収束ゾーンでのライフ: Life in the Convergence Zone

Twitter stopped labelling Russia’s RT and China’s Xinhua as “state-affiliated media” even though they officially actually are, fake-both-sidsing the whole NPR/CBC/PBS labelling and false-equivalencing the two. That’s on purpose, of course, because Twitter today is all about boosting authoritarianism and firehosing fascist propaganda at its users.

To wit, Musk Twitter has verification checks for the literal Nazis they literally recruited, and not for, say, the holocaust museum. This is Musk Twitter:

I don’t know how many times I need to say it: This is Twitter now, this is Twitter now, this is Twitter now. If you’re on Twitter, this is where you are. It will not change under Musk, and you cannot “fight back.”

If you think you can, you’re very, very wrong, because he systematically bans anyone who does the moment they get any traction, exactly like he did yesterday and today with the Block Blue Checks effort. (Some background on the attempt.)

He’s also forcing unpaid bluechecks on people who don’t want them. Seriously. Stephen King and dril both got bluechecks specifically to spite them.

This is Twitter now.

On top of everything else – with verification checks removed, you can practically feel the uptick in Twitter scams from here. SCOTUSblog left Twitter this week, in no small part because of this. Hilariously, it looks like Musk’s minions couldn’t find a way to mass-remove verified checks so they just hid them, and you can still find them with targeted search. They also either can’t figure out how to end a Twitter paid checkmark or intentionally want people to think more people have paid than actually have, because ending payment doesn’t make the paid blue check go away.

This is Twitter now. This is Musk Twitter. This is Twitter now.

It’s well past time to fucking leave.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

In 2016, I said that what Trump was demanding would literally require concentration camps. I was told to STFU, of course. Now he’s promising them outright, not just for undocumented immigrants but for Americans who are homeless. They’re being described as treatment facilities, which is what the Soviets called them too. There will be forced labour, even though he’s not saying that part yet – but there will be. There always is. It’ll be called “therapeutic rehabilitation.”

But it’ll just be forced labour.

Idaho Republicans are building an abortion police state. It seems almost quaint that the Republican Texas Senate is passing a bill requiring the 10 Commandments be displayed in every classroom, saying straight up that it’s about putting (forced) prayer back into schools and not bothering with the “heritage and culture” bullshit they used in the 90s.

As I’ve said for many a year, going after birth control is next, or rather, at this point, it’s what’s happening now. Republican Iowa just dropped emergency birth control for rape victims, so tell me it’s not.

Republican strategists are talking about the best ways to keep people from voting, particularly on college campuses and blocking early voters.

Republican Anna Perez likes to use slurs to identify whether people are “true patriots” or RINOs. If the slurs make them flinch, she writes them off. If they laugh, she knows they’re on her side. Is there any doubt left about who these people are?

Corporate donations to Republicans have bounced back completely since the January 6th coup attempt, showing where their loyalties lie.

The Republican Texas legislature is also moving to further limit the power of blue areas in their own state, because authoritarians don’t share power and don’t recognise the legitimacy of opposition.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is the de facto Republican leader in the House (gift link, no paywall), not just with her old committee seats restored, but also being added to the Homeland Security Committee. She’s using this position to support Russia in its war against Ukraine:

“Jake (sic) Teixeira is white, male, christian, and antiwar. That makes him an enemy to the Biden regime,” Greene tweeted, adding, “Ask yourself who is the real enemy? A young low level national guardsmen? Or the administration that is waging war in Ukraine, a non-NATO nation, against nuclear Russia without war powers?”

Blue states aren’t immune to any of this: Shasta County in northern California has been taken over by the far right and local radio hosts are calling for this local reporter to be killed. The Michigan County where MAGA took over isn’t quite as bad, but it’s very bad.

A MAGA Civil War re-enactor decided to plant a real bomb on his pretend battlefield in order to blame “antifa.” Fortunately, he got caught.

The Republican Texas Senate is working to pass a bill removing all liability for cops who injure people with “less lethal” rounds. It’s already out of committee and is expected to breeze through the Senate. This is the same state where the governor promised to pardon a murderer for killing a Black Lives Matter protestor with his firearm after driving into the protest crowd with his car. Do you know how hard it is to get a conviction for killing a protester in Texas? The political intent of this pardon is obvious.

The punchline: turns out he’s a kiddie diddler too. Whups!

The Portland PD’s systematic assault and Laws of War-violating crackdown against George Floyd protestors has made The Guardian.

Atlanta Police claimed that “Cop City” compound protester Manuel Terán shot at them, justifying his killing. Predictably, that was a lie. His hands were raised and an autopsy showed no evidence of any kind of firing residue on his hands: he had never fired a shot when the Atlanta Police shot him to death with 57 rounds of gunfire.

It sure looks a lot like an execution.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.