Kevin Roberts, architect of Project 2025, has close ties to radical Catholic group Opus Dei #breakingnews #news https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/26/kevin-roberts-project-2025-opus-dei

Given that I've discussed what the elevation of JD Vance to the VP slot on the Trump ticket means for American politics, let's pivot to talk a bit about what kind of politics Vance champions, and who he champions them for.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/where-j-d-vance-gets-100000608.html

Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas

"Yarvin’s disturbing manifestos have earned him influential followers, chief among them: tech billionaire Peter Thiel and his onetime Silicon Valley protégé Senator J.D. Vance, whom the Republican Party just nominated to be Donald Trump’s vice president. If Trump wins the election, there is little doubt that Vance will bring Yarvin’s twisted techno-authoritarianism to the White House, and one can imagine—with horror—what a receptive would-be autocrat like Trump might do with those ideas."

Chances are, you've never heard of Curtis Yarvin unless you're some kind of New Right/Dark Enlightenment fascist shitposter crawling the most odious corners of the internet. So who is Yarvin? The short answer is that he's a fascist intellectual who champions the dismantling of what passes for democracy in the Pig Empire and replacing it with hyper authoritarian structures in which rich people, corporations, and capital would dominate every aspect of Pig Empire life. These structures include monarchism, a type of corporate feudalism that will be familiar to folks who read Judge Dredd comics, and literally plugging "unproductive people" into something akin to the virtual reality simulation used as a metaphor in the Matrix - as a "humane alternative to genocide."

It is not an exaggeration to say that Yarvin, who has published numerous bits of fascist intellectual propaganda under the pseudonym "Mencious Moldbug," is a guy who looked at every sci-fi dystopian vision in Pig Empire fiction and said "yeah, that's a good idea actually." Normally, this wouldn't be a problem that rises to the level of existential threat; Yarvin isn't the first extremely online nazi with a thesaurus publishing nightmare fascist screeds on the internet after all. The problem is that Yarvin's ideas, and Moldbug himself, have become extremely popular in billionaire Techbro authoritarian circles that do have access to the power to make his dystopian nazi bullshit a reality; Techbro authoritarians like say Peter Thiel - the man behind GOP VP nominee JD Vance.

"Both Thiel and Vance are friends of Yarvin. In The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power, reporter Max Chafkin describes Yarvin as the “house political philosopher” of the “Thielverse,” a term for the people in Thiel’s orbit. In 2013, Thiel invested in Tlön, a software startup co-founded by Yarvin. In 2016, Yarvin attended Thiel’s election night party in San Francisco where, according to Chafkin, champagne flowed once it became clear that Thiel’s investment in Donald Trump would pay off.

Since entering politics, Vance has publicly praised—and parroted—Yarvin’s ideas. That was worrying enough when Vance was only a senator. Now that he could soon be a heartbeat away from the presidency, his close ties to Yarvin are more alarming than ever. Superficial analyses of why certain tech billionaires are aligning with Trump tend to fixate on issues like taxes and regulations, but that’s only part of the story. Tech plutocrats like Thiel and Elon Musk already have money. Now they want power—as much as money can buy."

Furthermore, I think it's important to understand that this just isn't a question of guilt by association, or Thiel and his creature Vance having questionable friends. The reality is that Thiel has already been working on popularizing and installing the systems, ideas, and political theories Yarvin espouses for well over a decade. There is already an entire fascist intellectual movement built around Yarvin's theories, the so-called "Dark Enlightenment" and this movement is extremely influential in the thinking and actions of powerful TechBro billionaires at large; folks like Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and yes Thiel himself. This in turn becomes a much larger problem when you realize that JD Vance, a man poised to become Vice President of the United States is a wholly owned creation of Thiel, who bankrolled his entire career.

Finally, it's important to understand that none of this is theoretical. When Vance talks about "De-Baathification" of our society and seizing the "institutions of the left" to purge anyone left of Bismark from power, he's echoing the theories of Yarvin, supported by Thiel. When Vance proposes firing all government employees and replacing them with fascist loyalists? That isn't Vance's idea, it's Yarvin's, and Project 2025 makes it clear that Trump and the larger American right support it wholeheartedly. The truth here is that Vance's job in politics is to make Yarvin's twisted dreams a reality for guys like Peter Thiel, and that should concern you as much, or more than, Project 2025 does.

#Fascism #Vance #Yarvin #Thiel #USPol

The Dark Tower series is not very good for listening to while falling asleep. Kinda makes me want a tooterfish popkin though.

Democratic volunteers, donations surge with Kamala Harris atop ticket | AP News

https://apnews.com/article/kamala-harris-volunteers-2024-campaign-cef723e29a2ef11c293f07906b550fcd

#Harris #Harris2024

FCC Votes To Make Phone Unlocking Easier | Techdirt

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/26/fcc-votes-to-make-phone-unlocking-easier/

Penelope Slinger was born in London in 1947 and graduated from Chelsea Art College in 1969 with a body of work made as a feminist reaction to Max Ernst’s collages. Since then, Penny’s art practice has constantly shifted mediums and viewpoints irrespective of art world trends, or profitability—as a result, decades worth of work remain unseen by the art world. In all of its iterations, Penny Slinger’s body of work is mutable, erotic, confrontational, mystical, and unapologetically Goddess-worshipping.

https://contemporaryartreview.la/interview-with-penny-slinger/

Trump: 'You Won't Have to Vote Anymore' If He's Elected

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-cryptically-declares-you-wont-have-to-vote-anymore-if-he-wins-second-term/

1st Circuit: No Immunity For School Officials Who Abused Wiretap Law To Hassle Someone For Recording Them | Techdirt

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/07/26/1st-circuit-no-immunity-for-school-officials-who-abused-wiretap-law-to-hassle-someone-for-recording-them/

Pigs and papa, 2009 - by Toshiteru Yamaji (1937), Japanese

#DoctorWho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_RYmJswmM

Just cleaned the filters on the air conditioners. My tip: clean the filters on your air conditioner more often than me. #tip

Not just a nerd, but a motherfucking genius!

As well as another potential VP for Team Kamala.

Justice Department defends group's right to sue over AI robocalls sent to New Hampshire voters | AP News

https://apnews.com/article/ai-robocalls-new-hampshire-kramer-824af9ff9103d0f5c74deb371011cb87

#cat #cats #CatsOfMastodon

Arizona judge rejects GOP wording for voters' abortion ballot initiative pamphlet | AP News

https://apnews.com/article/arizona-abortion-initiative-pamphlet-language-1bbb4e682c2aecd6bac600e21460b0b1

anyway, i think expecting mastodon to have any safety features worth a shit when they can't even implement account blocking safely is probably a tall order

To assign seats or not to assign seats… #Southwest is axing its open seating policy. This quote from the article is weird though; open seating is like Lord of the Flies? Do we demand assigned seating on a bus? And if you don’t think getting on a domestic flight is like getting on an air bus,well…Airbus. #aviation #boeing #airbus #travel

https://jalopnik.com/southwest-airlines-drops-open-seating-1851604736?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=dlvrit&utm_content=jalopnik

Content warning: US politics Click to open/close

iPhone touch screen failing??

I have this weird thing where some parts of the screen suddenly stop working. I can't scroll or tap on it. Or sometimes it stuck "down", and when I tap elsewhere it acts like it's a multitouch.

Initially I thought it was a cleaning issue, but if I tap the power button off and on, everything is fine until the next time.

It's not the same region, but usually the bottom half (which obviously gets more use).

Searching for info is hard...all broken screen reports.

Has anyone heard of anything similar?

I'm old enough to remember when I had republican friends. Just in case you're wondering, I no longer have republican friends. I cannot find ANY redeeming qualities for people who support the current republican ideology. NOT ONE redeeming quality.

#justsayin

👀 "Christians get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again."

Clip by @Acyn at the hellsite.

#politics #uspol #Trump #gop

Both with the Beyoncé soundtrack and her “fighting for the future” framing, Harris is defining freedom our way while reclaiming it from conservatives who wrap themselves in it while stomping on the freedoms of everyone not in their MAGA tribe.
https://digbysblog.net/2024/07/26/is-our-democrats-learning-2/

If you were a Nikki Haley backer who says you don't know what Kamala Harris stands for and what her platform is, you might want to pull your head out of the arse of Fox News, step back and learn what the rest of the America already knows.

#KamalaHarris

Mom and Dad have endorsed #HarrisForPresident so it’s full steam ahead!

Not American but cheering from the sidelines 🇨🇦

#Harris2024

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/07/26/politics/barack-michelle-obama-kamala-harris-endorsement

Hey y'all! so last year on #Juneteenth I started a lil #reparations thread. Some racist assholes took issue with that...

So this year I'll be making multiple threads throughout the month! It's now June where I am so I'm eager to get started.

Black folks, reply w/ your cashapp venmo ko-fi etc etc if you like.

Other folks, (especially if you're benefitting from the federal holiday) throw them coins if you got the means and *boost replies in the thread for circulation*

😀

*pls boost*

House Democrats look to force vote on IVF

https://thehill.com/newsletters/health-care/4795533-house-democrats-look-to-force-vote-on-ivf/

Starting a music streaming service that only implements SSL with 40-bit RC4 because it sounds warmer than modern TLS

#WompWomp

“A federal judge permanently shut down a significant piece of #Florida’s so-called Stop Woke Act, a devastating blow to a signature law pushed by Gov. Ron #DeSantis to restrict workplace trainings about race.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/26/federal-courts-florida-stop-woke-law-00171451

I'll be there. I'm giving. Pass the word to the sane white dudes you know (not the insane ones).

https://bit.ly/whitedudesforharris