game over for the log cabin republicans

No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen · @NoLieWithBTC · 10:48 AM · Jun 18, 2022
NEW: The Texas Republican Party has voted to shut out Log Cabin Republicans, an organization of gay Republicans, from participating in their convention. Log Cabin Republicans just said it is “shameful” they they are being “excluded” and that Republicans are being “narrow-minded.”

Hey, @LogCabinGOP - get out of denial.

The Federalist Society thinks Lawrence v. Texas was wrong and should be scrapped like Roe, and states should be able to make YOU illegal.

You're no longer useful to them, and they've never intended to stop with the "icky" queers.

Wake up.

I mean, I get it. In the 90s and 2000s, you could make a real argument that as otherwise-conservatives, you'd do a lot better for queers in general within the @GOP trying to make our rights bipartisan. It's good theory, at least.

The @GOP never thought of you as conservatives - they thought not only were you not conservatives, you could not be conservatives because of being gay. And they'd say so, straight up.

Changing that was the mission. I get it.

But once fundamentalist culture took over your party in the late 1990s - the political culture they brought with them as they filled the @GOP rank and file - that set the clock ticking, and for a while now, that game has been over.

You're no longer useful to them, @LogCabinGOP - and they're telling you in clear terms.

They hate you just as much as they hate the rest of us. When I say "they'll make us ALL illegal again if they can"...

...that includes you.

Yeah. They really will.

Wake up.

Game's over.

the texas plan

Scott Braddock · @scottbraddock · 11:30 AM · Jun 17, 2022
Final version, apparently, of the @TexasGOP's legislative priorities
[Screenshot of priorities including "Convention of States"]

A "convention of states" is otherwise known as a Constitutional Convention and they can literally do whatever the hell they want to the Constitution. It's called the Texas Plan, and here's the agenda.

Mind you, shit that come out still has to be approved by the states, but, well.

This would basically re-create a 19th century Federal government.

I keep telling people local elections matter. I mean it.

The thing I keep wondering here is if they manage to push this shit through and 38 states won't go for it and they can't get it passed, whether they'll pull an Articles of Confederation and just say "whelp we're America now, you keep doing that old shit" to everyone else.

I mean, obviously, the bigger players will want to force it on us. But the extra-right radicals (like the Georgia lunatic) keep going back to that whole "national divorce" idea, right?

They'd be able to hold power more easily in a mostly-white ethnostate.

An imperial one, of course, modelled after Putin's Russia, shoving around the remnant states of the previous-constitution USA. That might be "good enough" for them. They'll want it all, but they settle for "the heartland," deciding the rest of us are too much trouble for the return and "aren't worth having." It's a traditional imperial solution, so it might apply here.

See, when I talk about the @GOP only accepting elections they're guaranteed to win, I'm thinking particularly about Wisconsin, where they basically can't be voted out. They'd have to lose the popular vote by a minimum of 20 points to lose power.

I think particularly about 2018, where the @GOP lost the legislative popular vote in Wisconsin by over six percentage points (6.24%) and kept a supermajority in the legislature. Not just a majority - a supermajority that could override any veto.

They've fought tooth and nail to keep it that way, because these are the elections the @GOP want everywhere.

I also think of North Carolina. 50% of the popular Congressional vote to Democrats, 49.5% to Republicans: Democratic majority.

In their delegation, 8 Republicans, 5 Democrats: 61.5% @GOP supermajority.

This is the @GOP plan: fuck voters, we rule forever.

They've done it where they can, and they'll keep doing it whereever else they can, because they do not believe in free elections, and do not believe in loyal opposition.

If you give them power, this is how they use it. Gerrymandering to insure permanent majorities; constitutional conventions to scrap anything in their way.

And if all that doesn't work, they'll launch a coup.

Like they just did. And which they're still defending, right now.

The @GOP is not a republican party, and they show you so every. single day. Believe them, because they mean it.

So whenever I hear some "progressive" spouting off about how Biden has to "earn" their vote, it makes me want to throw bricks, because the Republicans want to end the goddamn republic, and frankly, that's all it should fucking take to get you to vote D.

You want better Democrats? Me too. PAY ATTENTION TO PRIMARIES, THAT'S HOW YOU GET THEM. Then vote (D) in November, because today's @GOP does not share power and in power will do whatever it takes to make your vote not matter ever again.

They care about power. And that's it.

I mean, they launched a coup attempt and are defending it to this day, regret nothing, and they'll do it again if they can. They say so.

And I don't know why I can't make that sink in.

my nickel-plating solution works ^_^

My first nickel-plating! Of a piece of test wire but that's not important what's important is it works!


I did it with the solution I made myself, keeping DC below 3 amps. That meant a higher voltage than often recommended, but I had very good control over the amount of power going through the system and it was pretty even!

After a few minutes I found I'd added about 0.05mm to the wire, is around a quarter additional thickness - the bare strands are, my calipers tell me, are 0.20 to 0.22mm.

I don't know if that's a lot? But it was still going so I could've added more.

Mostly I just wanted to see if it would work and if the nickel would just fall off but it doesn't seem to, not even when I'm abusing it for the calipers. So I think that's a good sign. The wire was, importantly, factory clean in that I'd just stripped the insulation off.

Here's a close-up of the donor bar/anode, which I think is pretty. You can really see where the atoms came from! I bet I could do this a lot more evenly, if I wanted.


Anyway, VICTORY FOR TAK!