Castle Magus

"Hi. Today we're looking at U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency that Donald Trump is using to do his Mass Deportations Now. We look at where they came from, why they're allowed to wear masks, and the movement to stop them from taking over American cities."

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A few choice quotes:

"The only gang causing trouble is ICE."

"Kids, the thing you gotta know about post-9/11 America is that almost everyone lost their entire goddamn minds. According to polls, a slim majority of Americans thought it was necessary for some civil liberties to be ceded in order to defeat terrorists. Xenophobia and racism skyrocketed, specifically on the Right. So, we did a Patriot Act, which allowed law enforcement to collect our records and search our homes without notification, so long as they could prove that they 'thought' we were doing a terrorism. Which, at the time, simply meant that you looked Arab or Asian."

"What is ICE? It's just America, bro. It's the institutions we've given unchecked power to over the decades, the end result of the Patriot Act and our broken law enforcement system."

"It seems pretty bad if the system we're all used to is built on the gradual dismantling to civil liberties, because that's the thing: we're used to it. If Trump has any positive talents, it's his ability to make evident that which was already there. He is so grotesque and loud in his terrible goals that, in pushing the limits of his power, he's exposing the seams that everyone ignored. He's the guy who makes the mall security guards realize that, technically, there's no rule against skinny-dipping in the fountain. This is all to say that Trump and ICE are quite horrifyingly working in tandem with a system that most Americans consider functional."

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I honestly had never heard of ICE, even though it had existed since the time of Dubya, before Trump started using it as his own personal Gestapo, back during his first """""administration,""""" and I wish I had never heard of it at all (by that I mean I wish it didn't exist at all) now that he's quadrupling down on that Gestapo shit. Oh, and good on Tim Walz, the guy who should be Vice President right now, for saying pretty much the same thing. I didn't know about that until I did a certain Google search just now. He's not wrong, and he's not the only one saying it. ICE == Gestapo. And if the Department of Homeland Security find the comparison "sickening," then fuck them, too. DHS can go piss up a rope.

Anyway, in conclusion, to hell forever with Donald Trump, as usual, and to hell with that Todd asshole, too.

"Hi. Alex Steed joins Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to talk about the protests in Los Angeles, the FBI manhandling Sen. Alex Padilla, and the return (and arrest) of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. Here is Wired.com's guide on how to protest safely: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-pr...."

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Anyway, in conclusion, to hell forever with Donald Trump and everyone who still, despite everything, thinks he's doing a good job, as usual.

"Hi. What a day for Cody Johnston to have jury duty! On today's episode, Some More News head writer Dave Bell joins Katy and Jonathan to talk about all the angry, petty, childish tweets sent by two people who also happen to be the most powerful person and the richest person on the planet. (Also: Cody shows up for five minutes on his juror lunch break to join in the fun!)"

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Good hedge of bets to posit that they might be friends again by the time this video was released. However, fortunately for the rest of us, Trump and Musk are still not friends anymore. Hell, even I didn't know it had gotten quite so bad between these two gargantuan manbabies. But then, I don't have an account on either """""Truth""""" Social or on 卐, so... *shrug*

Here's something that occurred to me as I was watching this (and I kind of expected them to actually mention it, too, but they never did): rather than fighting Mark Zuckerberg, maybe Phony Stark could cage fight Dumbshit Jackass instead? I'd much rather see that fight than any Musk vs Zuck one (as long as it ended in permanently debilitating, possibly fatal injuries for both combatants).

(EDIT) And for all the liberals/Democrats writing "think" pieces about should we accept Musk "back," now that he's on the outs with Trump... hell to the fuck no on that one, good buddy. The Left never "had" Elon to start with. He's always been a shitheel. He just used to do a better job of hiding it. Let his ass twist in the wind. (/EDIT)

Also, guys, you do know you could do an episode specifically about Peter Thiel and Palantir[1], right? You're saying here that "nobody knows who Peter Thiel is" and that "maybe the guy backed by Peter Thiel probably shouldn't have been the vice president" and all that, so... make an episode explicitly about that shit. I mean, you've already mentioned it as asides in several other episodes, but do a whole-ass episode just about that topic. Granted, the eyes and ears that really need to see and hear it would never do so, but still, it's better than just lamenting that "nobody knows who Peter Thiel is."

[1] - Seriously, what is it with right-wing kooks and directly naming their asinine horseshit after easily corruptible and evil magical artifacts from fictional stories? What's next, Trump or Musk or somebody unveiling a literal Torment Nexus? (I mean, Trump just being the president is already a Torment Nexus in its own way, in all but name, but still.)

"Hi. Katy, Cody, and Jonathan are joined by Leah Litman, author of the new book 'Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes.' They discuss how the Supreme Court is making it up as they go and allowing Donald Trump to do pretty much whatever he wants while they maintain a facade of legitimacy."

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Before even starting to watch the video: a big part of why that is the case is because three of the six RWNJ justices were explicitly appointed by Trump, during his first reign as SCROTUS IMPOTUS, and (at least) one of the other three pre-existing RWNJ justices was a flagrantly corrupt pile of shit even before Trump came along and is an even bigger corrupt pile of shit now. And, of course, the three non-RWNJ justices are basically irrelevant now, since the RWNJ justices outnumber them (by design), thus making the RWNJ word of the RWNJ majority, literally, the law of the land now (also by design).

Now to actually watch the video.

Okay, right off the bat, why would anyone with even a single working brain cell believe that the Supreme Court are "the heroes who are going to save us from Trump," when they (aside from an extremely rare few noted exceptions) have been doing literally the exact polar opposite of that since even before Trump became the SCROTUS IMPOTUS a second time? Hell, their direct actions and rulings are at least part of why Trump even is the SCROTUS IMPOTUS again.

Yeah, Republicans, hypocritically, have been expressly doing for the past several decades the very thing they've been whinging that Democrats have been trying to do, i.e. politicizing the court system and stacking the courts (not just the SCOTUS) with judges favorable to their RWNJ positions. And Democrats have mostly just been sitting there with their thumbs up their asses, harrumphing about the sanctity of the courts or whatever, and doing little to nothing to stop them.

Also, yeah, the fact that Supreme Court justices are just openly taking a shit ton of bribes now doesn't help, either, and the fact that so very few people seem to care about this is just mind boggling. (But then, look at Trump. He just accepted a bare-ass, glaring bribe in the form of a jet from Qatar, he isn't even trying to make it not look like a bare-ass, glaring bribe, and Trumpanzees seem to be perfectly fine with that, so why should they care about Clarence Thomas or whoever accepting similar, only ever so slightly less bare-ass, glaring bribes? I mean, sure, anyone who isn't a Trump-fart-huffing sycophant is calling it out for what it is, but who cares what we think, anymore?)

Katy makes a good point. Taunting the 700-pound gorilla in the White House and calling him a chicken or a taco or whatever is more likely going to cause the 700-pound gorilla to start smashing things with his giant 700-pound gorilla fists, rather than acting in anything remotely resembling a reasonable human manner.

Oh, they're talking directly about Trump's own acceptance of blatant bribes now. Yeah, well, what I said two paragraphs up remains the same.

I am pessimistic enough to believe that we will never see a moment where die hard Trumpanzees see something that Trump did and say "He did what?! No! He's gone too far this time!" or whatever. They'll simply perform whatever mental gymnastics, same as they always do, that are required to allow them to say that whatever Trump does is always good, actually, and it's all the Democrats' fault, somehow, even up to and including a hypothetical scenario where Trump literally knocks on their door and tells them that their homes are going to be bombed on his orders with them locked inside. I'm only being maybe 51% facetious there.

(Oh, and Dreamwidth seems to be having issues at the moment, because nine times out of ten that I hit the "Preview" button on this post, it just goes to a white page with "Sorry, there was a problem" at the top of it. Hope this post doesn't get eaten when I actually try to post it.)

"Hi. Zeteo's Mehdi Hasan joins Katy, Cody, and Jonathan to discuss interviewing Republicans, Zeteo's new documentary about the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, Afrikaner 'refugees,' Ms. Rachel, and Trump's corruption tour of the Middle East."

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Trump is literally "palling around with terrorists" now. When did we all get dimension-shifted to Bizarro World? And that's just one of several horrors they talked about in this episode. Go figure.

Everyone who is not a Trump anus-sniffer is just so done with all this shit already, and yet, we still have another 3.67 years to go (at best, assuming Trump's handlers don't figure out a way from him to get yet another term).

"Hi. Katy, Cody and Jonathan talk about Trump's vague and unenforceable executive order on medicare drug costs, Qatar's very transparent bribing of Trump with a luxury plane, and the administration's continued push to suspend due process and habeas corpus for immigrants."

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( Live blogging, or whatever one wants to call it, behind cut )

"Hi. Donald Trump celebrated 100 days in office by going on television a lot, so Katy, Cody, and Jonathan spend today's episode reacting to non-tattoos, fentanyl claims, Declarations of Love and Unity, and hats on hats on hats."

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Trump... dude... when you've lost Ann Coulter, of all people, you really should just give it the fuck up, man.

Oh, well at least the video ended on a marginally positive note, I guess.

Anyway, in conclusion, to hell forever with Donald Trump and anyone who still supports Donald Trump, as usual.

"Hi. On today's episode, FYPod's Cameron Kasky joins three young, spry, Gen Z-adjacent hosts to discuss why 18-to-21-year-old men have swung so hard for Trump and what can be done about it. They also talk through the extremely boring-but-important dismantling of government infrastructure and marvel at Tim Pool's really good and incisive question at a recent White House briefing."

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Two things:

First, they should have Cameron Kasky on their show again, if possible. He seemed cool.

Second, every time they said Buttigieg, the auto-captioning translated that as "Buddha Judge," which was fairly amusing.

"Hi. Uh oh! In this episode – which we wrote and shot before the current tariff/market troubles – we look at how the U.S. and other nations measure economic success, and how that often doesn't square with our individual experiences of The Economy."

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(Yes, I foresee that many future episodes will likely need a "Sorry, but we recorded this video before Trump went and made things even worse" disclaimer in front of it. Even without taking the most recent, even worse bullshit into consideration, though, the above video is still fucking dire.)

So people thought the economy was terrible during Biden's presidency, when it actually wasn't that bad? Gee, I wonder, could that be because Donald Trump and Donald Trump's asinine lickspittles spewed lies about it for four solid years (and, you know, actively torpedoed it during the previous four solid years [thanks in part to COVID and to Trump's abysmally nadiral response to COVID], as a kind of practice run for what they're doing now)? Yes, that is why.

And yeah, none of that really matters that much, because bragging that inflation is going down is, indeed, kind of like bragging that the amount of piss in the soup you serve is going down. Even if you weren't the one who pissed in all the soup to begin with. People are still going to blame you for serving piss-filled soup. And then, you know, maybe reelect the original soup-pisser, so that he can now not only piss in the soup but straight up take a diarrhetic shit in it, too. For some reason.

Or maybe we can switch up the metaphor from piss soup to instead be about a train speeding in the wrong direction, which Biden managed to slow down but not actually stop. A Trump Train, if you will. That works, too. And now, that guy has been put back in the driver's seat, again. Go goddamned figure.

I'll just say it, again (same as Cody says it here). If the economy was "good" under Trump (until he wrecked it), it was thanks to Obama. And if the economy was "bad" under Biden (until he kind of almost sort of fixed it but not really), it was "thanks" to Trump. And if the economy is "good" under Trump II... nah, I can't even finish that, because he hasn't even completed his "first 100 days" yet, and he's already fucking launched a trilithium missile at the economy. I wonder if Trump thinks the Nexus is going to absorb him as a result. Who knows? Trump is a delusional motherwannabe-daughterfucker, after all. In any case, he'll be leaving behind a shattered economy, regardless.

Democrats, generally, are better for the economy than the GQP is. Yet... we keep electing GQP dumbshits to positions of power. Why is that? *shrug* I'unno. I guess because, as Cody says, what the Democrats do is good, but not good enough. And, thus, fickle voters kick them out to give the other side a try, again, even though the other side has been consistently, demonstrably worse, every time. The only thing that has been truly consistent throughout the past 3 or 4 decades or more, though, is that the obscenely rich have gotten obscenely richer and the downtrodden poor have gotten more downtrodden and more poor. Prices continue to creep up and wages continue to remain mostly stagnant. And yeah, there are way more subscription services (and all that other stuff that Cody mentioned) than there used to be. *eye roll, but not really*

People (wrongly) see Trump as the solution to "the bigger picture," even though he clearly has made, clearly is making, and clearly will continue to make everything so very much worse. Because he's a liar and a grifter and a conman and a criminal who only cares about one person, and that person is Donald Trump. And he's also a complete and total fucking dumbass who has absolutely zero clue what the hell he's doing, being coattails-ridden and heavily influenced by vile, disgusting, evil shitsmears on the underwear of humanity who absolutely do know what they're doing, and what they're doing is vile, disgusting, and evil. There's that, too. (And that's not even bringing Putin into the picture, though that, too, is definitely a factor in play here. Very little would tickle Putin's pecker than to see the US economy bottom out as a direct result of the actions taken by his obvious puppet.)

Anyway, yeah, an economy based on all growth, all the time, is completely unsustainable in the long run. But... well, as long as it makes billionaires even richer in the short run... what can the rest of us do about it? *shrug* (Hmm, I wonder when Some More News will do a two-hour episode about Peter Thiel. Assuming they haven't already and I just missed it.)

"Hi. We've got a long road ahead until (at least?) 2029. Today we explore how Democrats are resisting Donald Trump's authoritarian surge and what individuals can do on the local level to help their communities."

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Just gonna go ahead and put the "middle-finger-worthy" tag on this one, based solely on the thumbnail showing an image of co-Presidents Musk and Trump gladhanding each other. Now to actually start watching the video.

Okay, so like the first quarter or so of the video is Cody just correctly and appropriately shitting all over the Democrats for doing practically nothing whatsoever of any worth to slow down Trump, other than lawsuits (which, let's be real, will just be tossed out when they reach the Trump-stacked Supreme Court[1]). Basically, Cody is figuratively shitting on Democrat politicians for not literally shitting on the floor of Congress in protest of Trump. The Democrat Party, collectively, is pretty much just sitting around saying "but I am le tired," without even actually "firing z missiles," right now. Worse than that, they're effectively bending over and spreading their ass cheeks for all the "missiles" being fired by the Trumpublicans.

The next section of the video is suggestions for what the rest of us mere mortals can do in the face of this surging tide of rancid dinosaur shit.

Also, quite a bit about Phony Stark and his Department of Obnoxious Memelords and what people are doing to oppose him, both in and outside of government. That said, I don't see how "tethering Elon Musk to the Republican Party" (which, I mean, he's already done, himself, with their full blessing up to now) is going to accomplish much, considering how tethering fucking Dumbshit Jackass Trump himself to the Republican Party has accomplished exactly jack, squat, and shit all, and has, in fact, been counterproductive to any attempt to censure the GQP for their horrendous malfeasance, since it just makes them circle the wagons and double down on their nonsensical adherence to Trump. Still, protesting Tesla because of Elon Musk's rampant dickholery certainly isn't a bad thing, in and of itself. (Aside from the bullet holes through windows and setting fire to recharging stations. I mean, I guess. Like, really, no matter how much you may hate Elron Mustard and his inane Cybertrucks and the fact that he's literally, indisputably a Nazi, maybe don't shoot up Tesla dealerships and set shit on fire, okay?)

Hey, whoa, it turns out at least a small few Democrats actually are doing more than nothing at all, barely. Good on them.

Man, this video almost makes me wish I were less misanthropic and less a/anti/whatever-social and actually cared even the tiniest bit about "coming together with other people." Well, I mean, outside of posting these blog entries into the ethereal void on a semi-regular basis, I guess. *shrug*

(Also, this was yet another video in which it was simply Cody sitting and talking to a camera for the whole video, without any puppets or whatever. The only thing that could be called a dumb skit was the creamed corn crap at the start and his followup little "I gotta go take a shit now" thing at the end. [Beware of the sudden PlutoTV jumpscare at the ass-end of the video, though; I've never before hit the stop button on a Youtube video faster than I did there.])

[1] - Except, maybe possibly, in the most utterly extreme cases, like when Trump is actively ignoring the orders of federal judges and is improperly calling for the impeachment of federal judges, which is a thing about which even Chief Justice John Roberts took a dim view, imagine that. I won't be holding my breath on that, though. (EDIT) Nope, they bent right over for him in that scenario as well. (/EDIT)