Who Will Remember Our Dying Republic, if We Don't Save it?

🎵 And the people bowed & prayed. To the neon god they made - Simon And Garfunkel, "The Sound of Silence"

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Dispatch From a Dead Republic, And Empire

Rome, July 8th

Hey folks, at this moment I write to you from the vicinity of the Pantheon, in Rome. A previously planned trip to one of my favorite cities. But, who the hell knew so much of its glorious and not-as-glorious past would be so germane to the United States at this very moment.

There’s a surreal feeling in writing this post from over an ocean in the Old World, as I watch President mentula magna whine like the petulant prig he is about hating Democrats. And lie through his veneers about Democrats’ hating America.

The childish blather, part of the seemingly never-ending spew exiting his cakehole is, of course, the talk of tyrants. And I’m in a place where tyrants took one of the most impressive creations in the history of the world—this republic—and tossed it aside for the simplicity and supposed security of dictatorship.

Sound kinda familiar?

President Trump, it was just announced, is planning an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout on White House grounds for next 4th of July. That’ll be our teetering republic’s 250th anniversary, should we make it.

And all I can think about upon seeing this nitwit-created news as the Roman Colosseum looms over me, along with that bollocks budget passed by a corrupt-to-the-core cult of limp dictator-wannabes called The GOP…is “bread and circuses.”

As Rome struggled with its identity two millennia ago—would it continue to be a republic or become a dictatorship?—it was Marcus Tullius Cicero, brilliant Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator and writer who first used that now infamous phrase. And it’s like he could’ve been talking about Trump TV—sponsored by corporate media access-whoring!—which is in the process of assaulting the very foundations of this republic.

Here’s how Cicero put it:

The evil was not in the bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease."

What’s amazing is MAGA is ok with just the circuses part. They don’t need the bread to “sell their rights as free men [and women],”—or at least they didn’t think about that when they voted for this super-chode—or if they do, well it’s a damn shame, because the roaming beasts they supported just shredded SNAP-food assistance for them, including disabled veterans and kids. Read that again: disabled veterans and kids.

The latter make up too many of the flood victims in Texas, who had no idea what was coming because Trump cut funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which uses satellites—when properly funded—to predict disasters and save lives. But those cuts, like the ones that have allowed airplanes to fall out of the sky and stranded hurricane-hit North Carolinans without aid, are all part of the most base and cruel corruption.

A corruption of the soul that ends our republic a little bit every day, by trading our lives for the luxury for the billionaire class. Which got an exclamation point with Trump’s big, stupid, dumb, corrupt and apparently, big, he claimed, budget bill that felt more like a mass human sacrifice to Moloch.

Thanks again, Lisa Murkowski! And be sure to wash your hands with some mixture of hand sanitizer, bleach and de-lousing powder—if you really wish to remove all the blood you’ll have on them for your entire pitiful existence.

Back to Biff Tannen’s real-life doppelganger. Because, ya see, whether Trump’s insulting an ally or planning a UFC fight at the White House, it’s never-ending drama of the biggest culus in the world. Always bread and circuses. This is a man who puts the dedication into devouring his voters that Kristi Noem applies to putting her face on hold, or Ted Cruz into vacationing while his Texas constituents are dying.

As long as they distract the poor and powerless, billionaire Trump BFFs could and can steal everything that isn’t nailed down (and, hell, if needed they’ll source a claw hammer). Because, if MAGA elites keep MAGA sheep entertained and, apparently, not fed, the latter will stop asking questions as long as they’re reminded who to hate and who to blame.

From gladiators in the arena to the UFC at the White House, this isn’t theory anymore, folks. It’s prophecy.

The ruins here in Rome are like hieroglyphic warnings, if you read them correctly—of a time when emperors ended a Republic and the worst of them, like Nero or Julius Caesar, let Rome burn or even, in the latter’s case, led the bloody transformation from republic to dictatorship. More recently, Mussolini was the creator of fascism, who turned Rome and the rest of Italy into a bright red (MAGA hat) warning sign for the rest of the world to easily interpret in the future.

Yet, today in America? We’re blowing past those warning signs, led by people who seem to have discovered how to make a crushed, sniff-able form of Fox “News”and are so rage-addicted, Republicans can let their freak flag fly and party like it’s 476 A.D.

Back home in good ole U.S., they just authorized $45 billion more for ICE, Trump’s secret police. Forty-five billion—not for food, not for healthcare, not for schools or clean water or helping kids in poverty. No, it’s for armored stormtroopers who hide their faces and badges, surveillance and domestic militarization.

It’s corporate-media catnip, my friends, kidnapping humans off our streets, especially if you can get it on camera! Think of the ratings! It’s like a never-ending episode of “COPS!” As the head of CBS, Les Moonves said about Trump in 2016, “It may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” And being that CBS was his country, there was no choice there.

Meanwhile, we hand out catchy nicknames and marketing slogans that’d amuse toddlers to bombing operations that blow humans apart. That is a key part of our “circuses” plan.

Because in between a Marlboro Red and a glazed chocolate donut with the sprinkles, right before scratching some belly-lint, Ma & Pa MAGA gotta have something to let ‘em yell “F*k Yeah!” So how about Alligator Alcatraz!? I mean, what a great name for a concentration camp for migrant families in the Everglades!

Cool, right!? How entertaining, torturing our fellow humans! And did I remember say that name is cool?! Almost as good as Operation Midnight Hammer, where Trump got to drop big bombs on Iran, albeit with the kinda success he’s used to achieving with the Trump Taj Mahal or creation of Eric.

Now Trump’s talking about active duty Marines helping ICE, which as you may know, violates U.S. law—the Posse Comitatus Act. And there’s a reason that law was put in place. If we return to lessons learned from Rome, when Julius Caesar took Rome, and then took it into autocracy, it began with his crossing The Rubicon River with troops. Entering Rome in defiance of law.

There’s a reason you’ve heard and likely used the phrase “crossing the Rubicon.” Because the moment Caesar committed that particular act of treason, Rome was done for. His treachery became a lasting phrase to explain when something reached the point of no return.

Well, folks, we’re getting a little too close to crossing ours.

I don’t say this lightly. But from this amazing city, surrounded by literal ruins, you can feel a future we all dread closing in on America like a lion unleashed on a gazelle.

You can see it coming, if you’re willing to look:

• Breadlines replaced by MAGA rallies.

• SNAP benefits gutted while billionaires get tax cuts and fund right-wing militias.

• A democracy in willing collapse, because so many can’t stop worshipping the most transparently stupid, cruel, gaudy, ignorant, repulsive, toddler to ever hold power.

This is how it may end. Not with a bang, but with the biggest clown running the biggest of the non-panini circuses—that three-ring one known as the United States of America.

Now, it doesn’t have to be this way. Not if we name it. Not if we fight it. Not if we support media that dares confront it.

We here at Blue Amp are one of those few who will not look away. We’ll keep shouting about the rising fascism, the constitutional betrayals, the gaslighting, the utter inhumanity. But we need you to help us stay in this fight.

If you’ve ever thought, “I wish I could do more to stop this,” this is your chance. You can! Support Blue Amp, and keep this republic—ours—from becoming the ruins to provide lessons for future generations, by backing The Soundcheck Fund. How? Easy! Just become a paid subscriber! Help us build the resistance media America needs.

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📍 What’s Going On in Texas – The Human Cost Meets the Political Cost

• Deadly flash floods in Central Texas (July 4–7) have claimed over 80 lives, including 28 children from Camp Mystic, a girls’ summer camp near the Guadalupe River.

• The National Weather Service (NWS) did issue alerts—including flash-flood emergencies with several hours' notice. But the warnings underestimated the scale of the rainfall, and many campers and residents never received timely evacuation orders. Governor Greg Abbott calls those asking questions about losing loved ones, “losers.”

• Local officials had long sought sirens and enhanced alert systems, but Kerr County's repeated grant applications (2018–2021) were dismissed, reportedly due to state and federal underfunding.

• The Texas Tribune and other outlets have flagged a 10% staff cut at NOAA/NWS, with critical roles like lead meteorologists left vacant during storm season.

• Former NOAA directors cautioned these reductions degrade forecasting capabilities. Meteorologists warn coordination between federal forecasters and local authorities was significantly weakened.

• Critics contend: The buck stops at the President (And Governor Abbott). Truman had a sign saying exactly that—now Trump’s scaling back of NOAA & FEMA, plus overriding local pleas, means when systems fail and kids die, responsibility lies at the top.

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Accountability & What Comes Next

• Donald Trump declared a federal disaster, activated FEMA and Coast Guard, and plans to visit the region—but NWS staffing cuts and under-resourced warning systems remain central to the mounting tragedy.

• His administration implausibly denies that budget cuts hampered preparedness—despite mounting evidence, investigations by Rep. Joaquin Castro, local officials, and former NOAA staff.

• Structural equipment failures—like lack of sirens and patchy CodeRED alerts—underscore how federal choices funnel down to local catastrophes, especially when the President opts for cuts over investment.

• If this tragedy doesn’t compel significant federal reinvestment in NOAA, FEMA, and local emergency infrastructure, the next flood—or fire, or heatwave—won’t just traumatize communities, it’ll end more lives.

We’ll continue to follow how the White House responds—and whether communities, Congress, and media start demanding real consequences for these deadly failures.

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🎥 VIDEO ON DEMAND!

Elizabeth Warren - A fighting Dem who gets you must always message, control the narrative, and make Republicans pay—publicly—for their lies and treachery:

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