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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 10h

In 2020, Stephen Miller’s fantasy of deploying troops on the streets was rebuffed by both the DOJ and the DOD. He didn't forget.

Barr did most of the talking; Esper had wanted Barr to take the lead because the
military should be the course of last resort. Barr proposed that Trump let the team
confer with local authorities and then come back to him with a strategy for restoring
the peace that did not necessitate a massive federal force, which could appear heavy-
handed considering the protest was still relatively small.

“I think it would backfire,” Barr told Trump.

Milley was unusually quiet in the meeting, but added his voice at that point to say
he agreed with Barr. Eventually, Miller piped up to argue that there would be nothing
wrong with a large show of force beating back a small group. He said something along
the lines of, “If you only have a few demonstrators and you can handle them, just han-
dle them and it will go away.

“Clearly the city has lost operational control of the situation,” Miller added, arguing
for invoking the Insurrection Act.

Perhaps it was the number of times Barr had been summoned to the White House
for this same discussion, or the number of times he had had to beat back the idea
of military troops on American streets, but the attorney general cracked at Miller’s
suggestion.

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 16d

The very first reference in JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is to Razib Khan, a pseudoscientific racist. "Vance has told me that some of my writing on the historical origins of the Scots-Irish made him aware that he was not just a white American, that he had a very particular ethnicity…"

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 10h

In 2020, Stephen Miller’s fantasy of deploying troops on the streets was rebuffed by both the DOJ and the DOD. He didn't forget.

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 21h

The media, including the NYT, were complicit in making the Tea Party protests seem larger and more organic than they actually were.

Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

Supporting the Tea Party propaganda's victory in the 2010 midterms doomed the comprehensive immigration reform, along with other Obama initiatives. We are reaping what was sown back then.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/politics/13protestweb.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/us/politics/13protest.html

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 20h

Stephen Miller can't forget being told to shut the fuck up by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Alone...

Going into that weekend, Trump gathered Meadows, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, and other top advisers in the Oval Office to plan an end to the protests. The president wanted to deploy the military, both in Washington and elsewhere in the country. Sitting in front of the Resolute Desk, facing the president, Esper and Milley warned Trump that deploying active-duty troops on American streets was almost never a good idea, and especially not to handle civil unrest. Milley’s opposition to the use of military force domestically was well known throughout the Pentagon.

From the back of the room, Stephen Miller piped up. Though Miller had previously
only worked as a congressional staffer and had zero military experience, he was
highly regarded by the president for his hard-edged nationalism and innate under-
standing of how to cater to Trump’s political base. He egged on Trump to use armed
troops.

“Mr. President, you have to show strength,” Miller said. “They’re burning the coun-
try down.”

Milley, nothing if not blunt with his counsel, whipped his head around and locked
eyes with Miller. The general didn’t like much of anything that Miller had to say about dealing with protests. He had told aides he considered him a Rasputin character, always whispering devilish ideas in the king’s ear. Milley raised his arm to point a finger in Miller’s direction, staring at him as he did so.

“Stephen, shut the fuck up,” Milley snapped. “They’re not burning the fucking
country down.”

Then he turned back to Trump. The president’s obsession with tapping the mili-
tary’s might led the Pentagon to keep at the ready data it had never needed before, so
Milley could fight fire with facts. The chairman’s office got updated counts of the total number of law enforcement officers and National Guard available in every major city in the United States.

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 21h

The media, including the NYT, were complicit in making the Tea Party protests seem larger and more organic than they actually were.

Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

Supporting the Tea Party propaganda's victory in the 2010 midterms doomed the comprehensive immigration reform, along with other Obama initiatives. We are reaping what was sown back then.

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Reposted by Weary Throat

Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 2d

"Our Constitution is different, and the difference is in three words; it almost escapes everyone. The three words are, ‘We the people.’ Our Constitution is a document in which we the people tell the Government what its powers are. And it can have no powers other than those listed in that document."

Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With the Students and Faculty at Moscow State University

053188b

www.reaganlibrary.gov

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

Soros’s "open society" philanthropy has been inspired by Karl Popper, the original "no kings" anti-fascist. Alexander Dugin, the Russian fascist philosopher, advised his followers to read Karl Popper’s 1945 book because "enemies of the free society are us." Popper was writing about fascists.

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

"He was zealous in his defense of democracy and his condemnation of autocracy. His passion sometimes gave rise to his famous temper. But that temper was always directed at those who threatened what he held so dear—the freedom, liberty, and humaneness denied him for over half a decade in a POW camp."

John McCain and the Meaning of Courage

The late U.S. Senator John McCain's life was one marked by courage, empathy, pride, and determination.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Reposted by Weary Throat

Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

Supporting the Tea Party propaganda's victory in the 2010 midterms doomed the comprehensive immigration reform, along with other Obama initiatives. We are reaping what was sown back then.

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

Supporting the Tea Party propaganda's victory in the 2010 midterms doomed the comprehensive immigration reform, along with other Obama initiatives. We are reaping what was sown back then.

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Reposted by Weary Throat

James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 1d

Those with sharp eyes might detect a subtle difference in NYT play last month of an event in one city, w 100,000+ attendees, versus play this morning of some 2500+ events w many millions of attendees, in all 50 states.

See if you can spot it! /s

Then you can find today's story on p A23

Front page of NYT on September 22, 2025, with large top-of-page photo of a Charlie Kirk memorial service, and the lead page-one story on the same topic.

Front page of today's NYT, Oct 19, with no story about the nationwide protests, and a "below the fold" montage of two photos, and a link to a story on page 23.

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

"He was zealous in his defense of democracy and his condemnation of autocracy. His passion sometimes gave rise to his famous temper. But that temper was always directed at those who threatened what he held so dear—the freedom, liberty, and humaneness denied him for over half a decade in a POW camp."

John McCain and the Meaning of Courage

The late U.S. Senator John McCain's life was one marked by courage, empathy, pride, and determination.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

That’s when Arthur Finkelstein, who later helped elect Orban and Netanyahu, first tried his style. "Starting as a polltaker with Jesse Helms's first campaign in 1972, Finkelstein developed a simple set of principles. Focus on your opponent, not your own candidate..." www.newsweek.com/get-ready-ru...

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 1d

Jesse Helms and Tom Ellis met in 1950 while working on the Willis Smith campaign. In 1970, they both switched to the Republican Party. Ellis encouraged Helms to run for office and remained the mastermind behind the Helms operation (The National Congressional Club), which helped bring Reagan to power

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Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 1d

After a week of ridiculous Republican smears and Trump claiming that “very few people are going to be there,” you just made history. #NoKings

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David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 2d

Both capitulation and resistance are contagious. Make the right choice.

capitolhunters @capitolhunters.bsky.social · 2d

Now 5 have joined. 4 remain.

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Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 2d

No matter where you live or if you’ve never protested before, there’s a local No Kings Day event for you. Join a peaceful protest to make it clear that We The People will never bow down to a wannabe king: www.nokings.org?SQF_SOURCE=i... #NoKings

A map of the over 2,700 events planned across the US for No Kings Day on Saturday, October 18.

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 2d

"Our Constitution is different, and the difference is in three words; it almost escapes everyone. The three words are, ‘We the people.’ Our Constitution is a document in which we the people tell the Government what its powers are. And it can have no powers other than those listed in that document."

Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With the Students and Faculty at Moscow State University

053188b

www.reaganlibrary.gov

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 2d

Jaffa had a notable feud with Mel Bradford, the original paleoconservative. "Bradford would never come right out and defend slavery. You can’t do that these days. Instead of defending slavery, he attacks Lincoln."

Prof. M.E. Bradford, a conservative political theorist from Texas who is known for his writings criticizing Abraham Lincoln, emerged today as the leading contender to be named chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

A high-ranking White House official said Professor Bradford's appointment was being pressed by the Administration as a concession to conservative supporters of President Reagan who were angered by his choice of Judge Sandra Day O'Connor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Word of Professor Bradford's impending appointment, which the White House official described as imminent, upset some people regarded as more moderate conservatives, who mounted an effort to block the nomination. 'Candidate of the Old Right'

''You'd have to call me the candidate of the old right,'' Professor Bradford said by telephone from his home in Dallas, acknowledging that he was being opposed by people now being described as new conservatives.

https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/20/us/texan-set-to-get-endowment-post.html

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 2d

Never too late for a "Reichstag moment," which was avoided in January 2021. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Alone...

Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes
of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military. He had also
shared his concerns with a few trusted peers. They and several others were worried,
too. The night of January 2, Milley got a heads-up from a former defense secretary
that all ten living former secretaries of defense had reached the same conclusion.
They were about to publish an opinion piece in The Washington Post warning the cur-
rent Pentagon leaders they should never allow the military to be used to settle elec-
tion disputes or interrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

A student of history, Milley saw Trump as the classic authoritarian leader with
nothing to lose. He described to aides that he kept having this stomach-churning feel-
ing that some of the worrisome early stages of twentieth-century fascism in Germany
were replaying in twenty-first-century America. He saw parallels between Trump’s
rhetoric of election fraud and Adolf Hitler’s insistence to his followers at the Nurem-
berg rallies that he was both a victim and their savior.

“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides. “The gospel of the Fihrer.”

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Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 4d

Extraordinary NEW story: We Found That More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. @nicolefoy.bsky.social w/ photos by @sbmaneyphoto.bsky.social

More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days.

The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...

www.propublica.org

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 4d

Fascist fashion was present in America before, but failed to gain ground.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/13/lens/photographing-the-white-south-in-the-turbulence-of-the-1960s.html

Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 4d

Before giving in to pressure and firing the student newspaper's editor, the University of Colorado president, Quigg Newton, tried to defend his students. He resigned the following year. www.nytimes.com/1962/10/06/a...

The argument had become so heated that Senator Goldwater had accused the university's president, Quigg Newton, of not knowing what was going oh on his own campus and therefore being unfit to hold the position he does. President Newton made a sharp answer Wednesday in a published letter upholding the principle of academic democracy at the university. "We have a genuine democracy of ideas on our camups,' he wrote the Arizona Republican. "We have fought long and hard to achieve it, and the fight has been against those who- like yourself-believe the function of a university is to indoctrinate, rather than educate; to control thought, rather than to stimulate it. "The cry you raise has a very familiar ring to us: 'You must silence those who do not agree with me!' Senator, I shall not silence them."

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Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · 4d

Vought’s name appears in the 2019 articles of impeachment. The GOP members of Congress had a chance to vote correctly the first time.

Weary Throat @sfomel.bsky.social · Sep 20

Vought’s undermining of the Constitution began when he assisted Trump in illegally blocking aid to Ukraine in 2019. His name appears in Trump’s articles of impeachment. www.npr.org/2019/12/10/7...

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