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9 ways Capitol rioters got a better deal than wrongfully deported dad
Wednesday, 23 April 2025 12:01 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
dailykos_feedYou’d think White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller’s plate would be full, what with cosplaying Slenderman and trying to cover up his ever-receding hairline. You’d also think he’d be happy, as his lifetime commitment to xenophobia and racism is finally paying off as the Trump administration gears up to deport millions.
But Miller is not happy because you people won’t stop whining about how Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongfully deported to a Salvadorean prison, is entitled to due process. You know who didn’t get due process, according to Miller? The Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
Here’s Miller over at X, Elon Musk’s Nazi bar: “If you were an American falsely accused of wrongdoing on January 6th it wasn't merely difficult to get ‘due process,’ it was impossible. The entire system was rigged against you. All of it. Those persecuted Americans could only dream of the ‘due process’ afforded illegal aliens.”
Hoo boy. Where to even start? Let’s count the myriad ways that the abduction of Abrego Garcia is not remotely similar to anything that happened to the Jan. 6 rioters.
1. The Jan. 6 rioters were actually charged with crimes.
Abrego Garcia was deported despite there being no charges against him. The Trump administration has already admitted he was deported in error, a thing they’re now trying to walk back. In contrast, the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were criminally charged as part of the largest investigation in FBI history. That investigation led to the arrest of at least 1,583 people.
That’s not evidence of some nefarious plot to deprive the insurrectionists of due process. In fact, it’s the opposite. There were roughly 10,000 people on the Capitol grounds that day, meaning nearly 85% of the rioters never even faced arrest, much less a trial or a conviction or a deportation.
2. The insurrectionists got trials and plea deals.
Out of those 1,583 arrests, 1,270 were convicted, with 1,009, or 79%, pleading guilty. Two hundred twenty-one of the Jan. 6 defendants were convicted after a trial, with an additional 40 convicted after stipulated trials, where a defendant admits to facts without agreeing they constitute a crime. That number of plea deals might seem high, but it’s lower than the typical rate in federal courts, where 89.5% of defendants pleaded guilty in fiscal year 2022.
Abrego Garcia has not been arrested. He has not been convicted. He did not get to have a trial. He did not get to make a plea deal. He was deported illegally, and the administration refuses to bring him back. Miller knows full well these things aren’t remotely comparable.
3. Nobody manufactured evidence against the Jan. 6 criminals.
It’s not just that Trump posted a doctored photograph, photoshopping “MS-13” onto Abrego Garcia’s knuckles. There’s also White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt’s now-routine habit of straight-up lying to justify the administration’s actions. Earlier this month, Leavitt called Abrego Garcia a “leader” of MS-13, but when asked to provide details, couldn’t be bothered, saying, “There’s a lot of evidence, and the Department of Homeland Security and ICE have that evidence, and I saw it this morning.”
Last week, Leavitt accused Abrego Garcia of being detained on suspicion of human trafficking, when the reality was that he was stopped for speeding and veering out of his lane.
In contrast, there was no need to manufacture evidence against the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. Hundreds of them filmed themselves rioting at the Capitol. Plenty bragged about it on social media. And, of course, the nation watched everything unfold in real time.
4. Many Jan. 6 rioters already had criminal records.
At least 159 convicted insurrectionists had previous criminal records. We’re not talking something like jaywalking here. NPR found that dozens had charges or convictions for serious crimes like manslaughter, rape, drug trafficking, domestic violence, sexual assault of a minor, and production of child sexual abuse material.
Abrego Garcia has no criminal record in the United States or El Salvador. He was arrested once in 2019 by a now-disgraced cop who later pleaded guilty to misconduct. That cop’s evidence for Abrego Garcia’s membership in MS-13? He had a Chicago Bulls cap, which the officer said was “indicative of the Hispanic gang culture.” Of course, it’s also indicative of liking the Chicago Bulls, which is not actually a crime.
5. The Supreme Court gave hundreds of the Jan. 6 rioters a little treat.
Roughly 350 of the Jan. 6 insurrectionists were charged under a federal criminal law that makes it a felony to obstruct official proceedings. You’d think that a riot that tried to block the certification of electoral votes and sent members of Congress into hiding would count as an obstruction of an official proceeding, but you’d be wrong. In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that the provision applied only to evidence tampering, not rioting.
Fun fact: This was also one of the charges against Trump, not that it matters anymore.
6. Republicans were very concerned about jail conditions for the insurrectionists.
Led by Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican members of Congress made a 2023 pilgrimage to see 20 insurrectionists housed at the D.C. jail. Greene howled about a “two-tier justice system” and declared the 20 were “political prisoners,” which is the same nonsense pushed by Trump. These were not people who were being persecuted for their beliefs. And 17 of those 20 were charged with assaulting law enforcement officers.
Greene also ostentatiously worried about the conditions at the jail, saying that inmates had been threatened and denied medical care. She’s correct that conditions at the jail have been bad for a long time, but her passion for fair treatment of the incarcerated extends only to Jan. 6 protesters.
When it comes to Abrego Garcia’s wrongful imprisonment in a notoriously violent foreign prison, Greene’s stance is that it is “dangerously close to treason” for people to advocate for Abrego Garcia’s return. So, it’s treason to demand that the government follow the laws and give Abrego Garcia the due process to which he is entitled, but it’s not treason to try to overturn an election with violence. Got it.
7. The Jan. 6 rioters had Trump in their corner.
On the campaign trail in 2024, Trump made no secret of the fact that if he were elected, he’d pardon the rioters, who he said were “hostages.” He showed up at fundraisers on their behalf. He described the violence perpetrated by his supporters as a display of “spirit and faith and love,” and said he’d never seen anything like “the love in the air” that day.
Trump was so smitten that he joined the Washington, D.C. jail inmates in song, sort of. Trump recited the “Pledge of Allegiance,” which was then layered over the “J6 Prison Choir” singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” FBI Director Kash Patel produced this monstrosity, but when he was asked about it during his confirmation hearings, he suddenly couldn’t recall a thing about his involvement.
8. The Jan. 6 insurrectionists were pardoned.
One of Trump’s first official acts of 2025 was to pardon his merry band of treasonists, including people who had violently assaulted police officers. So, not only did they receive all the due process owed to them as criminal defendants, but they also received the gift of a clean slate.
For some defendants, that clean slate was extra-generous. Several had been charged with additional, unrelated crimes, such as weapons charges, that turned up during investigations into their actions on Jan. 6. In at least seven cases, the DOJ then argued that Trump’s pardon covered the unrelated crimes, as the crime wouldn’t have been discovered but for the Jan. 6 investigation. Quite the deal!
9. The rioters were not shipped off to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Besides the part where they are no longer burdened with any criminal charges, the Jan. 6 rioters are, well, here. They were not transported to El Salvador in the dead of night. They’re not being kept in El Salvador in defiance of a Supreme Court order. And unlike what the White House is saying about Abrego Garcia, senior officials in the Biden administration didn’t mock Jan. 6 prisoners and brag that they were never coming home.
It’s honestly unclear what additional due process Miller thinks the Jan. 6 defendants should have received. His real complaint is that he doesn’t believe they should have ever been charged, regardless of the evidence. When it comes to Abrego Garcia, however, Miller doesn’t believe in due process at all.
Campaign ActionThe Recap: Make America Great Depression Again, and Trump brings the student loan pain
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 07:45 pmdailykos_feedA daily roundup of the best stories and cartoons by Daily Kos staff and contributors to keep you in the know.
Congratulations to Trump on Making America Great Depression Again
Too much greatness. Can’t handle the greatness.
Trump doesn’t care about your student loans
His new policy arrives at just about the worst moment.
RFK Jr. ramps up his ignorant—and dangerous—war on autism
To RFK Jr., living with autism is worse than dying of COVID-19.
Hegseth blames 'deep state' for him being so bad at his job
He yells his case at the friendly faces at Fox News.
Watch Maddow mock Musk as billionaire nears end of disastrous DC stint
Kicking a man while he’s down, but make it good.
GOP congressman gets mercilessly booed by prescreened audience
Hard to cry “paid protesters!” when you vet your audience.
Did JD Vance kill the pope? Hey, we’re just asking questions.
Click here to see more cartoons.
Campaign ActionRFK Jr.'s latest cuts just might make you sick to your stomach
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 11:00 pmdailykos_feedHealth and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is continuing his life’s work of making public health more precarious as the Food and Drug Administration, which he oversees, is suspending its quality-control testing of raw fluid milk and other dairy products due to budget cuts, according to Reuters.
The suspension of testing begins this week and includes Grade “A” raw milk and other finished dairy products. Grade “A” is the nation’s highest sanitary standard for milk, making sure it does not contain harmful pathogens.
According to a spokesperson, the FDA's Moffett Center Proficiency Testing Laboratory, which conducts such food safety testing, has been “decommissioned.” That, along with massive Trump administration budget cuts, has left the FDA "no longer able to provide laboratory support for proficiency testing and data analysis,” according to an internal email obtained by Reuters.
This news follows the suspension of programs focused on bird flu outbreaks, which included studies showing how pasteurized milk can kill the virus, after Kennedy fired senior veterinarians designing them.
In his quest to fund tax for the wealthy, President Donald Trump’s administration demanded that the HHS, which includes the FDA, cut $40 billion from its budget. Since January, HHS has lost an estimated 20,000 positions in its workforce.
Kennedy has long been a proponent of raw milk, claiming it is superior to pasteurized dairy products, though the FDA has thoroughly documented raw milk’s dangers.
It remains unclear whether Kennedy will be able to slap together a replacement testing program, like the one at the now-closed Moffett Center Proficiency Testing Laboratory. Like many of the government agencies decimated by Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, the scramble to rehire essential employees seems to have become a weekly crisis.
As Trump continues to pretend that he has conquered soaring egg prices, which are still largely driven by one of the worst outbreaks of avian flu in U.S. history, his budget cuts and the decision to have Kennedy run public health leave no clear end in sight.
White House press briefing just keeps getting worse
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 10:00 pmdailykos_feedWhite House press secretary Karoline Leavitt used Tuesday’s briefing with reporters to praise right-wing podcaster Tim Pool, who was granted the privilege of asking her the first question of the day.
Pool then proceeded to team up with the White House spokesperson to spew lies about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant who was abducted due to an “administrative error” by the Trump administration and deported to El Salvador, where he was held in a notorious maximum security prison.
Leavitt gushed in her introduction that Pool has “millions of followers, a very big platform,” and promoted the podcasts that he produces. She described Pool’s guests as having a “diverse range” of opinions but failed to note that Pool has frequently platformed white supremacists.
Pool launched into a tirade about news organizations purportedly promoting “false narratives,” citing reports that President Donald Trump called Nazis “very fine people” (which he did) and the “Maryland man hoax.” Right-wing media and the Trump administration have insisted that Abrego Garcia, who lives in Maryland with his wife and children, is not a “Maryland man.” He is, in fact, a Maryland man and union member who works as a sheet metal apprentice, as well as a father to three children.
Related | MAGA media rules White House briefings after Trump purge
Pool also referred to Abrego Garcia, who has no criminal record, as an MS-13 gang member, but federal Judge Paula Xinis disagreed in a decision handed down on April 6.
“The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie, and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York — a place he has never lived,” Xinis wrote.
Pool then claimed that criticism of the “new media” pro-MAGA outlets that the Trump administration has welcomed to White House briefings is “unprofessional.”
Leavitt, taking the softball pitch from Pool, praised him and other pro-MAGA outlets as “unbiased journalists.” She then reiterated her previous claims that Abrego Garcia was a gang member and “terrorist” who should not be readmitted to the U.S., even though the Supreme Court has determined he should be because he has been denied due process rights in court.
Prior to helping the White House with its spin, Pool was most recently in the news in September 2024 when it was revealed that he and several other conservative podcasters had received payments from a front for the Russian government.
Pool is a conspiracy theorist who has floated debunked theories about COVID-19 lockdowns, among other topics. He once accused a teacher of being a pedophile because she shared a book about LGBTQ people with students.
In addition to hosting white supremacists, Pool has accused “multiculturalism” of playing a role in mass shootings and said women should be shamed based on the number of sexual partners they’ve had.
Pool is a perfect example of the bigoted, serial misinformers that the Trump administration hopes to prioritize in their press briefing room. While platforming these deeply problematic pundits, the administration continues to attack honest reporting and corporate media outlets increasingly bend and twist the news to favor the conservative point of view.
Campaign ActionSarah Palin officially a loser again for the millionth time, you betcha
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 09:27 pmdailykos_feedAwww, poor Sarah Palin.
The former half-term governor turned failed vice presidential candidate turned failed reality TV star turned failed congressional candidate turned forever laughingstock of America tried her gosh darndest to make The New York Times pay her for making her feel real sad about herself.
And on Tuesday, a jury told her to get the hell outta here with that nonsense.
Palin claimed in her lawsuit that the meanies at the Times deliberately included an error in a 2017 editorial and wanted a big ol’ pile of cash because the Times supposedly damaged her reputation. Said meanies suggested in said editorial that Palin had incited the tragic mass shooting in Arizona that seriously injured then-Rep. Gabby Giffords and killed six others.
Never mind that the Times corrected the error less than a day after it was published. And never mind that by 2017, Palin’s reputation was already in the garbage from all of the many, many, many ways she embarrassed herself on the national stage.
And also never mind that this is the second time a jury has told Palin to get over herself. This case previously went to trial in 2022, when both a judge and jury ruled against her. But she appealed the verdict and got to plead her defamation case all over again.
And got to lose all over again.
Campaign ActionGOP congresswoman goes full racist on Trump critic
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 09:00 pmdailykos_feedA Republican congresswoman is getting torched online for a racist jab at a Democratic colleague who did something she refuses to: call out President Donald Trump.
In a clip posted to X by left-leaning media outlet Heartland Signal on Monday, GOP Rep. Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee referred to Texas Rep. Al Green as “boy,” a term long recognized to be racist when used to describe Black men.
“Gosh dang it, boy, put that— He does not need that cane. That cane is a prop. I swear it’s not real,” Harshbarger said during an interview with F.A.M.E Ministries, mocking Green. “And I’m wondering, one of my colleagues said, ‘Screw the gold part off of it, and see if there’s a gun in there.” And I’m like, I don’t know about that man. He’s just Weird Al.”
Harshbarger was referring to Green’s protest during Trump’s lie-filled speech to Congress in March, where Green shouted, “You have no mandate!” The move earned Green a censure from the House, with even 10 Democrats voting against him. But Harshbarger couldn’t resist circling back weeks later, using the moment not just to make a jab at Green but to drop a racial slur in the process.
The term “boy” isn’t some casual insult—it’s a word steeped in an ugly racial history. Martin Luther King Jr. referred to it as a daily humiliation inflicted on Black Americans. Harshbarger likely knows this, but she said it anyway.
But Harshbarger is not just a racist. She’s also a coward.
Green took a public stand against Trump, but Harshbarger has refused to do the same, even as her constituents protest her support of the chaos Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk are unleashing on the government.
At a February event Harshbarger held in her district, voters showed up with anti-Trump and -Musk signs. Others blasted the representative for backing an administration that’s undercutting veterans and gutting public services.
In other words, like many of her GOP colleagues, Harshbarger is getting grilled at town halls—but instead of holding the White House accountable, she’s lashing out at Democrats.
She’s not alone in targeting Green, either. In March, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado referred to his cane as a “pimp cane,” which caused some House Democrats to call for her to be censured. Boebert expressed zero remorse, however, and later doubled down on her remarks.
In the same interview, Harshbarger also had more hate to spread.
Attacking LGBTQ+ people, she said, “I never saw so many fairies in the White House! Dancing around—I don’t know where they got ’em. … My job is to love ’em into the love of Christ, but I gotta watch what I say.”
Too late.
Harshbarger may want to clean up her house before trashing others’. Her constituents are turning on her. And her husband, Robert Harshbarger, was sentenced to four years in federal prison after pleading guilty in 2013 to distributing misbranded drugs from China to patients undergoing kidney dialysis.
She might want to sit this one out.
Campaign ActionRubio ditches diversity and women to MAGA-fy the State Department
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 08:00 pmdailykos_feedSecretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday that he is reorganizing the State Department—and that reorganization plan hinges on gutting key offices that have been instrumental in strengthening American diplomacy via diversity.
Among the divisions that will be shut down or severely curtailed are the offices of Global Women’s Issues and the Diversity and Inclusion Office.
In a statement, Rubio branded the changes as part of an effort to create an “America First State Department,” echoing President Donald Trump’s campaign messages and policies that denigrate the contributions of women and minorities.
“Redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist,” Rubio said. He also said the reorganization would reverse “decades of bloat and bureaucracy.”
The Global Women’s Issues office has been used for years to integrate issues pertaining to the rights of women and girls into American foreign policy. In a 2013 statement, then-Secretary of State John Kerry noted, “No country can get ahead if it leaves half of its people behind. This is why the United States believes gender equality is critical to our shared goals of prosperity, stability, and peace, and why investing in women and girls worldwide is critical to U.S. foreign policy.”
Related | Pot, meet kettle: Rubio slams free speech crackdowns—while leading his own
The Diversity and Inclusion office was intended to create a pipeline of diverse candidates that would become a part of the American diplomatic mission. In a 2024 statement, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this was necessary “because recruiting, nurturing, and promoting the most capable workforce possible is critical to our national security.”
The MAGA-fueled announcement is another instance of Rubio, who once called Trump a “con man” who sought to perpetrate “the biggest scam in American political history” during the 2016 election, completely submitting himself to the aspiring autocrat.
Trump has been on a tear since taking office in January, attacking the foundations of American civil rights gains and working to undermine decades of efforts toward equality on the basis of gender and sexual orientation.
When Trump nominated Rubio, the former Florida senator received unanimous support from his colleagues. Everyone present voted to confirm him, including the members of the Senate Democratic Caucus. Since then, as Rubio has completely embraced Trumpism—including praising the abduction of people from American cities and revoking students’ visas for exercising their First Amendment rights—many of those Democrats have expressed regrets.
“I regret to say I regret that vote, because once installed in office, he is essentially abandoning the positions he took here as United States senator,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland told CNN in February.
Campaign ActionCan’t pay your student loans? Trump’s coming for your money anyway
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 07:00 pmdailykos_feedThe Department of Education announced Monday that it will resume collections on defaulted student loans starting May 5—just as the stock market hits historic lows and inflation continues to climb.
On a call with reporters, officials confirmed that borrowers who don’t pay up could face wage garnishment by summer. Others could be hounded by debt collectors or shoved into income-based repayment plans. The Treasury Department will administer the process through its offset program, and borrowers will be notified within the next two weeks.
“American taxpayers will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for irresponsible student loan policies,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
This marks the official end of a pandemic-era pause on collections that began in March 2020. No defaulted federal loans have been referred to collections since, but that ends now—arguably at the worst possible moment.
The economy is in worse shape than it was during the pandemic, thanks in no small part to Trump’s erratic economic policies: self-sabotaging tariffs, nonstop bashing of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and a general war on basic stability.
Trump has also repeatedly threatened to dismantle the Education Department, which has made it harder for borrowers to get clear answers, even if they want to pay. Now he’s making sure the agency goes out swinging by garnishing paychecks on the way out the door. It’s not just cruel. It’s deliberate.
“Things are really difficult to understand right now. Things are changing every day,” Kristin McGuire, the executive director for Young Invincibles, which focuses on economic security for young adults, told the Associated Press. “We can’t assume that people are in default because they don’t want to pay their loans. People are in default because they can’t pay their loans and because they don’t know how.”
And of course, every day Americans will pay the price. With grocery bills rising and wages stagnating, the White House has warned that defaulted borrowers could be referred to federal collectors—losing access to aid, wrecking their credit, and facing long-term financial damage.
This isn’t some niche issue. The Education Department says roughly 5.3 million borrowers are already in default, but it expects that number to nearly double. Another four million are in late-stage delinquency, meaning 91 to 180 days behind in paying. Less than 40% of all borrowers are current on their loans.
Trump hasn’t offered borrowers relief—just a bill.
It was former President Joe Biden who fought to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for anyone who had received a Pell Grant to be able to go to college and bring millions of borrowers back into good standing. While the Supreme Court blocked his broad forgiveness plan, Biden still managed to cancel over $183 billion in debt for more than five million borrowers.
Now, under Trump, the collections are back, and the compassion is gone.
“There will not be any mass loan forgiveness,” McMahon said. She added, “Going forward, the Department of Education, in conjunction with the Department of Treasury, will shepherd the student loan program responsibly and according to the law, which means helping borrowers return to repayment—both for the sake of their own financial health and our nation’s economic outlook.”
But the timing couldn’t be worse. Trump’s economic chaos is gutting consumer confidence and stretching household budgets thin. Millions of borrowers are about to get hit with a bill they can’t afford. Miss it, and they could watch their credit sink, their wages shrink, and their financial stability collapse.
“You’ve gotten people out of the habit of repaying now for the better part of five years,” Colleen Campbell, the former head of loan portfolio management at the Education Department, told The New York Times. “For some borrowers, several cohorts of them, you’ve never built the repayment habit at all.”
Trump’s message? Too bad. Pay up—while he burns the economy down around you.
Campaign ActionCartoon: Rope-a-Pope
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 06:59 pmdailykos_feedA cartoon by Clay Jones.
Related | Pope Francis shames the crap out of JD Vance in final acts on earth
Campaign Action
Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s Fanzines are Moving to the AO3!
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 07:05 pmotw_news_feedGarlic Press and Poison Pen Press, publishers of Star Trek: The Original Series fanzines including Spockanalia and Masiform D, are importing the zines’ fanworks to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
- A bit of background explanation
- What this means for creators who had work(s) in Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s fanzines
- And what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
Spockanalia (1967-1970) was the very first all-Star Trek fanzine ever published, and Masiform D (1971-1998) was the longest running Star Trek fanzine, so Open Doors is delighted to be preserving these fanzines’ works as part of the AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP).
The fanzines to be imported are:
- Spockanalia: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- Masiform D: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
- The Compleat Kershu Fighter: Fanlore page and AO3 collection
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s AO3 Fanzine Scan Hosting Project (FSHP) is to assist publishers of fanzines to incorporate the fanworks from those fanzines into the Archive of Our Own. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with publishers who want to import their fanzines and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press to import the fanzines listed above into separate, searchable collections on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the fanzines in their entirety, all art in the fanzines will be hosted on the OTW’s servers and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s fanzines to the AO3 after April. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the task. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collections in the meantime.
What does this mean for creators who had work(s) in Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s fanzines?
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors.
Please contact Open Doors with your creator pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
- You’d like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than the publishers have a record of.
- You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
- You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
- You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the fanzine collections.
- You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
- You have any other questions we can help you with.
Please include the name of the publisher or fanzine in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account the publishers have a record of, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors website for instructions on:
- importing your works to the AO3
- adding your works to the new collections listed above
If you still have questions…
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press and their fanzines on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We’re excited to be able to help preserve Garlic Press and Poison Pen Press’s fanzines!
– The Open Doors team and Devra Langsam
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
GOP congressman gets mercilessly booed by prescreened audience
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 06:00 pmdailykos_feedRepublican Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida held a town hall on Monday where his staff prescreened attendees to make sure they lived in his deeply conservative southwestern Florida district, an attempt to prevent being heckled like his fellow Republican lawmakers have been.
Yet Donalds—who is running for governor in Florida with President Donald Trump's endorsement—still got mercilessly booed and jeered by constituents who were angry over Trump and co-President Elon Musk’s destructive Department of Government Efficiency, whose cuts are imperiling critical services like Social Security, weather forecasting, and medical research.
“Elon Musk and DOGE have been authorized by the president of the United States—" Donalds said, and then was drowned out by boos.
“Do you want to yell, or do you want to hear?” he said to the audience.
Donalds is not the first Republican lawmaker to have faced testy town halls as constituents rage over DOGE cuts and other destructive Trump administration policies.
A number of House Republicans have brushed off the anger, falsely claiming that those who show up were paid protesters who aren’t from their districts.
“The videos you saw of the town halls were for paid protesters in many of those places,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN in late February. “These are Democrats who went to the events early and filled up the seats.”
Yet Donalds cannot make this claim for his event because, according to information from his own office, attendees had to show proof that they lived in his district before they were let in.
“Only voting constituents of Florida’s 19th Congressional District are eligible,” reads the event page on Donalds’ House website, which added that attendees had to show identification that had an address within the district.
“Non-voting constituents will not be allowed to enter the event,” the event page added.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried made this point to explain why Donalds' town hall was an abject disaster.
"This is actually worse than it looks,” Fried wrote in a post on X, above a video from the town hall. “There was room for 700 people, you had to be a resident of the district and could only sign up a certain amount of people per family. Byron pre-screened the audience in deep red Lee County and this is still what he got. Angry constituents.”
Town hall events have been so ugly for Republicans that GOP leadership has advised their members not to hold in-person events at all—a way to avoid video images of Republicans being challenged by their voters.
And it’s no wonder Republicans are worried. The last time Republicans faced such rowdy town halls was in 2017 and 2018, before Democrats romped their way back to the House majority in the midterms during Trump's first term.
Now history appears to be repeating itself.
Yet, instead of trying to stem the bleeding, Republicans are defending Trump at all costs, even as his destructive economic policies threaten to send the country into a recession.
If Republicans are similarly decimated next November, they will have only themselves to blame.
Maddow torches Musk’s Trump alliance as a total flop
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 05:00 pmdailykos_feedOn the eve of what most analysts believe will be a grim earnings report from carmaker Tesla, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow took on the disastrous tenure of the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, in his dual role as Donald Trump’s co-president.
“His time in Washington kind of started bad and has just been scuttling worse and worse all the time,” Maddow began. “His Department of Government Efficiency thing is a mix of embarrassment for its errors and its palpable confusion, and horror and anger for how much damage it is doing to the U.S. government, with really nothing positive to show for itself at all.”
“The Trump administration is spending more on a daily basis than the Biden administration was,” Maddow continued. “So even if the whole good idea of DOGE is less government spending, it has absolutely failed at that.”
Musk’s DOGE, and its abject failure to create any meaningful savings, is just one part of the story. Every turn for Musk has included failure, including his dubious and ultimately embarrassing attempt to buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat.
On top of that, there’s been the ongoing debacle of stories of people growing increasingly fed up with Musk, his public spats with White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, and his attempts to gain access to top-secret information about U.S. military plans for China.
Tesla’s stock has dropped nearly 50% from its record high, which might give Musk an excuse for turning tail and running out of the Washington, D.C. spotlight. He’s the world’s richest man, so he won’t go very far, but fingers crossed, he steps far enough away to lessen some of the harm he’s done to our country.
Campaign ActionHegseth flees to Fox News to whine about his latest troubles
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 04:00 pmdailykos_feedAfter a scandal-plagued 88 days on the job, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ran to the friendly confines of Fox News on Tuesday morning to plead his case.
Speaking to “Fox & Friends” co-host and devoted President Donald Trump fan Brian Kilmeade, Hegseth blamed his mistake-filled time in office on “the deep state.”
Asked by Kilmeade if “deep-state forces” were coming after him, Hegseth agreed and said, “They’ve been after me from Day One just like they’ve come after President Trump.”
Hegseth went on to argue that he was put in office to support war-fighters and to “get rid of trans lunacy in the military.”
“I’m here because President Trump asked me to bring war-fighting back to the Pentagon. Every single day, that is our focus. And if people don’t like it, they can come after me,” Hegseth angrily declared.
Hegseth went to Fox because there is new chatter that he may soon be let go from his position due to the constant stream of scandals from his office.
On Sunday, The New York Times reported that Hegseth was part of a group chat with family members where he disclosed classified war-planning information. Hegseth was also on the infamous Signal chat where secret military information was mistakenly shared with a journalist.
During his time as a Fox News pundit, Hegseth had argued that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should go to prison for purportedly disclosing sensitive information.
Hegseth is also feeling heat after former Pentagon spokesman and Trump loyalist John Ullyot wrote in Politico that Hegseth has presided over “total chaos” at the Pentagon and called for Hegseth to be removed.
Along with Ullyot, three other senior Hegseth advisers left the Pentagon last week amid the Department of Defense’s investigation into the original Signal chat leak
So far, Trump is standing by his man. On Monday, he dismissed the negative stories about Hegseth as “fake news,” which is Trump’s catchall term for factual reporting that makes him look bad. Trump historically has not made political moves that involve admitting a mistake, and he has invested heavily in Hegseth, making it appear—for now at least—that Hegseth’s firing is unlikely.
Hegseth is facing renewed congressional opposition after the latest leak revelations.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat who represents many active and retired military personnel, told MSNBC on Monday that Hegseth was “way in over his head in a job that’s much too big for him” and is responsible for “chaos on steroids.”
“This guy needs to be replaced,” Warner added.
Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican who won his district by less than 2 percentage points last year, broke party ranks and criticized Hegseth on Monday.
“I like him on Fox. But does he have the experience to lead one of the largest organizations in the world? That’s a concern,” he told reporters.
The Democratic Party has also called for Hegseth to be removed. “It’s well past time for Hegseth to resign—or for Donald Trump to fire him,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement.
During his appearance on Fox, Hegseth insisted that he didn’t have time for leaks or the other scandals that have dominated headlines since he was sworn in.
“I don’t have time for leakers,” he complained. “I don’t have time for the hoax press that peddles old stories from disgruntled employees.”
But Hegseth did have time on his apparently busy schedule to spend time with his former coworkers at Fox News and plead his case.
Campaign ActionWild Flowers Worth Knowing by Neltje Blanchan
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 04:16 pmproject_gutenberg_feedA new selection of miscellaneous pieces, in verse by Christian Gray
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 04:16 pmproject_gutenberg_feed64 päivää suomalaisen siirtokansan keskuudessa Amerikassa by Lauri Perälä
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 04:16 pmproject_gutenberg_feedChambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, fifth series, no. 153, vol. III, Decembe
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 04:16 pmproject_gutenberg_feedTarzan the invincible by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 04:16 pmproject_gutenberg_feedThe climate movement needs new stories — here's mine | Fenton Lutunatabua
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 03:13 pmted_video_feedYour inner fire is your greatest strength | Xiye Bastida
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 02:42 pmted_video_feedCongratulations to Trump on Making America Great Depression Again
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 03:00 pmdailykos_feedThe Dow Jones Industrial Average is set to have its worst April performance since the Great Depression, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, as President Donald Trump's nonsensical and chaotic trade policy is leading investors to pull their money from the stock market.
Trump’s decision to levy a 10% tariff on all imported goods, as well as the punishing tariffs on Chinese imports, has led economists to predict that the U.S. economy will see skyrocketing inflation and ultimately a painful recession that could cost millions of jobs.
“It’s impossible to commit capital to an economy that is unstable and unknowable because of policy structure," Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments, told the WSJ.
As of the end of business on Monday, the Dow was down more than 13% since Trump took office in January. And 10-year Treasury bond yields are rising as investors no longer believe they are a safe place to park their money—a fact that will make it more expensive for Americans to borrow money for things like home and car purchases.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund released its world economic outlook, finding that the U.S. economy is expected to slow dramatically due not only to Trump's tariffs but also to the chaotic and unpredictable way he’s rolled them out.
The IMF now says the U.S. economy will slow to 1.8% growth, roughly 1 percentage point lower than last year’s growth rate.
The IMF wrote in an executive summary of their report:
Since the release of the January 2025 WEO Update, a series of new tariff measures by the United States and countermeasures by its trading partners have been announced and implemented, ending up in near-universal US tariffs on April 2 and bringing effective tariff rates to levels not seen in a century. This on its own is a major negative shock to growth. The unpredictability with which these measures have been unfolding also has a negative impact on economic activity and the outlook and, at the same time, makes it more difficult than usual to make assumptions that would constitute a basis for an internally consistent and timely set of projections.
No doubt because of things like that, Americans are souring on Trump as his policies threaten their financial security. Trump’s approval rating has fallen since he announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, with voters now disapproving of his handling of the economy hitting a record low.
Trump is looking for a scapegoat for his own failures, landing on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who has publicly said Trump’s policies are causing the financial market turmoil we are all witnessing.
However, Trump's threats to fire Powell are leading markets to fall even more because investors fear that Trump ending the Federal Reserve’s independence will make the U.S. economy a less safe bet.
"Were Powell to be fired, the initial reaction would be a huge injection of volatility into financial markets, and the most dramatic rush to the exit from US assets that it is possible to imagine," wrote Michael Brown, a senior research strategist with financial services firm Pepperstone.
"Any sign of the longstanding, independent nature of the Fed coming under threat would see investors across the globe selling every single US-based asset that they have, and also poses the genuinely scary prospect of upending the entire way in which the global financial system operates,” he added. “If this were to happen, then the reserve status of the dollar, and haven value of Treasuries, would be wiped out, probably forever in both cases."
Lord help us.
Montana has its first measles cases in 35 years
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 02:30 pmdailykos_feedMontana is the ninth U.S. state to have an active measles outbreak.
The U.S. was up to 800 cases of measles nationwide on Friday. Texas is driving the high numbers, with an outbreak centered in West Texas that started nearly three months ago and is up to 597 cases. Two unvaccinated elementary school-aged children died from measles-related illnesses near the epicenter in Texas, and an adult in New Mexico who was not vaccinated died of a measles-related illness.
Other states with active outbreaks — defined as three or more cases — include Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Mexico. The U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.
Measles is caused by a highly contagious virus that’s airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It is preventable through vaccines, and has been considered eliminated from the U.S. since 2000.
Health experts fear the virus will take hold in other U.S. communities with low vaccination rates and that the spread could stretch on for a year.
In North America, an outbreak in Ontario, Canada has sickened 925 from mid-October through April 16. That's on top of cases in Mexico that the World Health Organization has said are linked to the Texas outbreak. A large outbreak in Chihuahua state has 433 cases as of April 18, according to data from the state health ministry.
Here's what else you need to know about measles in the U.S.
How many measles cases are there in Texas and New Mexico?
Texas state health officials said Friday there were 36 new cases of measles since Tuesday, bringing the total to 597 across 25 counties — most of them in West Texas. Four more Texans were hospitalized, for a total of 62 throughout the outbreak, and Parmer and Potter counties logger their first cases.
State health officials estimated about 4% of cases — fewer than 30 — are actively infectious.
Sixty-two percent of Texas' cases are in Gaines County, population 22,892, where the virus started spreading in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community. The county has logged 371 cases since late January — just over 1% of the county's residents.
The April 3 death in Texas was an 8-year-old child, according to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Health officials in Texas said the child did not have underlying health conditions and died of “what the child's doctor described as measles pulmonary failure.” A unvaccinated child with no underlying conditions died of measles in Texas in late February — Kennedy said age 6.
New Mexico announced five new cases this week, bringing the state’s total to 63. Three more people were in the hospital this week, for a total of six since the outbreak started. Most of the state's cases are in Lea County. Two are in Eddy County and Chaves and Doña Ana counties have one each.
State health officials say the cases are linked to Texas’ outbreak based on genetic testing. New Mexico reported its first measles-related death in an adult on March 6.
How many cases are there in Kansas?
Kansas has 37 cases in eight counties in the southwest part of the state, health officials announced Wednesday.
Finney, Ford, Grant, Gray and Morton counties have fewer than five cases each. Haskell County has the most with eight cases, Stevens County has seven, Kiowa County has six.
The state's first reported case, identified in Stevens County on March 13, is linked to the Texas and New Mexico outbreaks based on genetic testing, a state health department spokesperson said. But health officials have not determined how the person was exposed.
How many cases are there in Oklahoma?
Cases in Oklahoma remained steady at 12 total cases Friday: nine confirmed and three probable. The first two probable cases were “associated” with the West Texas and New Mexico outbreaks, the state health department said.
A state health department spokesperson said measles exposures were confirmed in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Rogers and Custer counties, but wouldn't say which counties had cases.
How many cases are there in Ohio?
The Ohio Department of Health confirmed 30 measles cases in the state Thursday. The state county includes only Ohio residents.
There are 14 cases in Ashtabula County near Cleveland, 14 in Knox County and one each in Allen and Holmes counties, the state said. The outbreak in Ashtabula County started with an unvaccinated adult who had interacted with someone who had traveled internationally.
Health officials in Knox County, in east-central Ohio, say there are a total of 20 people with measles, but seven of them do not live in Ohio. In 2022, a measles outbreak in central Ohio sickened 85.
How many cases are there in Indiana?
Indiana confirmed two more cases Monday in an outbreak that has sickened eight in Allen County in the northeast part of the state — five are unvaccinated minors and three are adults whose vaccination status is unknown. The cases have no known link to other outbreaks, the Allen County Department of Health said Monday.
How many cases are there in Pennsylvania?
In far northwest Pennsylvania, Erie County health officials declared a measles outbreak April 14 after finding two new cases linked to a measles case confirmed March 30.
The state has had nine cases overall this year, six of which are not linked to the outbreak, including international travel-related cases in Montgomery County and one in Philadelphia.
How many cases are there in Michigan?
Montcalm County, near Grand Rapids in western Michigan, has three linked measles cases. State health officials say the cases are tied to a large measles outbreak in Ontario, Canada.
The state has seven confirmed measles cases as of Thursday, but the remaining four are not part of the Montcalm County outbreak. Michigan's last measles outbreak was in 2019.
How many cases are there in Montana?
Montana state health officials announced five cases Thursday in unvaccinated children and adults who had traveled out of state, and confirmed it was an outbreak on Monday. All five are isolating at home in Gallatin County in the southwest part of the state.
State health officials are working to trace exposures in Bozeman and Belgrade.
They are Montana's first measles cases in 35 years. Health officials didn't say whether the cases are linked to other outbreaks in North America.
Where else is measles showing up in the U.S.?
There have been 800 cases in 2025 as of Friday, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 10 clusters — defined as three or more related cases.
Measles cases also have been reported in Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and Washington.
Cases and outbreaks in the U.S. are frequently traced to someone who caught the disease abroad. In 2019, the U.S. saw 1,274 cases and almost lost its status of having eliminated measles.
What do you need to know about the MMR vaccine?
The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.
Getting another MMR shot is harmless if there are concerns about waning immunity, the CDC says. People who have documentation of receiving a live measles vaccine in the 1960s don’t need to be revaccinated, but people who were immunized before 1968 with an ineffective measles vaccine made from “killed” virus should be revaccinated with at least one dose, the agency said.
Related | The measles crisis is worse than we know—and the CDC can’t keep up
People who have documentation that they had measles are immune and those born before 1957 generally don’t need the shots because most children back then had measles and now have “presumptive immunity.”
In communities with high vaccination rates — above 95% — diseases like measles have a harder time spreading through communities. This is called “herd immunity.”
But childhood vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the pandemic and more parents are claiming religious or personal conscience waivers to exempt their kids from required shots. The U.S. saw a rise in measles cases in 2024, including an outbreak in Chicago that sickened more than 60.
What are the symptoms of measles?
Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash.
The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC.
Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death.
How can you treat measles?
There’s no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.
Campaign ActionRFK Jr. ramps up his ignorant—and dangerous—war on autism
Tuesday, 22 April 2025 01:30 pmdailykos_feedHealth and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should, in theory, have his hands full dealing with a nationwide measles outbreak, or the bird flu that sent egg prices soaring.
However, the raw milk-loving anti-vaxxer now charged with overseeing our nation’s well-being has decided his attention is best spent gutting scientific research—and spewing more hateful rhetoric toward the autistic community.
His latest hard-hitting theory: Autism is worse than the COVID-19 pandemic because the death of droves of senior citizens is less of a tragedy than young people having varying degrees of a neurodevelopmental disorder.
“It dwarfs the COVID epidemic and the impacts on our country because COVID killed old people. Autism affects children and affects them at the beginning of their lives, the beginning of their productivity,” he said during an interview on “The Cats Roundtable” podcast that aired Sunday.
“And it’s absolutely debilitating for them, their families, their communities, and for our county,” Kennedy continued, “just the pure economic cost of autism.”
During the height of COVID-19 in 2020, the pandemic killed hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. alone. At one point in New York City, workers were storing dead bodies in refrigerated tractor trailers because the morgues could not keep up with the pace of deaths
But if you ask Kennedy, a notorious conspiracy theorist who has claimed that immunizations, like the COVID-19 vaccine, cause autism, this neurodevelopmental condition trumps those deaths.
Kennedy went on to describe a portion of the autistic community as a financial burden to the U.S., saying that the “economic cost” could hit $1 trillion by 2035.
“Those families, those children are nonverbal, they’re non-toilet-trained,” he continued.
“They have all the stereotypical features of autism, head-banging, toe-walking, stimming, agonizing gut pain and head-banging. Those kids are kids that will not hold jobs.”
He did soften his tone compared to the April 16 screed that drew furious backlash.
“And many kids with autism—many of the higher-functioning autism actually can, have tremendous potential to live independently, to get jobs, take care of themselves,” Kennedy stuttered.
The head of our health department has launched a witch hunt to find the “causes” of autism in things like ultrasounds, medicines, pesticides, food chemicals, and more. This follows a Centers for Disease Control report which said one in 31 children under 8 years old are being diagnosed with the disorder.
However, Kennedy is at odds with the department he oversees when it comes to this topic, given the CDC’s own findings stating that the number of cases is on the rise because of the medical community’s improving ability to recognize and properly diagnose people with autism.
Of course, that won’t stop the man who dumped a dead bear in Central Park for funsies from generalizing and bashing autistic people.
Related | RFK Jr. continues to show he's really bad at his job
Because to Kennedy, the true tragedy is that autistic people will “never pay taxes.”
“They’ll never hold a job. They’ll never play baseball. They’ll never write a poem. They’ll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted,” he said Wednesday during a press conference.
Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine and the father of a daughter with autism, completely refuted Kennedy’s ableist claims.
“My adult daughter Rachel, works everyday, pays taxes, has friends, loves going to the movies, and listens to lousy (IMO) music,” Hotez wrote in a social media post. “She has a meaningful and thoughtful life.”
In a statement provided to CNN, Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, slammed Kennedy’s clueless pronouncements.
“He set up this litmus test of what it is to be a person and have a valuable life,” said Gross, who is autistic. “It’s not acceptable to talk that way anymore because of the work that we’ve done.”
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