Hey, MAGA chuds! The reason your friends think you’re a racist piece of shit, even though you really voted for the border the babies the tax cuts blah blah blah? Is because you have fully gotten in bed with these despicable racist pieces of shit, and at this point who can tell the difference:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to take the rare step of renaming a ship, one that bears the name of a gay rights icon, documents and sources show.
Military.com reviewed a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy — the official who holds the power to name Navy ships — that showed the sea service had come up with rollout plans for the renaming of the oiler ship USNS Harvey Milk.
But that’s not racist, you cry. Harvey Milk was gay, but he was white. Very true. So let’s take a look at the other vessels on the Navy’s recommended-for-renaming list:
The Harvey Milk is a John Lewis-class oiler, a group of ships that are to be named after prominent civil rights leaders and activists.
CBS reported Tuesday that the Navy is also considering renaming other John Lewis-class oilers including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and USNS Harriet Tubman. Both Marshall and Ginsburg were Supreme Court justices, and Tubman was a Black abolitionist who helped slaves escape the South via the Underground Railroad.
Just lie back and enjoy your new identity.
And while we’re on the topic of current outrages, here’s what’s going on in academia. In Indiana, the governor fired the three elected trustees for Indiana University, and replaced them with the usual suspects:
Sage Steele is a former ESPN host and commentator who parted ways with the network in 2023 after she was reprimanded for a string of remarks about Barack Obama’s racial identity, mandating the COVID-19 vaccine and more. She sued ESPN for allegedly violating her First Amendment rights to free speech.
She has since started her own podcast and YouTube show “The Sage Steele Show.” She’s also been associated with the Trump campaign, at one point rumored to be vying for Trump’s press secretary role. She denied the rumors.
James Bopp Jr. is a conservative lawyer formerly part of Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s team. He was influential in late 20th century anti-abortion campaigns by the Republican party and has campaigned to remove barriers to corporate and union funding of political campaigns.
Brian Eagle is an attorney, wealth consultant, and partner at his firm Eagle and Fein. He is a current member of the Central Indiana Community Foundation’s Cornerstone Advisory Council, a philanthropic organization with the stated values of anti-racism, authentic relationships, inclusivity, leadership, effectiveness and sustainability.
So, an ESPN dipshit, a staffer for the worst AG in recent Hoosier history and some other dude.
And in Michigan, U-M president Santa Ono resigned the presidency after only three years, announcing he was the sole finalist for the presidency of the University of Florida. Days later, he asked that his name be stricken from a letter signed by other higher-ed leaders, objecting to “unprecedented government overreach” and “political interference” in higher education. He was obviously positioning himself for a red-state higher-ed job. But then? Oh noes! The hard right in Florida decided this dude was a little too squishy on DEI, and Tuesday the state board blocked his hiring. He’s now a man without a country. And a job.
Let this be a lesson to all of you: You cannot win with MAGA. Don’t even try.
It’s fucking Wednesday.
Suzanne said on June 4, 2025 at 8:13 am
Oh Lord. James Bopp is an absolute right wing lunatic. I knew of him long before today and it isn’t good.
https://www.npr.org/2011/06/22/137318888/the-country-lawyer-shaping-campaign-finance-law.
I knew Sage Steele had gotten into some trouble with ESPN but couldn’t remember what.
I am an IU grad, my husband’s family’s ties to IU go back several generations. How sad to see a fine institution being turned into Bob Jones U by the MAGA retributionists.
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Jason T. said on June 4, 2025 at 9:31 am
Good fucking morning.
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Peter said on June 4, 2025 at 9:38 am
I know what the first order of business will be for the new trustees: “Investigate the rigged results of the 2020 Little 500!”
Seriously, I’m surprised it took them this long – Indiana has had a republican governor for decades. Or maybe they had an understanding that they could run Purdue but leave IU alone. Oh well, new order and all that.
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Peter said on June 4, 2025 at 9:44 am
Oh, and another thing – Harvey Milk was a Navy veteran, lieutenant junior grade. Just another example of someone who served more time in the military than all of the Trumps combined.
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Julie Robinson said on June 4, 2025 at 10:10 am
Does anyone remember the Purdue/Mitch Daniels deal? While he was governor, Daniels appointed all new Purdue trustees, and after his terms were over, they appointed him president of the university. No quid pro quo going on, I’m sure!
The Orlando paper has a lengthy story on Ono and the University of Florida, and it’s all clear as mud. The state eliminated making names of candidates public until it’s down the last person, so we have no way of knowing who else was under consideration. The proposed, extremely lucrative contract, had pay levels built in for achieving anti-DEI policies that conformed to the Orange King. At one point both the OK and DeathSantis approved of Ono, despite their squabbles.
From what I can read between the lines, it’s considered another blow for DeathSantis. I’ll never be sorry about that, but as a taxpayer I’m wondering how much this is gonna cost me.
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SusanG said on June 4, 2025 at 10:10 am
I live in Bloomington and enrolled at IUB in (1967). Left, retired and became what we call a “Bloomerang.”
IUB’s history was contentious-Herman Wells, a closeted gay man from the banking sector, ferociously supported Kinsey and the faculty, but threw students under the bus. Governors from both parties have had it out for IUB for decades. A great, under appreciated read is https://www.amazon.com/Dissent-Heartland-Sixties-University-Midwestern/dp/0253215579.
There’s no doubt that the university, and Bloomington, are targets for the maggots. As much as the local woo-woos get on my nerves, I love living here.
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alex said on June 4, 2025 at 10:47 am
IU alum here, also familiar with James Bopp, and he has no more business being a university trustee than Pete Hegseth does as Secretary of Defense. I’d bet that both were sociopathic kids who took delight in torturing defenseless animals, and likewise our MAGA governor. Watching these people on a power trip is more than I can take.
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Jeff Borden said on June 4, 2025 at 1:18 pm
Straight out of Project 2025. Destroy the major pillars of our society, which includes culture and education. And rewrite history, of course, to erase all but the “achievements” of straight, white, christian men.
And we’re only five months in…The damage is going to be massive and generational.
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Dexter Friend said on June 4, 2025 at 2:03 pm
Scott Bessent was with Soros Fund Management, head of the London offices. He is a married Queer with 2 children.
How did he pass muster with MAGA, he being a Yalie , to become U.S. Secretary of The Treasury?
If MAGA hates gays so much they change ships’ names on a whim, why do they appoint people like Bessent, a Soros man, at all?
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Deborah said on June 4, 2025 at 2:05 pm
Harriet Tubman was amazing, talk about a brave soul and a warrior not afraid of much if anything. She couldn’t read, her family was sold away from her, she had epilepsy or something like that from an early head injury and still she did what she did. But because she was black and a woman she can’t be celebrated now. Unbelievable.
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Sherri said on June 4, 2025 at 2:08 pm
From the New Yorker profile of Curtis Yarvin:
“Growing up, Yarvin was sometimes homeschooled by his mother, and skipped three grades. (His older brother, Norman, skipped four.) The family eventually moved to Columbia, Maryland, where Yarvin entered high school as a twelve-year-old sophomore…Yarvin was selected to participate in a Johns Hopkins study of math prodigies. He attended the university’s Center for Talented Youth, a summer camp for gifted children, and was a Baltimore-area champion on “It’s Academic,” a television trivia show…Yarvin went to Brown, graduated at eighteen, and then entered a Ph.D. program in computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. ”
This explains much to me about the erstwhile Mencius Moldbug. I knew people like him in grad school. Everyone in my grad program was used to be the smartest person around, and then you get to a place like CMU or Berkeley, and suddenly you’re surrounded by really, really smart people. Different people handle this transition better than others. Some are excited by it (“this is fun, these people are smart, I’m learning so much!”), others still want to be the smartest in the room, and don’t handle it well when they aren’t anymore. Yarvin was only 18 when he was put into this situation, and I would guess, not a particularly emotionally mature 18.
18 or 22 or 30, if you go to a top grad school program in CS determined to be the smartest in the room, you are going to have a hard time.
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Jeff Borden said on June 4, 2025 at 6:16 pm
Dexter,
One of tRump’s top toadies is a creep named Ric Grennel, who was ambassador to Germany in his first term. While there, he created great controversy by pushing far right-wing garbage in his ambassadorial role, which really pissed off the Germans, just as Elmo did with his embrace of AfD. He is very gay. He’s now running the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who bought J.D. Vance and engineered his position as veep, is also very gay. He poured a ton of money into MAGA.
If you are very rich or an attack dog for tRump, it’s OK to be gay. Just be quiet about it.
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Jeff Gill said on June 4, 2025 at 8:03 pm
Where the Project 2025 plan is heading:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/reforming-accreditation-to-strengthen-higher-education/
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alex said on June 4, 2025 at 8:51 pm
In the last generation, we had some powerful gay people because they were so badly overcompensating for it. Governor Big Jim Thompson and Roy Cohn come to mind. They would never throw their weight behind anything like gay rights. They weren’t altruists. They were dog-eat-dog survivors who threw in with the roughest and toughest and learned to master the same mind games that Trump is now playing.
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alex said on June 5, 2025 at 1:18 pm
Debating whether to attend the funeral of a former boss who was a Karen. There will be people attending whom I’d like to see. Is that the wrong reason for going?
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DavidC said on June 5, 2025 at 1:55 pm
Multi-task it Alex. Go to make sure he’s really dead.
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Peter said on June 5, 2025 at 2:37 pm
My Irish wife always says that you go to the wake or funeral not to honor the deceased but to comfort the living.
I would add that I go for the free meal, so think of it as your last chance to mooch off the guy.
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alex said on June 5, 2025 at 4:04 pm
When I said she was a Karen I thought it would be understood that she was a she.
I’m dressed up and ready to go before too long.
And speaking of catty bitches, I’m enjoying the escalating war of words between Elmo and Dumbo.
“Epstein, Epstein! Little black book!”
“Fuck you and your cars nobody wants!”
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Sherri said on June 5, 2025 at 4:24 pm
Musk spent a lot of money to buy Trump, but forgot about due diligence (Musk isn’t big on due diligence.) Trump never stays bought. Especially if you leave the room. Especially if you take the wife of the advisor who’s in his ear every day with you.
Who scares Senators up for reelection more, Musk or Trump?
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Peter said on June 5, 2025 at 5:30 pm
Alex, I thought Karen was a type that could apply to either gender. If not, what would you call a male version – Ken? No, that’s not right. Donald? Ick. Either gender’s fine by me as long as their estate is picking up the tab.
If I was a dog, my tail would have broken off from wagging so hard at Trump vs. Musk. Is it Iran vs. Iraq? Godzilla vs. Mothra? My fear is that it might be a rerun of Hitler vs. Ernst Rohm, and I need to be careful of what I wish for.
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Mark P said on June 5, 2025 at 5:46 pm
I saw a guy talking about Trump’s ICE thugs appearing in paramilitary outfits with military-grade weapons. He brought up the Chekhov’s gun rule — the guns will be used before the play is over.
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alex said on June 5, 2025 at 6:22 pm
It was actually a good ceremony. I saw everyone I wanted to see. And despite my differences with the deceased I was moved by the stories and memories that were shared by those closest to her and I even managed to put aside my differences with another former boss in attendance who was even more thankless to work for than she was.
That said, I’m so glad I’m retired. Some of my former colleagues are getting ready to take the same plunge and I was happy to give them encouragement.
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Jakash said on June 5, 2025 at 6:25 pm
The “male Karen” issue was actually discussed here at nn.c a few years ago. I’m not sure if there was a consensus, or not, but I believe Kevin was the leader in the clubhouse. Other choices were Chad, Brad, Greg, Donald. I think that since the movie “Barbie” came out, Ken is otherwise occupied. 😉
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Sherri said on June 5, 2025 at 6:56 pm
There’s a lot of talk about how Dems should do this or shouldn’t do that, and I keep seeing Marie Gluesenkamp Perez being mentioned as some sort of model for winning in red districts. I don’t think Perez has anything special other than a lucky choice of opponents.
What Perez is, is not scary. She ran both her previous campaigns against Joe Kent, who is a completely crazy scary man (and, of course, is now in the Trump administration.) Had Perez faced the previous holder of the seat, Jamie Herrera Butler, I seriously doubt Perez would have come within 10 points of Butler, who also wasn’t scary.
So, why was Kent the opponent and not Butler? Because Butler voted to impeach Trump. There are enough crazy Trumpers that even with the blanket primary, Butler finished third to Perez and Kent. But there aren’t enough crazy Trumpers to elect a scary guy like Joe Kent.
Maybe we’ll find out next year whether Perez has some sort of special sauce depending on what kind of candidate the GOP sends out.
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Jeff Borden said on June 5, 2025 at 8:10 pm
Two of the most damaged men on the planet. . .both of them needy, greedy, infantile and narcissistic. . .both beneficiaries of their father’s wealth but convinced they did it all on their own. Toxic in their relationships with 99% of humans. Deranged. Delusional. Dangerous. The world would be a better place if they both accidentally walked into the mouth of a volcano.
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