This is fucking insane.
The Trump DOJ just stood in federal court and said with a straight face that the authoritarian regime could bulldoze the Statue of Liberty tomorrow โ and there's nothing anyone could do about it.
When a judge asked point-blank: "If the government decides to destroy the Statue of Liberty before anyone can sueโฆ nothing can be done?" The DOJ lawyer answered: "I think that's right, yes."
Let that sink in.
They're openly admitting they believe Trump has the power to erase one of America's most sacred symbols โ the literal beacon of freedom for millions of immigrants โ and the courts can't stop them in time.
This is authoritarian, dangerous, un-American bullshit.
The Statue of Liberty isn't their property to demolish on a whim. It belongs to the American people.
Wake the hell up, y'all!
Just curious. For the maga folk. I realize you made trump your entire identity and you feel like you have to defend him no matter what because you take it as a personal attack on yourself but do you ever feel just a tad bit embarrassed when you look yourself in the mirror? Have you at any point been like, "what am I doing?"
One day, when it is safer to tell the full story, I will publish the names of every person who attempted to threaten, intimidate, harass, or silence me after I began this investigation. Some of the names will shock you.
Until then, I will keep reporting. I will keep documenting.
I see your profile picture. Thatโs Johnny Cash. My hero too. Arrested seven times. Smuggled 668 amphetamines across the Mexican border in 1965. Took every drug there was and drank like I did. Cheated on his first wife. Slept with more woman than I ever did. Hit bottom in a cave in Tennessee in 1968 trying to crawl off and die. And then he got up. He got clean. He spent the rest of his life singing for prisoners and addicts and the people the country threw away because he knew he was one of them.
That was the whole point of the Man in Black. He wore it for the poor and the beaten down. He wore it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime. He wore it for the ones who never heard a word of Jesus. He wore it for the addicted and the dying. He wore it as a standing witness that no one is past saving.
You picked his picture. You did not pick his message. Try listening to the words.
USA. Summer. It is 95 degrees outside, and I am shivering inside a sandwich shop.
I have discovered how Americans forge strong souls.
Outside, the sun is trying to kill everyone. Inside this small restaurant, it is winter. My breath does not fog, but it is thinking about it. A man near me is eating a cold sandwich while wearing a jacket. In summer. Indoors.
In Japan we would simply turn it down. Americans do not turn it down. And now I understand them better than they understand themselves.
This cold is not an accident. This cold is a gift.
The owner has built, inside his shop, a second season. He invites you in from the brutal heat and hands you the one thing the sun has denied you all day: a reason to be cold. To endure it is to be tempered. You walk in soft and sweating. You walk out sharp and clear, a slightly stronger person than you were.
So I did not complain. I removed my outer layer and offered it to the woman at the next table, who was hugging herself. She said, "Oh, no, I'm fine, thank you." She was not fine. Her lips were blue. But she, too, understood the training. She would not break first. I respected her deeply.
The owner asked if everything was okay.
"It is perfect," I said, through my teeth, which were chattering. "Thank you for the winter."
He said, "...I can turn the AC down if you want?"
I told him no. A man does not ask the mountain to be shorter.
I stayed two hours. I ordered a hot coffee to survive. Then a second one, to hold. By the end I could no longer feel my hands, but my spirit had never been clearer.
So now, on the hottest days, I seek out the coldest rooms. I sit. I shiver. I sharpen.
And when I finally step back out into the summer heat, and it wraps around me like a warm bath, I feel it.
Reborn.
A man who has survived the winter, in August, indoors, for the price of a sandwich.