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‘This is oligarchy’: Nearly 100 billionaires are funding Susan Collins’ reelection bid
(www.commondreams.org)
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Waiting for a perfect candidate with a squeaky clean record is an exercise in futility.
The only way someone gets old enough to run for political office while having enough knowledge and experience to actually be capable of doing the job, without having ever made any mistakes that one's opponents can dig up for their mudslinging campaigns, is to take no risks, be non-controversial, a chameleon, totally performative and insincere. That's how you end up with these robotic-sounding DNC stars.
What's important is whether someone learned from their mistakes and has shown themselves capable of improving. There's this weird essentialist idea floating around in people's heads that once someone has made a mistake, that mistake is fundamentally who they are as a person and they should be judged for it for the rest of their lives. And honestly, if that mentality takes root and grows, it could lead to a very dystopian world. It's just one more part to add to the total surveillance state we're already sliding towards.
I mean the dude got a nazi tattoo. Not an ambiguous thing, an exclusively and extremely recognizable nazi tattoo. The amount of stupid required to do that without knowing it was a nazi tattoo, or anyone in your circle who's seen it over the years, is incredibly concerning. So given the choice between he knowingly got a nazi tattoo and lied or he and everyone around him is too dumb to recognize like the third or fourth most recognizable nazi symbol, well he's probably still better than Susan Collins. But nobody accidentally gets a nazi tattoo.
A nazi tattoo that hardly anyone knew was a nazi symbol until the story about him spread around? I for one didn't know what it was until I read about him.
Does that make me "too dumb to recognize like the third or fourth most recognizable nazi symbol"? I guarantee you I'm not the only one.
"extremely recognizable" is a huge stretch.
I mean if you've ever covered nazi Germany in a history class you've seen the totenkopf. If you've seen popular media featuring Nazis you've seen the totenkopf. It's distinctive from any other skull or crossbone pirate imagery which is the excuse I keep hearing. If you've played the wolfenstein remake the fucking bag guy is literally called deaths head. Yeah, if you're totally unaware that the totenkopf is well known and exclusively Nazi symbol, and you tattoo it on yourself at a tattoo parlor willing to give Nazi tattoos, and everyone in your life that sees it for the decade plus you are displaying it, then absolutely you and all those people that saw and also didn't know are stupid. You cannot get a Nazi tattoo by accident unless you're really really really fucking dumb.
That's a stretch. I don't recall ever seeing a totenkopf in a history textbook. Maybe if you majored in history with a focus in WWII, but that's not the majority of people.
I don't think I've ever noticed one portrayed in any media depicting nazis either. Inglorious Bastards? Sound of Music? The Pianist? It's a Beautiful Life? Schindler's List? Boy in the Striped Pajamas? Show me a screenshot from any of those movies that has a totenkopf.
How many people is that? Oh, not the majority. Great.
I wasn't aware of that until I read about it in the context of Platner.
I wouldn't have anyway because I think it looks stupid.
I don't think those kinds of parlors exactly advertise themselves as such.
You still haven't convinced me that the majority of people even know what it is.
I guess I'm stupid then.
I don't have any tattoos, but I can still see how someone might have walked into a tattoo shop, picked something out of their catalog and gotten it without researching the history or symbolism behind it. It's not that crazy to believe.
I learned about the fuckin thing in grade school history in the goddamn rural Midwest. You're just saying that most people are really stupid. You've got a big fuckin blind spot for fascist imagery and it's got you doing nazi apologism. Ignorance isn't a goddamn excuse in a lot of situations and this is one of them. Nobody accidentally gets a nazi tattoo because it's not fuckin easy to find a tattoo shop that tolerates nazi imagery in the first place and the ones that do are fuckin nazi shops. Ignorance does not get to be an excuse for tattooing a goddamn death's head on you. No. If you knew anything about tattoo culture you'd know him getting in the first place very nearly guarantees he knew what it was. I'd still prefer him over Susan Collins but he's either lying or really fucking dumb and these are the only two options. Or he was forced to join a prison gang, so I guess three options but I'm pretty sure it's not the third. It is impossible to accidentally get a nazi tattoo.
Woopdie friggin doo, you learned something so that must mean everyone knows it, right? I learned lots of shit in grade school that I found out later not everyone knows. People thought I was arrogant for assuming they all know the same shit as me. That's what you're doing now.
Nothing I've said was nazi apologism, get the fuck outta here with that strawman. He says he didn't know what it was when he got it, and I believe that's a reasonable explanation. Maybe you don't, that's fine, whatever, but that doesn't make me a nazi apologist.
You're making excuses for an explicitly exclusively nazi tattoo. That's apologism buddy.
I'm saying he didn't know it was a nazi tattoo. That's not apologism.
And I'm saying that's bullshit because he would have to be one step above totally fucking braindead to unknowingly get a nazi tattoo at a nazi tattoo shop. So is he lying or pants-shittingly fucking dumb? Both are serious concerns that should be absolutely disqualifying under any normal circumstances but he can't be worse than Collins so here we are.
Since I went browsing around, here are some images for comparison:
Yes, it's a specific design and you should be careful with skulls but I'm not sure we should demand that everyone recognize the difference. I wouldn't have until now if I'd seen them as line drawings. In embossed silver, sure...
I think we should. Because you don't accidentally get a nazi tattoo because any shop willing to do nazi tats very quickly and rightfully gets a reputation as a nazi shop, and if you're seeing a death's head in their flash you're seeing more nazi imagery. So he would have had to miss all of that. And everyone who ever saw it would have also had to have been unaware, and again despite your lack of awareness it's incredibly recognizable as an exclusively nazi symbol, it's up there with the iron cross right behind ss runes and the swastika. It's right there on the ss caps. The fuckin Mitchell and Webb "are we the baddies" sketch that everyone memes shows it front and center. It is not an ambiguous symbol and he's either lying about knowing what it was or really stupid. He's still better than Collins, but you don't accidentally get a nazi tattoo and I'm kinda tired of everyone minimizing this like it's no big fuckin deal. He gets the benefit of the doubt but everyone should be keeping him under a fucking microscope for any fuckery whatsoever.
Is it this iron cross that's an exclusively Nazi symbol? Right up there with this one?
And you're simply wrong that everyone knows the difference between this skull and crossbones and that one. Obviously the one on the SS cap is a bad one but no, people don't generally keep track of the design details of skull insignia. What I'll agree is that any skull tattoo should really make you wonder if perhaps we're the baddies, but whatever. I find that St Pauli logo to be weird too.
And sure. Keep an eye on this guy. No disagreement. You're just making some really strong claims about symbols and other people's awareness.
The totenkopf is an exclusively nazi symbol. Reading comprehension is important because I was referring to recognizability as nazi imagery when referring to the swastika, ss runes and the iron cross. The ss runes and Nazi swastika on the point are also pretty solely related to nazism The iron cross is probably more recognizable than the totenkopf as nazi imagery but less exclusively related to nazism, whereas the totenkopf is associated solely with nazism. We clear now? Good. Because even with all that nobody accidentally gets a Nazi tattoo because nobody accidentally goes to a Nazi tattoo shop and any shop displaying a totenkopf for patrons to pick out is also displaying other nazi imagery because they will be known in the community for doing nazi tattoos and respectable tattoo shops and artists do not fuck with fascists. It's just not something that can happen man.
I mean if you’re an ex drug addict you shouldn’t be Secretary of health. I think at some point we’ve gone too far.
I think RFK jr. shouldn't be Secretary of Health because he's anti-science, anti-vaccine, anti-handwashing, anti-public health, believes raw milk and red meat are good for you, eats roadkill, swims in raw sewage, and brags about doing coke off of public bathroom toilet seats. I'm sure I missed a few points, too.
Being a former drug addict doesn't factor into it. Some of the kindest, most caring, self-aware, and health-focused people I know are former drug addicts. People can turn their lives around, and climbing out of a mountain-deep hole is as big of an accomplishment as climbing a mountain.
The fact that you're trying to conflate RFK jr.'s being-a-drug-addict with his being-a-disgusting-unqualified-piece-of-shit is very problematic and reveals a lot about you as a person.