number of law enforcement officers and National Guard available in every major city in the United States.
October 19, 2025 at 10:42 PM
sfomel.bsky.social
Supporting the Tea Party propaganda's victory in the 2010 midterms doomed the comprehensive immigration reform, along with other Obama initiatives. We are reaping what was sown back then.
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/politics/13protestweb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/us/politics/13protest.html
October 19, 2025 at 3:40 PM
sfomel.bsky.social
That’s when Arthur Finkelstein, who later helped elect Orban and Netanyahu, first tried his style. "Starting as a polltaker with Jesse Helms's first campaign in 1972, Finkelstein developed a simple set of principles. Focus on your opponent, not your own candidate..." www.newsweek.com/get-ready-ru...
Focus on your opponent, not your own candidate. Use whatever shred of your foe's record you can find to brand him a "liberal." In advertising, use simply worded, Armageddon-style themes to raise the ideological stakes--and warn of the big-government chaos that will ensue if the other guy wins. Repeat the slogans ceaselessly, in ads and on the trail. Use phone banks to spread attacks you don't dare put on the air.
October 19, 2025 at 1:34 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Jesse Helms and Tom Ellis met in 1950 while working on the Willis Smith campaign. In 1970, they both switched to the Republican Party. Ellis encouraged Helms to run for office and remained the mastermind behind the Helms operation (The National Congressional Club), which helped bring Reagan to power
October 19, 2025 at 1:05 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Jaffa had a notable feud with Mel Bradford, the original paleoconservative. "Bradford would never come right out and defend slavery. You can’t do that these days. Instead of defending slavery, he attacks Lincoln."
Prof. M.E. Bradford, a conservative political theorist from Texas who is known for his writings criticizing Abraham Lincoln, emerged today as the leading contender to be named chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. A high-ranking White House official said Professor Bradford's appointment was being pressed by the Administration as a concession to conservative supporters of President Reagan who were angered by his choice of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Word of Professor Bradford's impending appointment, which the White House official described as imminent, upset some people regarded as more moderate conservatives, who mounted an effort to block the nomination. 'Candidate of the Old Right' ''You'd have to call me the candidate of the old right,'' Professor Bradford said by telephone from his home in Dallas, acknowledging that he was being opposed by people now being described as new conservatives. https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/20/us/texan-set-to-get-endowment-post.html
October 18, 2025 at 2:09 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Never too late for a "Reichstag moment," which was avoided in January 2021. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Alone...
Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military. He had also shared his concerns with a few trusted peers. They and several others were worried, too. The night of January 2, Milley got a heads-up from a former defense secretary that all ten living former secretaries of defense had reached the same conclusion. They were about to publish an opinion piece in The Washington Post warning the cur- rent Pentagon leaders they should never allow the military to be used to settle elec- tion disputes or interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. A student of history, Milley saw Trump as the classic authoritarian leader with nothing to lose. He described to aides that he kept having this stomach-churning feel- ing that some of the worrisome early stages of twentieth-century fascism in Germany were replaying in twenty-first-century America. He saw parallels between Trump’s rhetoric of election fraud and Adolf Hitler’s insistence to his followers at the Nurem- berg rallies that he was both a victim and their savior. “This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides. “The gospel of the Fihrer.”
October 18, 2025 at 1:27 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
Fascist fashion was present in America before, but failed to gain ground.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/lens/photographing-the-white-south-in-the-turbulence-of-the-1960s.html
October 16, 2025 at 1:44 PM
sfomel.bsky.social
Before giving in to pressure and firing the student newspaper's editor, the University of Colorado president, Quigg Newton, tried to defend his students. He resigned the following year. www.nytimes.com/1962/10/06/a...
The argument had become so heated that Senator Goldwater had accused the university's president, Quigg Newton, of not knowing what was going oh on his own campus and therefore being unfit to hold the position he does. President Newton made a sharp answer Wednesday in a published letter upholding the principle of academic democracy at the university. "We have a genuine democracy of ideas on our camups,' he wrote the Arizona Republican. "We have fought long and hard to achieve it, and the fight has been against those who- like yourself-believe the function of a university is to indoctrinate, rather than educate; to control thought, rather than to stimulate it. "The cry you raise has a very familiar ring to us: 'You must silence those who do not agree with me!' Senator, I shall not silence them."
October 16, 2025 at 9:30 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
I can’t help thinking about Posobiec’s "LORD PUTIN" tweet from July 2016.
October 9, 2025 at 10:59 AM
sfomel.bsky.social
The very first reference in JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is to Razib Khan, a pseudoscientific racist. "Vance has told me that some of my writing on the historical origins of the Scots-Irish made him aware that he was not just a white American, that he had a very particular ethnicity…"
October 4, 2025 at 4:30 PM