Iowa Greets DeSantis with God-Tier Trolling

 Posted by at 4:20 pm  Politics
Mar 122023
 

It’s always been a rite of passage for any politician hoping to become president to make a pilgrimage to Iowa in the dead of winter.  And Ron DeSantis was no exception this weekend when he began that journey in Davenport, IA – one of the towns straddling the Mississippi River comprising the Quad-Cities (Moline & Rock Island in Illinois and Davenport & Bettendorf in Iowa).  That’s where I grew up.

[SIDEBAR: Moline is the corporate headquarters of John Deere.]

DeSantis was hoping to get a warm welcome, and it seems the right-wing GQP base accommodated him.  As we all are familiar with, part of that presidential campaign ritual requires candidates to mingle with the crowd and press the flesh of the attendees.  And Ronnie was no exception.

On that cold February Saturday, DeSantis accompanied by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds was absolutely delighted when an attendee gifted both of them with handcrafted snowflake silhouettes.  They giddily grinned from ear-to-ear for the cameras while displaying their bespoke snowflakes.

 

But as the saying goes: The Devil is in the details.

If you look closely at the snowflake, you’ll note the mastermind creator has craftily and cryptically embedded mirror images of the word “FASCIST” that form each of the snowflake’s six dendrites.

 

This incomparable trolling became an instant viral sensation in the Twitterverse when someone with the nom de plume “MidlifeMisfit” or “IowaCaptive” (not sure how Twitter handles handles) Tweeted out the first photo – which has now garnered over 1.4 MILLION views!

It got even wider coverage when Washington Post reporter Steve Goffman joined in the fun of sharing this masterpiece – gaining over 2.7 MILLION views!

I’ve put together a handy-dandy GIF of the pics I’ve seen of it for your viewing pleasure:

And someone at TikTok created a cute snow globe version of Ronnie enjoying his custom craft snowflake:

I haven’t found any identifying information WRT the lady in glasses who posed with DeSantis and Reynolds for the photos.  She could be the creator – but I just don’t know.  Then again, she might have decided to remain anonymous.  (And given the type of people the GQP draws, that’s probably a wise decision.)

But I am hoping to see some T-shirts that incorporate her clever “Fascist Snowflake” theme – especially because it’s so fitting.  Hell, even I threw together a mockup for a book cover that I’d likely buy:

In all honesty, Ronnie is a fascist at heart, and he truly frightens me.  But in the meantime – let the fun begin!

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Open Thread October 22, 2022

 Posted by at 6:58 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Oct 222022
 

Yesterday, I heard from my BFF. The colonoscopy went well – she’s good for another ten years. But she has uterine fibroids, and (I guess because of the bleeding?) her medical team is concerned. They’ve changed her hormones and will periodically be administering shots in hopes of diminishing them. It’ll take several months to know, and they may recommend surgery. She appreciates very much any and all prayers (as do I on her  behalf). Also, Steve Bannon was sentenced – only 4 months in prison, but that’s still something (and a $6500 fine … which is NOT something.) As I write I don’t know whther or not he was immediately remanded, or given some time to “put his affairs in order” and report. Also, the Fifth Circuit (TX, LA, MS) Court of Appeals ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is inconstitutional, and Public Citizen has a petition to sign about it.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

Crooks and Liars – Body Cams Show DeSantis Thugs Arresting People For Voting
Quote – According to the Times, Oliver, who served 18 years in prison for second-degree murder, filled out both a voter registration form and a change-of-address form in 2020 before voting, and the forms were reviewed by the State Department before she was given a voter ID. State registration forms require voters to swear that they have not been convicted of a felony or that their voting rights have been restored, but they do not clarify that people convicted of certain crimes are not eligible for restored rights.
Click through for story. I seriously hope these people sue the State of Florida – or, better, DeSantis personally – for entrapment, and can take him to the cleaners, because I’m sure this was deliberate on his part. Local election officials were working with state-supplied materials which were deceptive, but not the local officials fault, and even the “thugs” in the video (the Twitter one since the YouTube one has been removed) sound awfully polite for thugs.

The Progressive Magazine – The Government Is Actually Doing a Good Job
Quote – You wouldn’t know it from watching the news, but American children are doing better than they were at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, at least when it comes to having their basic needs met…. The child tax credit expansion ended at the beginning of this year. Now, some elected leaders are proposing to reinstate the expanded tax credit…. Regardless of what decision Congress makes, the success of the expansion highlights something else you wouldn’t know from watching the news: The federal government has demonstrably improved the lives of the vast majority of Americans over the last year and a half.
Click through for full article – and don’t keep it to yourself. As the article points out, and as In The Public Interest (who referred me to the article) is constantly pointing out, government run like government, not like a business, always tends tp provide more service at less cost than privatization.

Food For Thought

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Open Thread September 22, 2022

 Posted by at 7:18 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Sep 222022
 

Yesterday, although I’m not really ready to go back to three short takes, there were three stories so different but so connected I could not decide which one to leave out. Also, Tish James’s fraud investigation is now to the point where she can formally file (a civil) suit against Trump** personally, three of his children, and several officers. (The investigation has been done under a filing against the Trump** Organization, not anyone personally, so this is a bigger step than it may sound.)  Also, though it wasn’t all that easy, I did manage to take out trash and recyclables for pickup tomorrow. Which pretty well wore me out for the rest of the evening. I need to post Shirley Serban’s parody of “Let’s do the time warp again,” which she calls “I’m feeling time-worn again,” in the video thread, because it expresses exactly how I so often feel. It won’t be today – I need to address my “Parody Project” backlog first – but maybe tomorrow.

Cartoon – 22 0922Cartoon.jpg

Short Takes –

Talking Points Memo – The Search for Perla
Quote – [E]ven the barest look at the details we know [about the story of the Venezuelan immigrants shipped off to Martha’s Vineyard] make it very unlikely this was an official or on-the-books government operation. And yet it’s one Gov. Desantis has publicly taken credit for and said was paid for with taxpayer funds from Florida. [Representatives of LULAC, the Latino civil rights organization] went to Martha’s Vineyard on Friday to talk to the asylum-seekers and get more details about what happened. They were able to flesh out the story about “Perla” and her team in San Antonio.
Click through for quite a story. As far as I know, “Perla” has not yet been definitively identified. These people – these MAGAts – just will not stop criming long enough for investigations to make any progress.

Mother Jones – DeSantis Flying Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard Is Part of a 60-Year-Old Segregationist Playbook
Quote – Bell and Williams were among almost 100 people to be shipped under false pretenses to the resort town over the spring and summer of 1962 as part of a white supremacist campaign to send Black people from the South to northern cities. Overall, some 200 people were bused to Chicago, Cleveland, New York, Los Angeles, and other cities in Indiana, Idaho, and New Hampshire. The political ploy was a retaliation for the Freedom Rides from the previous year, when a group of 13 Black and white civil rights activists with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) embarked on southbound buses from Washington, DC, to protest continued segregation in interstate transportation despite the Supreme Court having ruled that it was unconstitutional.
Click through for history. Not only will they not stop criming, they can’t even be bothered to think of anything new.

Daily Kos (Vetwife) – So many executive orders moving DA’s and Judges around in Florida. What is this about?
Quote – I took a look at DeSantis Executive orders and all I see for the most part is soooo much moving District Attorneys (called state attorneys in Florida) and Judges around. Were these people not elected? There are also some Executive orders marked “ Confidential” and you cannot see them. Not clickable anywhere so much for Sunshine State. We need to be looking under every rock this guy is hiding with his pen. God only [knows] what he is doing in secret.
Click through for more. Vetwife is community, not staf, but she is no dummy and has a nose for corruption. She implies that in FLorida both prosecutors and judges are elected. If that is the case, ALL of these executive orders MUST violate SOMETHING – if not the Sate law or Constitution, surely Federal law or the Constitution? IANAL, of course.

Food For Thought

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