Charles 🌞Sunshine🌞 Sprickman

Friendly local sysadmin/web guy ☜

Get out your lead-pipe pipe dreams ✴︎

Get out your ten-foot flags ✴︎

The insects are huge and the poison's all been used ✴︎

[Charles 🌞Sunshine🌞 Sprickman @CSS_Sporklab]

just posting to pin, because this legit looks to be the plan (and they'll somehow also give ICE a bigger budget)

[Dr Rhonda Garad Difficult by Design @RhondaGarad]

Any thought the US would pull away from Israel after being dragged into an economy-crippling war, the rape, pillage, and genocide in Gaza and Lebanon, and earning the hatred of the world? Nope. They’re handing over control of their military now.

[Ali Harb @Harbpeace]

“Regular citizens that do not share my faith or ethnicity have been showing up at town halls, saying, ‘Why are you cutting SNAP and why are you starving Gaza?'” - @RashidaTlaib
https://t.co/3P57sZWxWm

[Dr. Sadaf Jaffer @sadafjaffer]

@herbconaway @RepJoshG @DonaldNorcross want to see the carnage and killing in Lebanon continue. Shame on you! This is not what New Jersey voters sent you to Washington to do!

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

The House voted today on a new measure to fuse elements of the Israeli and US militaries, particularly on the cyberweapons front. Section 224, as its known, is included in the National Defense Authorization Act. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., introduced an amendment to strip it from the bill. Watch as a stream of Republicans and Democrats stand up in support of the enhanced cooperation. Only Rep. Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.) joined Khanna, and the measure failed in a voice vote. Watch:

[moe tkacik @moetkacik]

wrote about the time the New York Times killed a story about a girl impregnated by the Meir Kahane, the terrorist idol & spiritual leader of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir & modern Israel

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

It's kind of wild to find out that the Republican in the NYT story that says she had a toxic relationship with Graham Platner is Lyndsey Fifield. Having been in DC for too long, I know a decent number of people who know her quite well. For a long time she was the co-host of a podcast with her best friend Bethany Mandel, called Ladybrains, though she has also worked for multiple super PACs, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Heritage Foundation.

Some background, presented without judgment: In 2014, Fifield began work as digital director for American Action Network, a Republican Super PAC that oversees House races. The next year she became social media manager for the Heritage Foundation, where she stayed for the next seven years.

In 2022, she joined the Super PAC backing Nikki Haley for president, switching to the official campaign side the next year, and staying until the campaign flamed out. She now lists herself as a visiting fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a prominent dark money group that is best known for helping usher Brett Kavanaugh on to the Supreme Court and giving Susan Collins the talking points she needed to make her decisive speech in his favor.

The NYT breezed past all this, saying she was "a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns."

In an interview for a news outlet called Red Alert Politics that named her to a “30 under 30” list back in 2016, she said that she wanted to “emulate the late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart’s approach to online activism.” Breitbart, known for pushing the boundaries when it came to political combat, is perhaps best remembered for having exposed Anthony Weiner’s penchant for sending nudes to young girls, and for his work elevating James O’Keefe.

That she worked for Independent Women's Forum recently is even wilder since IWF played a critical role in Kavanaugh's confirmation and in persuading Collins to support it.

Heather Higgins, chair of IWF, laid out the group’s role in a talk several years ago. “We wrote a memo. It was used by a lot of members of the Senate and the House, Fox News, and elsewhere. Most important, Susan Collins told me that without that memo, she would not see how to support him,” Higgins said. “And if you look at the speech she gave on the Senate floor, it’s entirely the playing out and architecture of how we said to structure the argument — what to say and how to say it, which is just so gratifying. We’re watching TV and we’re like, ‘That’s ours! That’s ours!’”

Meanwhile, the timeline Fifield gives of their relationship is confusing, because during at least some of that time she was actually dating a different person, her longterm boyfriend who became her fiancee before she called off the wedding in 2018. We all know this because she and Mandel did a podcast episode on it that went mega-viral in Republican circles back then. Apparently this is the kind of thing the NYT thinks is important now, so I guess it requires more reporting. I'll report back.

Here is Heather Higgins celebrating IWF's role in getting Susan Collins to confirm Kavanaugh:

[Alex JER-dun @alexjordanATL]

"Last I checked, Netanyahu doesn't have a seat on this committee" -@RepRoKhanna

[Charles 🌞Sunshine🌞 Sprickman @CSS_Sporklab]

Everyone should read Luna's wikipedia page, almost every "fact" from her bio is refuted by friends or family, it's pretty bonkers.

https://t.co/e42BVl9iW5

[Max Blumenthal @MaxBlumenthal]

Anna Paulina Luna is a pathological liar with a fake name who has buried elements of her life story.

So it's no surprise she would fabricate a violent attack.

But there's a more salient issue that has been lost in the drama: Luna (real name: Meyerhofer) has been targeting Medea Benjamin and Code Pink in a McCarthyite witch hunt with no concrete basis, accusing them of being Chinese agents based entirely on innuendo.

Luna's bogus investigation and her fake assault claims are of a part. Both are designed to criminalize antiwar dissenters and ensure that warmongers like herself are never challenged to their face by American citizens.

[Charles 🌞Sunshine🌞 Sprickman @CSS_Sporklab]

@RepLuna https://t.co/amVfeN8QSC

[Frankie Stockes @realStockes]

Rep. Anna Paulina (Mayerhofer) Luna’s ‘assault’ claim is part of a much wider pattern of members of Congress calling federal police and/or filing charges on citizens who ask questions.

They want the American People barred from Capitol Hill so they can commit treason in private.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

This vote, to fuse the Israeli and US militaries, is happening right now in the Armed Services Committee.

@RoKhanna has introduced an amendment to the NDAA to block it. Watch here: https://t.co/PLo3eILQnk

[Charles 🌞Sunshine🌞 Sprickman @CSS_Sporklab]

@BadTakeEnjoyer @KFILE guess Rudy solved all the crime and we can just shut this thing down. Maybe do some $4k/mo affordable housing after the place is “clean”.

[🌼🌹Raquel🌹🌼 @eternallyRaq]

I was right about Jasmine Crockett.

And thankfully, since she did not win that primary and she left her House seat, she will be out of Congress next year. She can go be vindictive, petty, spiteful, narcissistic trash elsewhere.

[Charles 🌞Sunshine🌞 Sprickman @CSS_Sporklab]

@BadTakeEnjoyer @KFILE I mean is either good?

[Mahmoud Khalil | محمود خليل @mahmoudkhalel]

To correct the record: Rep. Espaillat did not reach out to me or my family when I was detained or during the months that followed. He only contacted my team nearly a year later, after Darializa publicly challenged him. As I've said before, it's unfortunate that he chose to prioritize AIPAC's interests over those of the people living in his own district.

[Wyatt Reed @wyattreed13]

I’m not sure this is understood in the West, so I want to emphasize:

Al Risala are Lebanese *Boy Scouts.*

They belong to the Lebanese Scouting Federation, the local affiliate of the World Organization of the Scout Movement.

The US affiliate is the Boy Scouts of America.

After Al Risala Scouts turn 18, they often become Scout leaders who serve as EMTs, firefighters, and search-and-rescue teams.

In the past 2 months, Israel has killed 27 Al Risala Scouts, Troop leaders, and associated young adult rescue workers.

Here are some of young Scouts killed by Israel. Neither the Boy Scouts of America nor the World Organization of the Scout Movement have condemned their murders.

[Charles 🌞Sunshine🌞 Sprickman @CSS_Sporklab]

@ZaidJilani Has Duckworth spoken up for him at all recently?

[Ash J @AshAgony]

This is all so ridiculous. He was basically denouncing Israel & NYU & comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Now he's seriously facing hate crime charges for protesting/criticizing NYU's involvement with a genocidal ethnostate!

[Remi Kanazi @Remroum]

What’s wild is that these folks are funding genocide, mass murdering families across the globe, stripping away women’s rights in the US, and enacting violent policies against their own citizens, then when you brush their elbow mid convo they talk about bodily autonomy

[Hamid Bendaas 🇩🇿🇵🇸 @HBendaas]

Obviously condemnable behavior but interesting to see this panicked tactic out of the GOP for a vote that they could just whip against and move off of. Mast and Miller are not exactly superstars heading down there to make the sales pitch, they’re the true believers

[Vet_TX_vet23 @VetTx23]

This is the Israel first guy that lied us into Iraq. The guy he is smearing is a veteran and trauma surgeon who saved countless of soldiers in Iraq. You decide. 🫡