iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Kamala lost specifically because she adamantly supported genocide, but now you claim the ongoing genocide is the fault of those who refused to support genocide by voting for genocide supporter Harris. To quote your guy Genocide Joe, “Come on, man…”

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Yes, I know, saving the integrity of that library against the depredations of Noem is small-bore stuff in comparison with the scale of the ongoing genocide. But small-bore is all we can expect from Sanders.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Sanders always has been horrible on international issues. But this is a new low, even for him. Hey @sanders.senate.gov how about you stop sucking up to Trump and Noem? How about if instead you ensyrethey don’t destroy the library that straddles the Vermont-Quebec line? archive.ph/yourU

Headline from the Boston Globe, March 21, 2025:

“US to limit Canadian access to beloved cross-border library where Kristi Noem taunted hosts”

There is a photograph of the Haskell Free Library, which straddles the U.S.-Canada border. Half of the Victorian building with a fabled roof is located in Vermont; half, in Quebec.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Connelly gave DOGE a two-week deadline. If he knows he isn’t going to get Republican support, and that “DOGE” will IGNORE his polite request, he should have made the deadline next day.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

What were the Democrats up to during the political career of Trump hero William McKinley? They were nominating William Jennings Bryan, three times. Bryan never won—but he succeeded at destroying the Dems’ competition to their left, the Populist Party. There is a lesson to be learned.

wsws.org

William Jennings Bryan and the rise and decline of the Progressive Era

A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan by Michael Kazin (Alfred A Knopf, New York, 2006), 400 pages

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Trump fascists are not hiding their intention. Trump regularly is using frivolous lawsuits to extort tens of millions from corporate news outlets that have regulatory matters in front of agencies that now are headed by Trump lackies. www.wsws.org/en/articles/...

wsws.org

Corporate media bosses bow to Trump demands

Major newspapers and television networks are restructuring their coverage and their personnel in line with the demands of the new administration.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Elon bought the White House; a supine, groveling Congress; and the corrupt Supreme Court for a mere quarter-billion. Cheap! Twitter cost him $44 billion, most of which he borrowed from the Saudis.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I like the U.S. team. That’s a fearsome roster. The problem is, they represent the U.S.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

…on his own label, which are available through Bandcamp, which offers artists a much better deal than they can get from Apple, iTunes or Spotify. That’s the way for musicians to go. The major services are IP squatters as far as I am concerned.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

I have a friend who is a working jazz musician. He does pretty well, but that requires constant touring—mostly in the EU and Japan, because the U.S. does not respect American Classical music, i.e., jazz. He self-produces digital and CD releases…

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

“…Taylor Swift to be included in the subscription. Spotify has not announced a fresh deal with Sony Music, the third major record label and home to stars such as Beyoncé.”

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

From the article at the above link: “Spotify will charge $18 a month for the new service and debut it later this year after sealing fresh licensing deals with Universal Music and Warner Music to allow their copyrighted songs from artists such as Kendrick Lamar and…

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Spotify is going to enshittify its music streaming service unless its subscribers pay a 50% tax for “premium” service—an extra $6 per month, for non-lossy audio. I wouldn’t mind if the money were going to artists not named Taylor, Beyoncé or Kendrick. archive.ph/q6Yz0

archive.ph

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

6/ …The TL;DR is this: Democrats MUST do better than stale, failed, incremental, neoliberal programs like the ACA if the party is to find its way back to the majority. That new approach requires aggressive advocacy for social programs that bring fundamental change. Starting with Medicare For All.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

4/ Ask yourself: why would Baucus do that if private health insurance is superior to Medicare? Yet the Democrats insist on defending the ACA, rather than fighting like hell to replace it with Medicare For All—which will cover everyone for a fraction of the cost. www.citizen.org/news/fact-ch...

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

3/ …because they were likely to, or already had, come down with asbestosis or mesothelioma, from mining vermiculite while employed for W.R. Grace Co. They still are the only non-retired, non-disabled citizens with #Medicare…

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

1/ @ayannapressley.bsky.social Little known fact: the main sponsor of the ACA as it worked its way through the Senate was Max Baucus. The hearings were contentious: he had many protesters arrested for interrupting with demands for #MedicareForAll. Baucus rammed the bill into law, but as he did so…

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Elon and Trump call every Congressionally-mandated allocation that they disagree with “fraud.” But that is not fraud. It is a funding decision they disagree with, and which is illegal to block. They have violated the law this way hundreds of times already. www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/...

aljazeera.com

Have Trump, Musk and DOGE really unearthed ‘fraud’ in government?

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk allege federal fraud in projects relating to diversity and climate change.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Excellent turnout, with a Nor’Easter s out to hit Boston! Solidarity 💪

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

And once anyone sees it, they cannot unsee it. It may take a while, but this realization by the many will lead to Elo’s downfall.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Thank you. We must have a zero-tolerance policy toward this linguistic trend. It is the bourgeoisie’s gateway drug to Trumpian fascism. If we do not stamp it out now, I don’t want to see what it leads to next. nymag.com/intelligence...

Excerpt from “The Cruel Kids’ Table: Among the young, confident, and casually cruel Trumpers who, after conquering Washington, have their sights set on America,” New York Magazine, 27 January 2025:

It's true that over the past few months since Trump was reelected, I had begun to feel these young conservatives' influence seeping into my own polite circles like The Substance. We no longer had any patience for the identity warriors on our timelines. A friend and I started swapping clips of Megyn Kelly on Instagram; we thought they were hilarious. (Our favorite was her take on the fires in L.A.: "The last thing I want to see if I'm in a burning brilding is (a) a woman and (b) an obese woman.") I was unleashed: the R-word, fat jokes. No one, not even the bleeding hearts I know, ever seemed to get all that offended - the only time I lost friends in the past year for political reasons was debating the war in Gaza - and mostly, even if they wouldn't say it themselves, they chuckled. "OMG you're tacky for that one," one would text me back, in those moments. It felt freeing, empowering, though perhaps in the same way that bullying someone does when you're in middle school.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

The O’Neill-Kaluta run of The Shadow, published by DC in the 1970s, is outstanding.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Anyone who uses the demeaning, retrograde “hard R” will be blocked immediately. Be creative and find an insult that is not a slur.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

I mean … the admins at the U.S. Treasury. They just walked away. It makes no sense.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

It is appalling that you must endure this, Sheryl. Never has it been more true: none of us are free until all of us are free.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

At every IT firm I have worked, the SysAdmin has guarded the network, and admin privileges, like an angry Doberman. I am astonished that not one of the government agency StsAdmins has told a DOGE twerp to go fck himself.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

They’re pissy 19-year-olds who never have been in a fight. Like that Corestine dink. No one ever has told ‘em no. There needs to be a first time.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

Why are systems administrators handing their IT systems over to these goons? They have no legal authority, because they work for Elon, who has no legal authority. The SysAdmin should just punch the DOGE goon in the head, and shove him out the door.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Everyone should call their local bank to ask the branch manager exactly how the bank is protecting your funds from a “DOGE” smash-and-grab theft. NYT report: “FEMA Seizes $80 Million in Approved Funding for N.Y.C. Migrant Shelters” 👇 archive.ph/bWKSl

archive.ph

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Reposted by Wally Ballou!

Maya Media @mayamedia.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

Oh, noes! Sharing this will make Elon sad! Don’t do it!

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

2/ “…No dominant group survives without accomplices willing to work and scheme with their oppressors.” www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/11/o...

bostonglobe.com

As Trump attacks LGBTQ rights, Republicans quietly accept an out Cabinet secretary’s sexuality - The Boston Globe

That’s not progress. It’s hypocrisy.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

1/ “None of this is to invite into [“out” Treasury Secretary] Bessent’s life the scorn the LGBTQ community is facing ... It’s to name him as a collaborator in the dangers his boss is heaping on vulnerable people. No dominant group survives…

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

That is precisely what defines the present circumstances as a crisis.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

TIL Elon is the sort of diseased Nazi scum who enjoys using “the hard R.”

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

It is becoming more obvious by the hour that, in late 2023, the feds and university admins decided to attack campus pro-Palestine / anti-genocide faculty and students specifically to set a precedent for adherence to a general requirement for obedience in advance. Rule by fear.

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Reposted by Wally Ballou!

Megan Greenwell @greenwell.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

I am extremely freaking thrilled to announce that Bad Company is *officially* available for preorder wherever you buy books. (I am linking to Bookshop but buy it wherever!) I worked so, so hard on this book, and it would mean a ton to me if you ordered it. bookshop.org/a/109816/978...

The cover of my book Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream, which shows an abandoned Toys R Us under an ominous sky.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

The Secret Service is facing in the wrong direction.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Mussolini also thought he was the state, and all powerful. And look how he ended up. Trump should learn from history. But he is illiterate. So he won’t. www.ibtimes.co.uk/unseen-pictu...

ibtimes.co.uk

Unseen Pictures of Mussolini's Corpse [GRAPHIC IMAGES]

A documentary about Italy's ruthless dictator Benito Mussolini will show unseen images of the tyrant's corpse.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Oddly, the strongest opposition to a U.S.-Canada merger is in the Northeast US (all of whose states voted for Harris) and Trump supporters. An anomalous result! I’d wager that the two groups gave the same answer for starkly opposed reasons, whatever they were. today.yougov.com/politics/art...

today.yougov.com

Binational poll: Most Canadians and many Americans oppose Canada joining the U.S. | YouGov

Nearly all Canadians (77%) strongly or somewhat oppose Canada becoming part of the U.S., while 15% of Canadians support it.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

Whatever you do, don’t drop it! Those are my favorite Mary Lou Williams sides.

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Wally Ballou! @wallyballou.bsky.social · 09/02/2025

My dream is to own one of Mary Lou Williams’ shellac 78 RM releases for Mo Asch. My sister has a vintage, wind-up 78 RPM player she inherited from a grandparent. Beautiful item!

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