Watergirl’s Dan Pfeiffer post picked a few of the unpopular things Trump did in a day, but there are more. As Brian Schatz points out:
In an event like an inauguration everyone is seated by rank. In this one the richest men in the world who run our information platforms were seated in front of the actual cabinet. That’s not some little curiosity – that’s the whole thing.
— Brian Schatz (@schatz.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 6:23 AM
Another one that Pfeiffer didn’t mention:
Trump just literally eliminated an Executive Order to reduce the price of prescription drugs. They are ripping you off, personally. They never gave a shit about the price of anything.
— Brian Schatz (@schatz.bsky.social) January 21, 2025 at 6:26 AM
There’s just so much from yesterday that Democrats have enough material for months.
rikyrah
it’s so obvious. Absolutely ridiculous. Just foul…yesterday was.
Elizabelle
AG “Putz” Sulzberger and Exec Editor Joe Kahn of the FTF FOTUS-Fellating NY Times (Vichy Edition!) needed to be in that front row too, or near.
They helped elect him. Certainly took Hillary and Biden down.
Fuck ’em.
rikyrah
President Kamala’s Hand (Again) (@myronjclifton) posted at 9:49 AM on Tue, Jan 21, 2025:
Carrie Underwood refused to shake former Vice President Kamala Harris hand on National television, just like that senator’s husband.
A lapdog to the patriarchy refusing to respect a Black woman who is more accomplished & more loved is American
She’s neither original or unique
(https://x.com/myronjclifton/status/1881730817669685381?t=ceSqGdnaj5mYvqgO_95MSA&s=03)
Steve LaBonne
The executive order on drug prices is a perfect example of how people are falling right into Asshole’s “shock and awe” trap. All it does is eliminate three small pilot programs that hadn’t even gotten started yet. Most of the executive orders were like that- noise, smoke, and mirrors.
Elizabelle
Ah, just realized the woman in white is Bezos’ pneumatic “fiancee.” Didn’t recognize her in modest attire.
Starfish
@rikyrah: Here is my surprised face for when Southern white women are up to White nonsense 😒
Elizabelle
@rikyrah: If true, Carrie is going to lose more fans than she gains.
Jesus, Take the Wheel!
brendancalling sivr
@Steve LaBonne: my now-former weed guy—a trump voter who relies on expensive medication to keep his metastatic prostate cancer at bay—is gonna be surprised. Sucks to be him!
Barbara
I don’t remember the EO on reducing the price of drugs, but the real test will be the implementation of actual laws that were passed to make drugs less expensive especially for Medicare beneficiaries. Medicaid beneficiaries are pretty well protected from the cost of prescription drugs.
The price negotiation provisions of IRA have been challenged in court but upheld by every federal court that has reviewed them, including appellate courts that have ruled on them. Manufacturers are dying to get a reprieve from these provisions, as well as the “inflation protection” rebate provisions that require manufacturers to rebate amounts when the cost of a product exceeds a certain cost of living benchmark.
Trump was ALL ABOUT reducing the cost of prescription drugs in his first term — mostly because of his reflexive disgust at the idea that Americans are subsidizing cheaper prices elsewhere. He even tried to implement a so-called demonstration program that would have created an international benchmark. It never got off the ground.
So I guess in this I am very curious to see what he plans to do about actual provisions that have started to make headway in reducing the cost of drugs for Medicare.
Barbara
@Steve LaBonne: Agreed. Most but not all. Still, the optics of reducing programs that reduce prices for old and poor people should not be dismissed.
Steve LaBonne
@Barbara: And are unlikely to be good optics for Asshole.
Raflw
Sadly it seems like Chuck Schumer wants bipartisan comity. What god’s green earth is wrong with that man?
Steve LaBonne
@Raflw: Much better to make meaningless noises that give you emotional catharsis than to preserve the possibility of peeling off enough Republican Senators to prevent some of the bad shit from passing, amirite?
E.
I read somewhere that a chief anxiety among the Roman noble classes was where everyone got seated at the banquet. It was a major preoccupation. Anyway I’m sure all of this is going to be fine in the end. /s
sentient ai from the future
even though it does a disservice to the muppet in question, i love how zuck in that photo looks like Beaker with a mid-life crisis.
TBone
What’s playing in the Church of TBone today: Bullwinkle
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QxIIz1yEsA
Old Man Shadow
@rikyrah: A lot of white asshole Americans are all set to reopen the Whites Only bathrooms and water fountains.
Villago Delenda Est
Sorry, convicted felon. I’m still going to call it the Gulf of Mexico, and I’m still going to call it Denali. You can go take it where the sun don’t shine.
brendancalling sivr
@Raflw: he’s old, weak, stuck in the 90s, and owned by Wall Street.
suzanne
@rikyrah: Carrie Underwood and her terrible roots and the eyeliner she borrowed from JD Vance fall into the category of “things I would boycott for their horrible politics, if I wasn’t already boycotting them for sucking”.
Geminid
@Raflw: I care about what Chuck Schumer does, not what he says.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I care about both.
Belafon
@Steve LaBonne: I would like to separate “shock and awe” from responding to the presidents actions. The “shock and awe” trap we should not be falling into is that we knew he was doing to do a bunch of dangerous and stupid crap. Don’t be shocked nor awed. But you are allowed to be angry at the stupid stuff he’s doing and you’re allowed to call it out for being that. And his stopping any program that is an attempt to lower drug prices can be called out, and should.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: The actual response is the lawsuits that have already been filed.
Belafon
@Old Man Shadow: I, on the other hand, am trying to find the minority owned restaurants in my area to go visit.
hrprogressive
@Raflw:
It’s a big club, and we ain’t in it.
Ohio Mom
I just had the most exhausting but successful talking Ohio Son down from a meltdown. It turns out that he is upset that Trump is taking aim at the Department of Education because he thinks that’s where his services come from — and they did, when he was in public school.
I told him the best thing to do when you are worried about the future is to take action. I told him we were immediately writing a check to The Arc (a national disability advocacy organization ) so they could fight for us.
I wrote on the memo line “Fight for the Dept of Ed for IEP kids,” showed it to him, put it on an envelope and sent him and Ohio Dad to the post office to mail it — on their way to Ohio Son’s job, which he will be half an hour late for. A job for which he is already on probation. Because guess what, having social and communication challenges and an anxiety disorder can really get in the way of your life.
As soon as I get my adrenaline back normal levels, I will bask in the knowledge that Ohio Son is finally developing a grounded sense of politics.
Now all I have to worry about is that he gets to keep his job. As I frequently tell him, “Mistakes are how we learn” but as all of us here know, some mistakes are easier to come back than others.
Thanks for letting me discharge all that.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Betty Cracker: Ditto on Schumer. Dems have to stop sucking on the bipartisan crack pipe. Those days are long gone, if they ever were. Be the Democrats’ McConnell.
Betty Cracker
@Ohio Mom: Sounds like you handled it just right. Best of luck to y’all.
Butch
@brendancalling sivr: Tiedrich’s Everyone is Entitled to My Own Opinion column today includes a video of Trump struggling (and finally giving up) to button his overcoat.
As far as Trump’s EOs, I think his only intent is to undo everything he can that Biden did. I doubt he has thought about consequences.
Betty
@Elizabelle: That is modest attire only by comparison. The garment underneath her jacket resembles lingerie but covers a bit more of her ample bosom than is usual. Zuckerberg sure found it an intriguing look.
terraformer
Democrats and others have never experienced a dearth of “material” to work with – what they inexplicably have a dearth of is *a coordinated, consistent, effective, and focused* offensive against what Republicans and their enablers are trying to do. This has been the case for *decades* and I just don’t understand why
tobie
@rikyrah: @Elizabelle: @suzanne: Yikes! This thread is proving that I’m old. I had to look up who Carrie Underwood is. I thought she was a character in the show House of Cards, of which I’ve watched maybe one episode. I need to up my game.
Ned F
@Steve LaBonne: In other news, General Motors will rename the GMC Denali the McKinley in response.
I jest, but just you wait…
ExPatExDem
@brendancalling sivr: I’ll say it again today, my sympathy is reserved exclusively for those who didn’t vote for this. People like your weed guy deserve to get exactly what they voted for. With no lube.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@tobie: I was just about to ask who she is
tobie
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes! Now I know I’m in good company.
Betty Cracker
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I don’t know who the audience for that crap is supposed to be. Polling data says voters like bipartisanship, but lots of the same voters put scorched earth partisans in office. Is the audience Republican electeds? Please.
Schumer’s Bluesky feed was a mixed bag yesterday. After the crap about turning the page and marching with Republicans toward a bright future, to his credit, he called Trump out for coddling criminals, Big Pharma and the energy cartel.
I’m watching what they do AND what they say. All of them.
JerseyBeard
No more billionaires. No more corporate money in politics.
It’s clear that the GOP is not the party that will carry that banner. Is it clear that the Democrats are? The party I support will not be the party that looks for ways to protect and privilege billionaires while keeping corporate money dominant in our political system.
President Musk and First Lady Trump made it clear they are on the side of billionaires. I’d like to see Democrats clearly demonstrate they are not.
Sister Golden Bear
@Steve LaBonne:
Unfortunately, the executive order about trans people* will have definite effects — starting with erasing the legal status of trans people (and intersex people) as of yesterday. Plus rescinding of a bunch of Biden-era pro-LGBTQ+ guidance and executive orders.
That it’s about “protecting women” in the title of this order is pretty clear evidence for how misogyny and transphobia are deeply intertwined.
*CW: There is a lot of harmful and just plain wrong language in there. E.g. There is no “sex” at conception, as specified in the EO. There’s some chromosomal pattern but the differentiation in gonads and sex organs and types of fertility are a result of the hormonal wash months into pregnancy.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: But do you care about what Schumer says as much as what he does?
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Betty Cracker:
I actually think it is destructive to our cause. The non-voters I know (few) have the “uniparty” theory — they’re both the same, why bother. We need to show how we’re different from the clowns currently in charge. It shouldn’t be that hard.
suzanne
@Ohio Mom: Hugs to you. Spawn the Elder doesn’t have autism, but he does have a similar anxiety disorder, and man….. it is hard. Sounds like you parented the heck out of that situation.
NotoriousJRT
@Elizabelle: I guess thats’s my question: is it true?
Belafon
@terraformer: Because a dearth of material can be too much. Trump supplies so much material against him that it’s not effective. And do you know how effective “Democrats want to put boys in your daughter’s locker room” was?
Then throw in the fact that every major policy initiative over the last 65 years has led to electoral losses because Democrats refuse to leave minorities behind.
NotoriousJRT
@sentient ai from the future: perfect!
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: I read it and I didn’t analyze it comprehensively — but the Federal government can’t tell states how to issue or reformat birth certificates. If, let’s say, Minnesota has a process for reassigning gender on an official birth certificate it will be very difficult for the Federal government to insist that the original, now unofficial birth certificate, is the one that federal officials must follow.
I can’t stress enough about how important it is to consider how these things are likely to be carried forward in implementation to begin preparing for which arguments are most likely to prevail in overturning them, and it won’t always necessarily be the same argument depending on the state birth certificate laws that are in place. I continue to believe that state policy is the most important driver of transgender rights. The Federal government is really following states here.
But I hope it goes without saying that I think these actions are hateful and deeply unfair.
Quinerly
@Sister Golden Bear:
Thank you.
Sister Golden Bear
@Sister Golden Bear: We’ll see how aggressive the Project 2025 haters will be in implementing it, but per the EO my passport (and any other federally issues ID) would be changed to revert back to the sex I was assigned at birth. While it’s not specifically mentioned, implicitly this would also include my Social Security info — which is the basis for all other legal ID. E.g. when I changed my ID after transitioning, I had to wait a few days before changing my CA driver’s license in order for my updated SS info to be synched to the CA DMV database.
At least one, possibly two, Red states* have already revoked the drivers licenses and birth certificates of trans people that had their true gender on them — even for trans people who’d had both charged via court order — so this isn’t theoretical.
*I’m too fried to check at the moment.
John S.
@Ohio Mom:
I always love reading about your experiences with Ohio Son. It gives me hope for the future with my son.
Thanks for sharing.
Baud
Dem states led by New Jersey filed suit against the birthright citizenship EO in Massachusetts.
Scout211
The Democrats in the House and Senate were 2/3 responsible for the bills that were passed in the first two years of the Biden administration. If they had not been in the majority then, the bills that we give Biden credit for that help the American people so much, would not have passed. He would not be the president we all now praise for being the “best president in our lifetime.”
I am not privy to what goes on in private in either the House or the Senate and neither is anyone here. I don’t know what should be done or what the answer is, but my guess is that the Democrats in the House and Senate have a plan. And that plan likely will be a long game that stretches out for the next two years. They won’t always say what we want them to say but they will likely choose how to fight Trump’s agenda in the most effective way they know how. But they do need to hear from their constituents, so keep contacting them to let them know your thoughts. But dissecting everything Schumer and other Dem pols say seems pointless when we also should be looking at the long game. And the long game includes electing more Democrats and using the courts when possible.
This fighting amongst ourselves here is getting to me. I think I need a time out. Again.
catclub
Mostly. Withdrawing from WHO because he has a grudge against it for not backing up all his lunacy about covid. This will end up costing us if we are not reinstalled before the next pandemic.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Depends on the words and deeds. Words matter too, as much and at times arguably more than actions. Pen, sword, mighty, etc.
Steve LaBonne
@Sister Golden Bear: That’s why I said “most”. Even then, the effect of this one will mostly be to encourage red states to do awful shit that they were going to do anyway, because most identity documents other than passports are a state function. Which is why months ago some of my trans acquaintances wisely left Ohio for Michigan.
Raflw
@Steve LaBonne: lf Chuck wants to make those overtures to Republican Senators, I’d posit that Bsky is not the forum.
And his timing on Shock and Awe day looks far too much like knuckling under.
I’m serious. It was crap strategy.
Day 1 was about setting a grotesque Republican agenda. Schumer offering to work alongside one part of the GOP trifecta makes no sense as a public position. Unless he means it, in which case, fuuuuuk all that.
TBone
@Ohio Mom: hugs.
Steve LaBonne
@Scout211: And in general do we really need to help Republicans blacken the memory of a very effective president who accomplished a lot of good things? I truly hate the Democratic tendency to eat our own. Look how long it’s taken for the conventional wisdom about Jimmy Carter being a bad president to (rightl) start to shift.
Sister Golden Bear
@Barbara: I hope you’re right. But one of the issues that could easily happen is that Social Security reverts my gender marker (since technically my SS card is federal ID), but my birth certificate/state ID uses my current one.
These sorts of mismatches caused problems for trans people in the past, e.g. being outed when the IRS contacted employers this sort of mismatch on tax documents, having the discrepancies show up in background checks (something I’ve routinely undergone for private sector jobs, not affiliated in any way with the government).
Another ambitious issue is whether the feds could decide the Real ID constitutes “federal ID” under the EO, and consequently would require state ID/driver’s licenses to comply with “sex = assigned at birth” to be Real ID compliant. Obviously, one could opt out of getting a Real ID compliant ID — but that means not being able to fly anywhere.
I’m not saying all of this will happen, but it’s got a far higher likelihood of happening than invading Greenland.
catclub
ummm, isn’t that exactly what the Real ID drivers licenses was about? If you don’t reformat your license, then license holders in your state cannot use them to fly.
Similarly for passports, which typically require a birth certificate before issuing.
Lobo
This. While it might not have been determinative, always a factor. Also, see female Commandant of Coast Guard fired.
brendancalling
@ExPatExDem: I feel exactly the same way. I’m polite and respectful to ex-weed guy… but I buy my weed from NJ legally now. Although I *DO* look forward to his panic and whining.
hotshoe
@rikyrah: Carrie can go lick dogs’ assholes in hell.
I don’t have to get into the whole “don’t like the artist’s personal morals, therefore I have to reject their work” kind of discussion. Because I like Americana music, and I hate arena-pop-country, I would never own anything she performed. But I am kinda surprised that none of her previous fans have objected to her Dumpster sellout — or at least, none that I’ve heard of so far.
White trash with money.
That’s all they are.
Steve LaBonne
@Raflw: Like many people, you have no idea what the job of a legislative leader is. They are not spokespeople. We do not have a parliamentary system in which the government and the shadow government draw their personnel from the legislature.
Matt McIrvin
@Butch: It’s not just undoing Biden; some of it is just blatantly mean acts undoing a century or more of precedent. The birthright-citizenship move is enacting a deranged legal reading of the 14th Amendment that has become mainstream among conservatives but hasn’t been actual practice ever, and is basically undoing part of US v. Wong Kim Ark from 1898.
Lobo
@JerseyBeard: First Lady Trump. Nice!
Raflw
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Thanks, mistermix. There is no eleventy dimension chess with Republicans. Their entire agenda is garbage — and worse — and anything other than “You broke this, Republicans, you bought it” will mean voters punish Dems along with Repubs when it becomes obvious most people hate what Trump, Johnson & Thune are doing.
Almost Retired
@suzanne: My only exposure to Carrie Underwood was hate-watching the live television broadcast of Sound of Music. It’s a wonder Julie Andrews didn’t seek a restraining order. L’il Carrie was totally upstaged by Audra McDonald. Other than that, I only know one of her songs, which focused on vandalizing the car of an adulterer. I hope Trump checked the limo after the inauguration.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: Purporting to undo. I think it’s a mistake to concede that he has that power.
TBone
Just got really bad news, so I had to see this again. It’s even better with captions! Bill & Hill
https://bsky.app/profile/mamasissiesays.bsky.social/post/3lgae2toyz22a
Hanging on through humor and friends today.
Lobo
@Sister Golden Bear:
Protect Women The response should be instead of focusing of Transpeople, we should focus on sexual predators like all those in the Trump Admin and the Repub party.
KatKapCC
@Lobo: Trans people, not “transpeople”.
tam1MI
It’s like there was only 1 Dem who knew to stand up to those assholes, and we bounced him out on his ass in July of 2024.
TBone
Somebody else can step
inon that turd. Please hurry.I’m trying to.hold my mouth right today.
Kay
100% agree. I was shocked by that. Also- just a reminder. Facebook, X,Amazon and Apple are not “the economy” and the United States is not “the world”. That’s a fiction promoted by weak-minded media people and MAGAs. Don’t give these fucking corrupt clowns all the power they’re petulantly demanding.
They think they run the world. They don’t. They’ve captured US media and the Republican Party and that’s all they;ve captured. Facebook, in particular, is offensive. The spoiled, coddled clown who created an internet lie machine is somehow the most valuable and productive businessperson? No, he’s actually not. It’s all celebrity fluff and fads. They’re all on the MAGA train now because they’re all followers. And look at who they’re following! A 78 year old sleazy New York City real estate heir who is a rapist.
We’ll win this. On merit. Make them regret that photo.
tobie
A propos of nothing: I learned this weekend that even if you can’t put solar panels on your apartment building, townhome or house, you can enroll in a community solar project. You can book your share through a non-profit which gets a modest donation ($100) through your enrollment. If new wind farms are banned, we can at least expand solar farms this way.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@tam1MI:
Why are you bringing this up? It’s not going to lead anywhere productive
catclub
Trump EO on security clearances:
Tulsi Gabbard, for starters.
The calls will be coming from inside the admin.
Steve LaBonne
@Lobo: We don’t take kindly to TERFs around here. Move along.
TBone
@Kay: a trick I learned recently is when they say “economy” I substitute “rich peoples’ yacht money” in my head.
Professor Bigfoot
@TBone: “…hon…” ROFLMAO
I watched that little snipped 5 or 6 times. I tell you, Hillary Rodham Clinton is multiple kinds of awesome, and hers was the only rational response to Trump’s bullshit.
TBone
@tobie: excellent!
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: Do it out loud too!
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: it put the wind back in my gasbag today, I’m watching periodically!
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: thank you! I had to scream a little while ago so I’m a little
horsehoarse, but they’ll soon hear from ME!Raflw
@Matt McIrvin: Trump yanking US out of the WHO should, in a better world, cause real repercussions to us ordinary folks.
One that comes to mind right away (if European leaders had the guts): Require Americans to provide proof of vaccination to the list of common contagious diseases before permitting even short vacation travel.
“Oh, well when the USA was a signatory to WHO and it’s basic goals around diseases prevention, we didn’t feel we needed individual proofs. But now? Our hands are tied. How can we know an American complies with standard expectations?”
Lobo
@KatKapCC: Noted. Sorry about that. Trying my best. Please don’t include me as a Terf. Yuck!
Steve LaBonne
@Raflw: They should have been planning that anyway. Robert the Lesser will insure that we are the Typhoid Marys of the world.
Professor Bigfoot
@Lobo: So defending the human rights of our fellow citizens is incorrect?
When I talk about how white people will shake hands over dead Black bodies, you’re perfectly prepared to make common cause over the dead bodies of trans people. Our fellow citizens.
This is the only way to win straight white Christians– join them in punching down on people who aren’t straight white Christians
Edited to say– ah, okay, you obviously do get the point(#87), I withdraw my pointed criticism.
lowtechcyclist
@Sister Golden Bear:
In that case, then by its own definitions, we’re all the same sex. Nobody knows my chromosomes at conception, and they don’t know anyone else’s. Sounds to me like the EO says we can all use whichever restrooms we damn well please, since the distinction it makes between the genders does not exist.
Lobo
@Professor Bigfoot:
Wow! Sorry if my comment came out the wrong. I was trying to say something different. When they try to focus on Trans people as a threat, we should redirect to the conversation to point out the true threat to women and others are sexual predators like Trump and others in the Repub party. A bit of grace if my phrasing and argument didn’t come out that way.
hotshoe
I’ve already forgotten where I saw it yesterday, but I saw the speculation that the “from conception” wording in the “Protect Women” document was inserted by Fetal-Personhood advocates.
Creeps.
Steve LaBonne
@Lobo: Then don’t talk like one. We do not throw people, including (or especially, since they currently have targets on their backs) trans people, under the bus in the delusional belief that that’s how we will win.
Steve LaBonne
@Lobo: No, we should DEFEND TRANS PEOPLE. Who else will?
Kay
I don’t know much of anything about trade (really complex) but I can tell you about one small piece of it. The manufacture and assembly of automobiles and heavy equipment. Parts don’t just cross the Canadian border once. They go back and forth in a value-add process, where say a Ford contractor in Ohio or Michigan gets blanks from up there and machines and sends back. The components of a car can go back and forth and then back and then back and forth AGAIN, and then finally one more trip as a “car”.
US media depcting this as King Trump ordering “sanctions” or “tariffs” on… something with the social media billionaires “approving” his actions them lying to you. It’s oversimplifying to the point of dishonesty. And their editorial writers, none of whom are experts on anything other than “social trends” or whatever, can’t help you with it. They don’t know either. Zuckerberg has nothing to do with making anything at all, other than silly distraction sites.
Professor Bigfoot
@Lobo: Noted; and as mentioned above, criticism withdrawn.
You obviously get it (from your following comments) so… anyway, we cool.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Then why do people keep throwing me under the bus?
Belafon
@Lobo: The rich know how to use the racism of whites to turn what should be a class war into a race war.
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: “First they came for the socialists…”
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: It’s cool because they know they won’t be ruining a perfectly good pair of pants.
TBone
@Belafon: 🎯
sentient ai from the future
@lowtechcyclist: the number of intersex conditions is fairly large and quite interesting. androgen insensitivity syndrome, sex-determining-y-chromosome relocations…
none of these matter to people who are getting their marching orders from dipshit fascist ideologues who maybe finished high school biology, if that.
DONT TELL THEM ABOUT THE GUEVEDOCES! is gonna become a catchphrase of mine in about 30 seconds ago.
TBone
@sentient ai from the future: thank you for expanding my vocabulary. Now I need to know how to pronounce it correctly.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: So how did you think Schumer actually did in the 117th(?) Congress, when he put major legislation through with a 50 vote caucus during Biden’s first two years? Or when he got so many federal judges through during the 117th and 118th Congress?
Schumer’s messaging might have disappointed some Democrats then, but he delivered in deed and that’s what matters to me.
Chuck Schumer is the same tough minded politician now that he was then; he just doesn’t have a majority now. And I don’t think more fiercely partisan rhetoric on Schumer’s part would have saved Tester’s seat, or Brown’s or Casey’s either.
Kayla Rudbek
@Belafon: I am going to buy some yarn from here: https://athayneshouseyarns.com/pages/about and then go check fibre space to see if they still have any Neighborhood Fiber Company yarn in stock (NFC is on hiatus right now while she gets her physical store and dyeing space sorted out).
Shalimar
@Lobo: We’re focusing on the trans community because they are under direct attack. It would be nice if there weren’t actively evil assholes on the other side, but that is not our current reality.
NotMax
@TBone
Channel your inner Roscoe.
I’m rough
I’m tough
Don’t take no guff
;)
Lobo
@Steve LaBonne: To be clear I try be an ally, advocate, and accomplice to everyone including Trans people. As part of a marginalized population, I realize the dangers and they, especially now, are at risk. Some of us not in the community, mess up in our effort, but we are trying. Give some of us the benefit of the doubt and educate us when inadvertently screw up. Again a bit of grace and patience. Peace.
Ohio Mom
@suzanne: I am convinced that anxiety is the rare contagious psychiatric condition.
Baud
As a reminder, on the House vote to ban trans girls from sports, all the Republicans voted in favor and all the Dems except two from Texas voted against.
I get that things get muddled when bad stuff is attacked to some omnibus bill, but we’re mostly pretty solid on trans issues for now. I think the emphasis should be on public support rather than making people fearful that Dems as a whole are wishy washy.
Barbara
@Sister Golden Bear: Those are all really good points — I can’t tell you how all of these laws interact, and more than once I have thought that it doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense to even worry about identifying gender on a number of ID forms, but most notably Social Security. SSN is not supposed to be and was never intended to be used as a form of ID. I don’t know if all states did away with using SSN on drivers’ licenses, but most have.
It’s worth paying attention to and being in touch with actual legal efforts to counter the intended harm. That’s my main point.
Matt McIrvin
@Raflw: I haven’t kept up on the current visa restrictions for traveling to the EU–my impression was that the basically unlimited entry to the Schengen Zone we used to have is expiring and Americans visiting the EU are going to have to go on a website and pay a fee in advance. Not too onerous, but not nothing either.
I don’t currently imagine that that is going to lift any time soon, and it might well get worse.
Belafon
@Lobo: I understood your original statement meant to being trying to get people to understand that it’s not trans people that are the threat, but we’re all a bit wound up. Next time don’t forget the space.
Barbara
@Baud: I read a Wonkette piece this morning on a study done by a couple of researchers to understand the whole panic about transgender women playing sports. Unsurprisingly, people who were most passionate about prohibiting participation by transgender female athletes were overall the least supportive of women playing sports at all — and in favor of forcing women to conform to more traditional female stereotypes.
This seems like such an obvious thing, but it’s nice to see it documented. These acts are poison pills aimed at controlling all women but especially women who play sports.
pieceofpeace
@Raflw: Politicans have their own codes or means of dealing with moral & political obligations, regardless of party affiliation. There’s no politician at this level who, on their way up the ladder politic, hasn’t sold some of their more decent, personal aspirational goals and values.
Maybe someone who likes doing deep dives can prove this – it’s only my opinion right now. And to expect the resultant narratives from this accepted practice..
Steve LaBonne
@Lobo: Fine but please understand that we are all in the same boat and must support one another. We stand or fall together and it’s never appropriate to advocate for changing the subject when any portion of our coalition is under attack.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Professor Bigfoot:
That reminds me, I just posed this below:
I went down a rabbit hole in the r/ezraklein subreddit a few weeks ago, and came across some post-election threads there. There were way too many people, of various apparent political ideologies ( “moderate centrists”, leftists/Marxists) advocating to throw trans people to the wolves. “Identity politics” cost us the election and we need to focus on class, etc. And people who objected to this, were met with this in at least one case I saw: “Would you rather be right or would you rather win?”
Aside from being depraved, it was just utterly naive. To think that if you simply ditched trans people Republicans wouldn’t just move onto the next target and then the next. It would never end. Just no concept of basic history, which you’d think self-described socialists and Marxists would know
TONYG
@Raflw: Maybe Schumer is getting paid off. He’s acting as though the past eight years (and, really, the past 44 years) never happened.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: One of the trans advocates I follow was talking about Ed Markey voting for the TikTok ban as part of some defense authorization bill, and made a gloomy prediction that Democrats were going to use the omnibus excuse to cave on trans rights. We’ll see.
Baud
@Raflw:
You always want bipartisanship when you’re in the minority.
When we were enacting things on party line votes, it was the Republicans demand bipartisanship.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: Ditto with the UK. You now have to register. It’s not going to be difficult for most people. As is already the case, people who are traveling under a U.S. passport but are officially dual citizens or citizens of another country will likely run into the most difficulty.
Citizen Alan
@Old Man Shadow: I think they’ll get them. I said when Justice Serena Joy got rushed onto SCOTUS that abortion was only the start and that Brown v Board of Ed was on the chopping block. I think as soon as there’s test case, there will be 5 votes to restore “separate but equal.” Thomas will probably write the opinion so the FTFNYT can poo-poo the idea that the decision is racist.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Already happened with the NDAA.
That said, I’m not happy that people don’t distinguish between ugly dealmaking and a complete capitulation to the right wing ethos. People use “cave” to refer to any departure from perfection, and that has the effect of misleading people and causing them to give up.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I just think about how the push for gay rights went in the 2000s. You could make a colorable argument that Massachusetts shouldn’t have legalized gay marriage because by some marginal cause analysis it led to George W. Bush’s reelection. But, in response to that, one must consider the counter argument of “FUCK THAT AND FUCK YOU”. (Is all progress even at the state level going to have to wait for the partisan winds to shift? Do we stand for anything?)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I don’t think that applies when people’s basic human rights are under attack
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It does. It’s a universal rule for everything.
cckids
@Steve LaBonne:
Who cares? Running with a partial truth and spinning it as monstrous seems to be how media and politics work now. Lets leverage it to our advantage. Nuance gets us nowhere.
Citizen Alan
By the same token, I will forever be bitter that the NY Democratic Party was so fucking inept and flaccid that, in a year where we otherwise defeated the Red Wave, they lost enough winnable races to narrowly throw the house to the GOP. Imagine for a moment where we’d be if Biden had gotten another 2 years of a unified Dem Congress!
karen gail
Am catching up after ignoring “news” until now; so Trump told people that US has ‘manifest destiny’ and we are going to claim Mars. He also let people know that two failed assassination attempts mean he has a mandate from god to rule. Didn’t know until his EO that only way you can tell male from female is by eggs or sperm, thought it had more to do with DNA and chemistry.
Also discovered that all those who believed (looking at Speaker Johnson and others) that his pardons for J6 rioters wouldn’t include those who pled guilty or violently attacked police and capital security. Idiots he pardoned a former SEAL whose own team members testified against him; he pardons violent criminals from US and blames other countries for sending theirs here. US isn’t allowing terrorists in; US grows our own.
Matt McIrvin
@karen gail: Most of the last several Presidents have come into office saying “hey, wouldn’t it be cool to put astronauts on Mars?” and then someone shows them the numbers, they get the sticker shock and we don’t hear about that again. The difference here, of course, is that Donald Trump is a complete dumbass and Elon Musk, who has some grift going based ultimately on a Mars colonization plan, has his ear.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Mostly okay? I’m not Schumer’s biggest fan, but I don’t think he’s the devil either. The point I was trying to make is that words matter. You seemed to be saying they don’t — that only actions do. Sorry if I misunderstood.
Citizen Alan
Actually, I would submit that any American who is a self-described Marxist in 2025 is probably more ignorant of basic history than the average MAGA.
Sister Golden Bear
@Lobo: I understood what you were trying to say. We’re cool.
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin: you make a compelling, thoughtful, and nuanced counterargument here. thank you.
Matt McIrvin
@karen gail: …and, historically, anti-trans stuff has insisted the important thing is assigned sex at birth, which is “how some doctor thinks your junk looks when you’re born” (or, in some cases, what it’s easier to surgically modify it to when you’re born).
How Trump’s standard would be implemented for children is something I don’t even want to think about.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: Y’know, I understand where they’re coming from. Marx was clueless about predictions and prescriptions but he had a lot of the problems with capitalism DOWN, because he was paying attention to what was going on around him.
Tazj
I don’t like what I’ve heard from Senate Democrats regarding Trump’s pardoning of the January 6th defendants either. Granted I’ve only heard from Tim Kaine and Amy Klobuchar but I didn’t like what either had to say.
Klobuchar said on Maddow that she didn’t like the Presidential pardon as it exists now and was uncomfortable with some of Biden’s pardons. Kaine said Biden’s pardons of family members undermined their argument that Trump’s pardons were wrong. Really? I don’t believe that Kaine or Klobuchar can’t fashion an argument that differentiates between Biden’s family members and the January 6th defendants. I know that Hunter Biden has done sleazy things but a major witness against him in his trial went to jail for lying. I don’t think Biden’s other family members are guilty of anything criminal and Trump has threatened retribution.
Do they really have to both sides the pardons? Will this appeal to those independent voters or people who think everyone in government is corrupt? I think it undermines their argument that January 6th was a horrifyingly bad day in US history that shouldn’t be repeated again.
Raflw
@Matt McIrvin: The U.K. did ramp up their eTA (electronic Travel Authority) on Jan 8th. Before then one only needed fill out a request (and pay £10, or about $12.50) if one were staying in Britain.
Now, one is told to pay up even when not leaving the semi-nopersonsland of the Heathrow international terminal.
I flew over Jan 15 via London. No forms or hoo-haw to enter the Schengen. No one seemed to check my U.K. eTA during the perfunctory carry-on X-ray and metal detector stop before boarding my intra-Europe (but trans-Schengen) flight.
I’d expect that longer term you’re correct, tho. NZ and AU already have their own versions of eTAs (with fees!).
TBone
@NotMax: thank you! I was listening to the Ramones because I wanna be sedated, but that is better, ha!
Sister Golden Bear
@karen gail:
You can’t. It’s a TERF/Christofascist talking point. And even DNA is complicated, e.g. women with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome have XY chromosomes, but develop as essentially female. Usually they’re infertile, which is usually how it’s discovered, but I believe there’s at least documented case of women with XY chromosomes who’ve given birth—which scientists had previously believed was impossible (they may have had chimeric chromosomes).
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: The girls’ sports nonsense is an open invitation for pervs to do genital checks, and I don’t doubt for a moment that some of the people pushing it are excited about that.
Lobo
@Steve LaBonne:
I do. I believe in the below.
Trump’s EO attack on birth right citizenship affects my homies. We are all in this together and have to look out for each. I sincerely apologize to anyone I offended. I will withdraw from this thread, to avoid any further inadvertent harm.
Sister Golden Bear
@Matt McIrvin:
The Grand Old Pedophiles want to mandate genital inspections of girls and women (because they never give shit about trans boys/men). This is my unshocked face.
Geminid
According to Turkiye-based Clash Report, the Spanish Prime Minister had something to say:
Clash Report dialed up a couple good pictures for the post. On the right is an arrogant-looking Musk; on the left, a determined Sanchez with one bushy eyebrow seemingly cocked at the tech titan.
E.
@Matt McIrvin: True but the more you read Marx, the more you realize a critique of capitalism is the only thing he was ever really talking about. And conversely, the less you have read of Marx, the more you think he was about predicting the rise of communism or telling the world how to manage their economies.
Quinerly
@karen gail:
I suspect the wife and son of Stewart Rhodes have gone into hiding. They were terrified in November.
Then there’s the son who turned in his father….Jackson Reffitt is the son. Father is Guy Reffitt
pieceofpeace
@Ohio Mom:
You’re dealing with enormous challenges, so for you and your family, take the time and give special attention and care for yourself.
TBone
@Tazj: false equivalence is an old, but effective, trick of the tyranny of words.
tam1MI
Feckless Dems like them are going to be the death of this party.
TBone
@Geminid: noice. We have allies already and it’s only Day 2.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
I’ve gotten a renewed appreciation of Marx from that perspective as we’ve gone fullblown into the Second Gilded Age.
His policy prescriptions might have been shit but 40+ years of neoliberal, Reaganomics that’s baked into both sides of the aisle has, in large part, gotten us to this point.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: It seems like a lot of voters like to say they want ‘bipartisanship’, but what they mean by that could be any number of things
That’d be a good question to tease out with a follow-up question or three in future polling.
Glory b
@terraformer: Because too many white people don’t want to vote for the party with the black people in it.
Democrats haven’t won a majority of the white vote since the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts.
Coincidence? I think not.
karen gail
@Sister Golden Bear: I have spent too much time in San Francisco to fear anyone but cowardly white males who believe in their god given right to dictate morals and ethics to others.
The “funny” part is that when Dad took me to bars for a drink he always took me to gay bars that mostly catered to the leather crowd; I felt safer there going to restrooms alone than any other place.
Manyakitty
@TBone: oh no, not the kitty
zhena gogolia
@TBone: I’m so sorry.
Betty Cracker
@Lobo: Your participation is up to you, but I understood what you’ve meant, and you’ve since clarified beyond all doubt, so I hope you don’t feel like you’re in danger of harming anyone. Lots of hair triggers around here, and that ain’t your fault.
karen gail
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I agree that we have gone full blown into Second Gilded Age; what gets me is all these idiots who somehow believe that it was a golden age for everyone. They have seen movies where all these people were living high on the hog but never opened a book much less a history book that tells the complete story. I believe one of the big reasons so many of us olds have a better understanding of the gilded age is that we had parents, grandparents and great grandparents who lived during that age. I did and most of them were not rich but struggled to survive.
TBone
@Manyakitty: yep. “Worse today, but not diabetic”, they have no idea what’s wrong (he still hasn’t eaten since last Thurs.) and he’s now got a fever so antibiotics are being added to his IV. I’m not visiting today because he so badly expected us to take him home with us yesterday. We had to leave hubby’s coat with him because he was burrowing into it like a plea. Pure torture, but I’m sitting through not being able to hold him yet.
Manyakitty
@TBone: unbearable. I’m so sorry. Sending you and yours all the love.
Did the vet/hospital ask you to stay away?
matt
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I agree. I think the Dems are going to want to distance themselves as much as possible from the Nazi rabble they’re up against. There used to be a guy who would go to Westboro Baptist protests with his own sign that said ‘Fuck that guy ->’. That should be the approach.
Barbara
@catclub: The short answer is no. The longer answer is more complicated, but it would take an actual Federal law to legislate how states organize their official vital records.
Lobo
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you. That made me feel better. I am scared sh&*less for all of us.
gene108
@catclub:
Either we participate in the world or the world will move on without us. Republicans do not want to admit this.
Second, in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s there was a branch of the Republican party that hated the UN. They wanted us to withdraw completely. Jesse Helms held up our portion of funding the UN as part of this.
Basically, a large portion of the Republican party has hated multilateral organizations for over twenty five years, and this contempt was reflected in Bush, Jr.’s plans to invade Iraq.
Professor Bigfoot
@Glory b: Very few will acknowledge this, of course. Or assign it the core focus that it should have.
Matt McIrvin
@karen gail: History books for kids tend to portray the late 19th-early 20th century as an exciting and dynamic time of growth and Westward expansion and technological advancement, populated by colorful larger-than-life figures, with the immense human cost of all that underplayed. There are those fun steampunk aesthetics. And so forth.
And I think that for people of a conservative bent in the mid-20th, there was an element of nostalgia for the time before the World Wars, especially if they were small children then. I keep thinking of Walt Disney’s “Main Street USA” which was suspended forever in 1910. It was the 1950s of the 1950s.
Professor Bigfoot
@TBone: Sending love to the three of you.
WaterGirl
@Scout211:
Wondering if your comment is available, because if so, I would like to marry it.
tam1MI
@TBone: Sending healing vibes your fur baby’s way!
TBone
@Manyakitty: thank you! No I decided to wait till tomorrow because I didn’t think it was helping him yesterday. It definitely helped hubby & I to visit, but Noah is hopped up on pain meds as well and just wants to get the hell outta there. I think it’s best for him to rest today.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: thank you!
TBone
@tam1MI: thank you!
pieceofpeace
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Yes!, act on what you value and want for yourselves as well as to help others. That’s a 2-fer.
Sister Golden Bear
@Barbara: I’m sure you’re correct, but given Trump’s unconstitutional order to overturn birth right citizenship, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Trump administration attempts to strong-arm states anyway. Sure they’ll get sued over it, and at least that’ll probably delay things. But given the Calvinball Court, especially after the hearing on trans healthcare for kids, I’m not exactly trusting the SCOTUS to say they can’t do it.
WaterGirl
@Lobo: Your clarification is much appreciated.
I believe that Protect Women has taken on a whole different meaning from what the words themselves would lead us to believe.
LAC
@TBone: awwww – I am so sorry about the news. I hope he will get better. I have been there and it was hard to not be able to hold Deuce.
TBone
@TBone: they unhook his IV and bring him out of the kennel and into a private exam room for visits. So it’s disruptive for his medication and hydration and vitamins as well as “Are we leaving yet?”
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: You were right. I should have said “What Chuck Schumer does matters much more to me than what he says.”
But I still think this fixation on bipartisan talk by Democratic politicians is way overblown. The way I see it, the only concrete harm it does is to the sensibilities of some Democrats who want Democratic electeds to be their surrogates for expressing their anger at Republicans.
I know people are very serious about this but personally, I think it’s an unserious approach to politics. That could be because I live in a purple congressional district, in a state that has gone from red to purple and then to light-blue in this century.
Polling pretty consistently shows Virginia likely voters self-identify ~35% Democrat, ~32% Republican and 30-31% Independent. A Democrat cannot win here without carrying almost half of Independents,It’s the same in Georgia and North Carolina, and Indies are even more plentiful out West in Colorado and Arizona.
Independents are disparate group, I think, but the one thing almost all have in common is they like to hear politicians talk about “bipartisanship,” and “reaching across the aisle” etc.
We can say what we want about Independents–and people here say plenty– but we can’t say Indies don’t vote, and their votes count as much as yours or mine. And I’ve never seen a base Democratic voter say they did not vote for the Democrat in a race because that candidate made bipartisan talk. They just piss and moan about it.
Now, I’m talking political rhetoric here, not policy. When it cames to policy, I believe think we should enact Democratic policies, but that’s because these policies are good for the vast majority of voters.
Then it’s up to us to sell them, and I have no problem with our politicians using the rhetoric of bipartisanship to do that, because it works.
WaterGirl
@Steve LaBonne: @Steve LaBonne: Do you have a reason to think anything other than that Lobo was not aware that “protect women” is code from something completely unrelated to protecting women?
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: I have been through this sort of thing with a dog who suddenly collapsed and turned out to have some rare autoimmune anemia l feel your pain and I hope for the best.
No One of Consequence
@Steve LaBonne: /golfclap
Manyakitty
@TBone: you know what’s best there. Hope your beautiful friend makes a miraculous recovery and you can bring him home for more spoiling soon.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: I agree that Marx correctly diagnosed a lot of the problems of 19th century capitalism. Where he got it completely wrong was in his predictions about how Marxism would replace capitalism, which was based, among other things, on the idea that the capitalists themselves were totally blind to the validity of his critique and would not be able to course correct to a degree sufficient to shut down the very idea of a class-based revolution in this country.
Kay
18 Democratic AG’s filed a lawsuit against the Musk/Trump administration yesterday, based on Musk/Trump violating the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution and nine federal laws on birthright citizenship.
When I can find the actual complaint rather than some sloppy garbage reporting on it, I’ll post it.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: thank you!
Kay
Those 18 states are blue states and so it’s a good bet they contain the majority of the population in this country, so, really, media and social media billionaires attempt to convince you that all of this is a done deal is incorrect. A lie. It doesn’t reflect reality.
TBone
@Manyakitty: I still have hope! He had a sarcoma tumor years back and vet wanted to amputate his leg. Nope, and he lived healthy for years after tumor removal so he IS a miracle cat already.
*Judy Tenuta voice:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5xqiu0ekahw
Kay
Just amazing how bad and captured they are, BTW. I can’t even find WHICH 18 states in the reporting, let alone what the lawsuit is about the remedy they are demanding. I know Michigan is one of them only because I was listening to Michigan AM Ag radio – the station that reports crop prices :)
They don’t fucking want us to KNOW which 18 states!
leeleeFL
leeleeFL
@Elizabelle: Please, let this happen, Lord!
Quinerly
@Kay:
New Mexico is one of the states if you are talking about the suit filed today in MA
Click on the link for “jt filing”
You can read the Complaint
https://www.kunm.org/local-news/2025-01-21/new-mexico-and-17-other-states-sue-over-trump-order-ending-birthright-citizenship
NotMax
@Kay
leeleeFL
@Villago Delenda Est: …and f–k right off afterwards!
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
Nice to think.
I have some truly horrifying ideas about where this could go that I don’t want to explicitly express here right now, because I don’t think it would be helpful. Suffice it to say, maybe it doesn’t matter if we have blue anything, because the officials we elect are not immune to bullets.
But they haven’t actually managed to do that YET.
Quinerly
@NotMax:
From your link
“Later Tuesday, a group of four more states — Illinois, Arizona, Washington and Oregon — filed a separate lawsuit of their own in Washington state targeting the executive order.”
There is a link to the PDF of the first suit in the article I linked to above. I don’t know how to drop the actual PDF here.
Kay
@NotMax:
Thanks. It is on behalf of the majority of the people in the country, then.
We need to follow up on that show of force by the billionaires yesterday. Are they supporting repealing the 14th Amendment to the US constitution? Deporting 20 million people? A national ban on abortion? Dehumanizing trans people using the US Code? The CEO of Apple is endorsing all that?
Did they think this fucking THREAT they issued to more than half the country through at all?
sab
@tobie: Laughing. Yikes. You do need to up your popular culture game. Carrie Underwood has been a country music singer for so long that she is aging out. She’s in her forties!
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan:
ah, but are they this time around?
…It is interesting that the Communist revolutions happened not in the rich capitalist societies that Marx and Engels imagined, but in places that basically hadn’t gotten there yet. Also that modern “Communist” societies seem to be OK with a kind of state-managed capitalism as exploitative as the private variety.
Quinerly
@Kay:
The 18 states plus 4 additional states have Dem AG’s. Not necessarily Blue states. NC and AZ are involved.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Ignorance of the masses = control of the masses
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
We’re brain poisoned by social media and garbage reporting. Eventually Americans are going to want reality back. But we can have it right now. We just have to be really disciplined and reject bad faith, sloppy junk.
Miss Bianca
@sentient ai from the future: lol! But oh, it is indeed an injustice to poor Beaker!
Kay
@Quinerly:
Thanks. I saw San Francisco and DC joined too. Having Democratic governors just pays and pays and pays. It will help now. A lot.
Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent)
They have never cared about drugs (fentanyl or otherwise) moving across borders, either; that’s just a ruse for introducing anti-immigrant (anti-human) laws and justifying invasion of other nations.
Quinerly
@Kay:
Could you pull up the Complaint? The link to the Complaint is in that first article I posted.
Kay
Remember how during Biden the far Right states sued and sued and sued? And how much that would upset us?
This is the part where we do that to them.
Kay
Here’s the lawsuit (pdf)
I wish we could add Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg as defendants. Our real Presidents.
Quinerly
@Kay:
Bonus…Letitia James is suing on behalf of NY and Dana Nessel is suing on behalf of Michigan.
Kay
@Quinerly:
That’s hysterical. I forgot about Letitia. He personally hates her, because he’s a nutjob.
Kay
When the 700 or so violent offenders Donald Trump and the Republican Party released reoffends (and they will) that is 100% on Donald Trump and the Republican Party. And also the billionaires who endorsed all of Trump’s policies yesterday.
japa21
Totally OT, but, not surprising to me, I think that flag at the Capital is sill being flown at full-staff instead of being returned to half. I would be happy to find out I m wrong.
Miss Bianca
@tobie: one of our local towns just approved plans for a community solar farm here, with priority for subscription given to local residents in the power company’s service area.
Quinerly
@Kay:
All the pardoned ones can now legally obtain guns. The ones with the commuted sentences, of course, can’t unless he turns around and pardons them.
Of interest…Trump has pulled John Bolton’s security detail that he has had since 2021. Now Bolton will have to pay for private security.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/21/politics/john-bolton-security-detail-trump/index.html
Geminid
@Quinerly:
@NotMax: Glad to see North Carolina in that list. I thought a law Repbublicans passed at the end of the last legislative session would have tied the Attorney General’s hands but evidently, it did not.
North Carolina AG Jeff Jackson is someone to watch, with statewide political potential.
NotMax
@Geminid
Also too, Pennsylvania notably absent.
Quinerly
@NotMax: PA has a new Republican AG if I am not mistaken. The states joining in all have Dem AGs. No Republican AG would join these suits.
John Ferguson
I dislike Trump as much as the rest of you but
“Trump just literally eliminated an Executive Order to reduce the price of prescription drugs. They are ripping you off, personally. They never gave a shit about the price of anything.”
The first sentence is untrue (the rest sadly is true). Trump rescinded an executive order that prompted the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to create three drug pricing experiments that haven’t gotten fully off the ground yet.
https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/20/trump-executive-orders-health-care-drug-pricing-aca-covid-gender-discrimination/
He did plenty of other healthcare-related shitty things, just not what that Tweet or whatever said he did
Geminid
@Quinerly: Bolton’s had that security detail ever since Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Iran’s General Solemeini; Mike Pompeo has one also. Solemeini was a revered figure within the Iranian Revolutionay Guard Corp and they won’t forget his assassination.
Al Arabiya’s
TVnetwork just aired an interview with Bolton where he was fairly critical of Trump. I thought that was interesting because Al Arabiya is owned by the Saudi government, but they seem give their network a fair amount of latitude in this area.Quinerly
@Geminid:
If you read the piece, at some point Trump pulled the security detail before 2021. Very petty on Trump’s part. Biden reinstated it
Trump has pulled it for a second time.
pieceofpeace
@Geminid: Strong yes on your 2 last paragraphs.