Privilege used to be a real thing. It’s still a real thing, but it used to be, too.

Babies born in a Texas concentration camp would technically be US citizens. Constitutional citizens.

I don’t imagine that’s going to work out in any kind of positive way, though, is it? Will CBP just ignore that, meaning that US citizens will literally be born into lawless captivity? Will they use their citizenship status as justification for separating babies and mothers? Forced adoptions?

ICE’s internal policy states that the agency “should not detain, arrest, or take into custody for an administrative violation of the immigration laws individuals known to be pregnant, postpartum, or nursing” except in exceptional circumstances.

The rules aren’t doing too much ruling these days.

Even a considered-opinion racist, even a loud “proud deplorable” right-wing extremist bigot, should be worried about this. Because among the many other problems with it, this is inevitably going to erode the meaning and protections of citizenship itself. It leans in the direction of making rights contingent on circumstances, of turning rights into privileges that the government can dole out at its discretion. Government of the mafia, by the mafia, and for the mafia, more or less.

And who else?

Everyone, actually:

Under current laws, many Americans need to present some form of identification to register to vote. The act would require Americans show additional documents that prove their citizenship, such as a passport or a birth certificate.

You just moved? This little errand, updating your voting registration, just got a little more complicated, a little more likely to be a problem. Or, a lot more likely to be a problem, if you lost your birth certificate in the move somehow. Or maybe even quite a big problem, if you don’t have the kind of settled life where you’ve got a file cabinet for these documents the government expects you to curate on their behalf.

It would be very helpful for my understanding to be able to see this content.

I can understand being curious, I’m curious too.

But it’s hard to imagine any circumstance that would make TikTok support’s responses seem reasonable in context. They’re claiming a right to remix your stuff (where “you” are a paying customer mind you) without your knowledge or consent, and then to disseminate that remix at their discretion.

The specifics of how they altered this ad are almost incidental by comparison.

What are the cultural imperatives and protocols when your roommate dies? Do you host a wake for him, in the apartment you’re about to be evicted from, since his name was on the lease?

Imagine suddenly being forced to move, at the tender age of 69, when you’re poor enough to require a roommate.

He’d have been born around 1939, pre-war from an American perspective, so “Silent Generation,” to the extent that means anything. My late “Silent Generation” father-in-law was the biggest Boomer stereotype I’d ever met.

Married white women, perhaps? Surely not all married women?

Thanks. Rumor has it, I have experience in this area also.

So, how often is a person who’s calling an SSA support line expressing these thoughts, exactly? Maybe that’s a problem in and of itself, you know?

Gen X will have paid into the SSA all their lives, and they’ll get nothing for it.

Gen X will spend their declining years working, to pay for the SSA benefits for the Boomers.

I know, I know what you’re saying: “Gen who now?” And that’s right, you’ve got it, that’s exactly how it is.

We’ve all heard the crack, right? “You may not believe in climate change, but your insurance company does.”

Talarico’s big bombshell: Talking about Christianity. The “Christian Nationalists” don’t want him doing that. He’s talking about the wrong kind of Christianity.

“Deep State Censors Texas Christian” would be the headline we need to reach the people who could benefit from his message.

OMG it’s the 1-grit of legend

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador later issued guidance stating the “Everyone Is Welcome Here” poster violated the law. In an opinion published on the attorney general’s website and in an op-ed for Fox News, Labrador described the poster as “DEI messaging disguised as inclusion” that “mask[s] a comprehensive worldview that undermines parental authority over children’s moral development.”

This is an argument that the message is not the message. That the offense lies, not in what the poster says, but in what the poster does not say. This is an accusation of a thought crime.

Labrador argues that the sign is political because of its rainbow colors. You can read his op-ed here.

I wonder if you’d find this video interesting: RC Solar Plane Flight Duration Test

I want to hear some MAGA supporters explain how this sort of attack on society itself is exactly what they wanted when they decided to vote for fascism. I want to hear them explain what kind of future we’re headed for, where gangs of anonymous, unaccountable armed thugs can kidnap anyone, anywhere, giving excuses that the rest of us cannot verify.

This observation deserves all the airplay it can get.

You could get him to keep the secret forever: “Mr. President, it’s my duty to inform you that space aliens are real. But they only want to talk to Obama.”

$15 million for security for just this year? Is he commuting to work on a megayacht? While lounging in a hot tub full of Dom? Snorting exotic substances from the bottoms of expensive hookers?

It’s socialism for the powerful and austerity for everyone else.

And your IP, which ISPs can match to some sort of access point.

My point here is not to say that big companies are better; my point is, relying on the implementation details of software to keep fascism away from you is a losing strategy. The fascists are thinking bigger.