Thanks to commenter Jeffro who linked to this in the comments.
Excerpts from Frank Kendall, Biden’s Secretary of the Air Force in a NYT opinion piece. I don’t know if this is the whole article or not, so if someone has a gift link, that would be great.
Here’s a gift link. h/t MattF
Kudos to everyone who is willing to stand up and be counted.
President Trump’s decision to fire senior military leaders without cause is foolish and a disgrace. It politicizes our professional military in a dangerous and debilitating way. What frightens me even more is the removal of three judge advocates general, the most senior uniformed legal authorities in the Defense Department. Their removal is one more element of this administration’s attack on the rule of law, and an especially disturbing part.
…for the first time in my career, to see dedicated, apolitical military professionals being removed without cause. I am worried about political loyalty becoming a criterion to hold high military positions. For now, I have confidence that our professional military has nurtured dozens of highly qualified senior officers capable of holding positions of trust and responsibility, people who can provide leadership at the Pentagon and offer sound military advice to our civilian leaders.
But that optimism doesn’t extend to the consequences of removing the JAGs, the senior military professionals who interpret and enforce the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the rules that guide troops in the field. They have the independent legal authority to tell any military commander or political appointee that an order from the president or the secretary of defense is unlawful, cannot be given and should not be obeyed.
If there is one characteristic of this president and this administration, it is the utter lack of respect for legal constraints…one of the most admirable characteristics of the American military is that all serving members are trained to understand that America stands for more than naked self-interest. Above all, it stands up for the Constitution and the rule of law, including the laws of armed conflict and those that restrict the use of the military against American citizens. Undermining those core principles is a disservice to our men and women in uniform and to everything America has stood for throughout my life
Our country is in uncharted territory. We have an administration that is waging war against the rule of law. The evidence is everywhere. We don’t yet know how far it will go as it seeks to control, reinterpret, rewrite, ignore or defy legal constraints, including the Constitution itself. The replacement of the military JAG leadership is one skirmish in that war, but it’s time for the American people, across the political spectrum, to recognize what is happening. America has a rogue president and a rogue administration, and we need to acknowledge that and respond.
Speaking of standing up to be counted… this from eclare is great.
An ad put up at a bus stop in London today.
— News Eye (@newseye.bsky.social) February 24, 2025 at 12:56 PM
Open thread.
John S.
I was naive enough to think that this would be a bridge too far for at least some of the MAGA faithful. But apparently, all the bridges have been demolished.
Great piece, by the way!
MattF
Gift link.
WaterGirl
I thought we could all use some Kora in the sidebar today – the photo from MomSense is her dog Kora.
Elizabelle
Here is a gift link to the article. NYTimes.
Somehow, this rogue president happened. How, NYT? How?? They left out the second part of the headline, FWIW.
Elizabelle
@MattF: Hello there.
@WaterGirl: Yeah. Kora is adorable.
MattF
@Elizabelle: Hiya.
John S.
@WaterGirl:
I can always send you photos of my dog Logan. He always cheers me up, and he looks quite a bit like your Henry!
ETA: I think he was included in the calendar a couple years ago.
Mel
@WaterGirl: I wondered who that sweetie pie was. She is adorable! Those ears!!!
Elizabelle
@MattF: Maybe SPX this fall? It might be lit. Of course, perhaps the international cartoonists will not be allowed into our fair country.
(Happened before; an Iranian female star cartoonist could not get her visa in time. Can’t recall precisely who. Hope it was not Marianne Satrapi of Persepolis? Anyway, certainly someone she inspired.)
WaterGirl
This is the whole thing.
MattF
@Elizabelle: Maybe! My mobility is a bit limited these days (leg-that-hurts), but the overall trend is positive, so we shall see…
WaterGirl
@John S.: We’re mostly not doing pet pics in that spot, but Kora seemed just like we we needed today. Or at least I did!
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: I would love to see Raven’s Bodhi again. That dog had some soul.
lowtechcyclist
@Elizabelle:
It would have been unfair to Kendall to saddle his guest essay with the FTFNYT’s need to apologize. He spoke the truth, and did so in a way that was badly needed in the pages of the FTFNYT.
But the FTFNYT still needs to make a groveling apology to its readers and the rest of the country. I’d say quite literal sackcloth and ashes are called for on the part of their publisher, editors, and political reporters.
Matt McIrvin
A lot of media outlets that had a sort of vague cultural liberalism as part of their brand are flipping to total Trump bootlicking now and I’m kind of wondering what audience they think they will have going forward. They can’t all be Fox News because Fox News is already Fox News. Will they all just survive as billionaire vanity projects?
Elizabelle
@lowtechcyclist: I agree, actually.
It’s just that … our alleged “paper of record” seems not have been able to record President Biden very well at all. Maybe we needed to send them a milk carton with his photo on it.
Meanwhile, The Felon’s photo is up, numerous times on their website. Every single day. They aren’t desensitizing us as much as nauseating us there.
Spanky
@lowtechcyclist:
I ain’t holding my breath. In fact, I’m guessing that there’s still more fuckery afoot.
scav
@Spanky: Sackcloth and ashes? Somehow not as satisfying as tar and feathers.
rikyrah
Kora is cute as a button :)
rikyrah
The NYT is part of the reason why we’re in this predicament. They get no cookies for publishing this.
Leto
Part of that politicization began when the DoD allowed Faux News to be beamed directly to every damn eyeball on base with a tv. That part cannot be understated. Another link in this chain that has to be fixed.
Starfish (she/her)
@Matt McIrvin: I regret to inform you that I saw an AI generated video of Trump licking Elon Musk’s feet this morning, and I am now blind.
John S.
@Starfish (she/her):
That video was awesome — and awful. I hope it gets tons of coverage.
trollhattan
That London poster is amazeballs. Brits do cutting humour on a deeper level than we’re accustomed to.
Saw a wordy but funny bumper sticker today; good thing I was on foot because I’d never read the whole thing in traffic:
“If this is a culture war, we’re getting our asses kicked.”
Jay
More DOGSHIT receipts being brought,
snip
muskwatch.com/p/doges-disastrous-accounting
Every lie, (so far) is accounted for as the article continues.
Steve LaBonne
@Jay: Krugman had a similar article today.
MattF
@Starfish (she/her): An actual positive use case for AI. If the perps financed it with crypto (which would, in fact, make sense), there’s also the much sought-after positive use case for crypto.
Jeffro
Thanks WG!
We gotta call it what it is…our government has been captured by Putin and Musk.
The ongoing betrayal of Ukraine is going to open some eyes, that’s for sure.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: I have to be honest…the WaPo got worse in the run-up to the election.
The NYT has actually gotten better since then (and especially since trumpov’s inauguration)
prostratedragon
Magnificent ad on that London shelter. And, Kora!
The Pale Scot
Nothing less than a good enthusiastic flogging will make an impression I’m afraid. Go get a pardon after that bucko
Jackie
@WaterGirl: Check your email :)
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
His intention is to wipe out NATO, which is where this goofy focus on Greenland comes from. Denmark has never restricted American bases there – the only thing that the American government doesn’t claim is the mineral rights to hand out to kazillionaires.
I suppose it also describes why he’s so focused on fucking Canada.
I’m tending to see him as a historical figure akin to Kaiser Wilhelm, a buffoonish douchebag determined to blow up established diplomatic order.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Weirdly though, the WaPost allows reader comments (albeit they screwed them up but good with the new “AI” tool, but you can still see and access them).
NYT Editor Joseph Kahn has disallowed reader comments on most political articles, and they severely curate what comments they put up.
I am reading the Post more for the reader commenters — because they will admit that UP is DOWN right now, and they put in some great links. It is very much the readers screaming back at the Post and the MSM framing.
Fuck Bezos and Sir Will Lewis. May Kay Graham haunt their every sleep.
Best part is, like a lot of WaPost subscriber reader commenters: we already cancelled our subs when Bezos pulled the Kamala Harris endorsement. But we are still there because prepaid greatly reduced deals. So we are there screaming until our subs run out.
WTG, Bezos.
John S.
@Jay:
John Oliver covered that very nicely on his show last night.
Elizabelle
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
And Wilhelm succeeded there but good, while failing. And then: the sequel 20 years later! Good times.
Michael Bersin
Mark Alford (r) held a constituent coffee in Belton, Missouri this morning. He was not particularly well received.
Mark Alford (r) – coffee with constituents – Belton, Missouri – February 24, 2025 – hot water
I took over 1100 frames and have audio of the 90-minute event. I’ll get more images and the audio up once I get it all processed.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Agree. No cookies for the NYT, but major kudos to the author of the piece!
Chris Johnson
@Matt McIrvin: This is where I feel people miss something, when they assume greed and capitalism still rule all these people and all these places.
I think there’s other kinds of pressure at play. There would be a story in it except these are the people who’d be expected to break it, and instead suppress it.
You can’t assume an organization like the NYT answers only to profit when MICE has three other parts, ideology, compromise and ego. I don’t know to what extent ideology alone will take them this far, but I’ve been thinking that as far as the Congresscritters are concerned, fear of their base is not enough to warrant this: I think they’re personally threatened in a way they can’t shake.
Fear of their base is also ramping up, mostly to force them to go against Elon Musk. We’ll see who or what is scarier, pretty soon.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Just seeing this comment now, and your email a couple minutes ago. Because of the timing, I think that might need to be a separate post.
TBone
Dont know if anyone has heard, so am reposting from below
it turns out I was celebrating on the way to the supermarket, rocking out to WQSU college radio joyfully today! Also Noah ate some cat treats just now, yay!
But then Roberta Flack came on and I started crying. R.I.POWER ROBERTA! Hubby drove me slowly around the neighborhood as I caressed his face.
🎶😭
m.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_fLu2yrP4
tobie
I’m having trouble figuring out what is the greatest outrage of the day to raise with my Republican Congressman. Today I called about firings and rehirings at the FDA since he’s on the committee charged with monitoring the FDA. For the first time I had to leave a message. I wonder if this means the phones are ringing off the hook or if the office is just ignoring constituents. Anyhow…daily call done, back to work.
prostratedragon
@TBone: No!! I’m just hearing this and seeing the updated wikipedia. In 1970 our student groups sponsored a concert at which she was the feature. To that point not well-known outside DC — this was months before the release of her first album — she dazzled everyone. Fine, fine singer and gracious lady.
Jay
Anton Gerashchenko,* had a short post up saying that President Zelenskyy will be signing a Minerals Agreement with the US next week. There was no cite.
Bloomburg last week, said it would be this week, but the only sources were “unnamed US Officials”.
Anton reposted it, with his “source”, it was a media comment by the DJTdiot.
*a current official advisor and a former deputy minister at the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.[1][2][3][4] He is a former member of the Ukrainian parliament (Verkhovna Rada) from 2014 to 2019,[3][5] and was the subject of an assassination attempt in part because of his actions, which was prevented by the SBU.[6]
TBone
@prostratedragon: my tears are still not under my control. Thank you for that lovely short story!
Jay
Short video at link.
nitter.poast.org/ZelenskyyUa/status/1893903871040463251#m
Gin & Tonic
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I was talking with my son yesterday, and he was making a comparison to when Yanukovych was actually elected in Ukraine. If you’ll recall, in the 2004 elections, Yanukovych’s team poisoned his opponent, Viktor Yushchenko, the result was close and riddled with fraud, which led to the “Orange Revolution,” which led to the Supreme Court throwing out the results and having a re-run, won by Yushchenko. In the 2010 election, Yanukovych actually won (Yushchenko was deeply unpopular by then because the economy sucked) and, since he thought he finally got what he’d been robbed of the last time, basically governed by vengeance, jailing opponents, firing anyone who’d been Yushchenko-adjacent, finally deciding not to pursue EU integration. This, of course, led to the 2013-2014 “Revolution of Dignity” and his ouster.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
So I was gone for a week and apparently people went insane and Mistermix semi quit? Jesus. I’m not going to read the old comments to see what happened but I can’t say I am that surprised. I can only hope there is a change in behavior. What made Daily KOS unreadable years ago was the daily flame wars. For months, its felt like that disfunction had infected this site.
ron
I really dislike how so many of these pieces just says “Trump” or “this administration” is waging war against the rule of law. It is the entire conservative apparatus from congress to the courts, and they’ve been doing it for decades.
prostratedragon
This yapping buffoon is hard to believe:
p.a
One dude standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen, generations of civil rights protesters here, showed more backbone than elite American institutions 100, 200 years old.
Sportswriter Bob Ryan had a label for a past Boston Celtic owner whose dad bought the team for him: Paul “Thanks Dad” Gaston.
Can apply to numerous of our “leaders” and “leading citizens” today.
catclub
Low praise indeed.
ron
@Jay: and like most conservative projects the savings will soon become huge costs when the disaster happens and money has to be spent to fix it. Plus add in a lot of death and suffering. Ignoring climate change is one example, the recent stories of them firing the team that protects the Great Lakes from invasive species is another, and the firing all the people on the epidemic response team, plus all the researchers working at NSF and NIH working on new treatments and medicines, and the list just goes on and on.
New Deal democrat
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
I wrote an entire long piece in 2018 about how Trump’s character is a virtual doppelgänger for that of Wilhelm.
bonddad.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-eerily-disturbing-identity-of.html
Just a few snippets:
– “[Wilhelm] liked to think of himself as another Frederick the Great: politician, soldier, strategist, philosopher, cultural arbiter …. [But s]ome of those who had known him as a prince, however, worried a little about what kind of king he would make…. “He thinks he understands _everything_, even shipbuilding.”
– “Wilhelm considered himself an expert on many things and was not shy about saying so.
– Wilhelm “ was an appalling vacillator, changing his mind — he was often influenced by the last person he’d talked to, and constantly in quest of popularity — with such frequency that it drove his ministers mad and made the government look irresolute and confused.”
– “ there was his habit of making sudden rogue interventions, getting overexcited during speeches and announcing a new law that completely contradicted agreed government policy,”
– “…[T]he young kaiser [ ] showed not only an ability to flatly deny something that everyone else knew to be true, but a determination to see the world rather too much the way he wanted it to be….”
– “ “[Wilhelm] had an odd ability to home in on people’s preoccupations and vulnerabilities…. There were moments when Wilhelm’s probings hit a nerve”
– “Wilhelm manifested many symptoms of “narcissistic personality disorder”: arrogance, grandiose self-importance, a mammoth sense of entitlement, fantasies about unlimited success and power; a belief in his own uniqueness and brilliance; a need for endless admiration and reinforcement and a hatred of criticism; proneness to envy; a tendency to regard other people as purely instrumental — in terms of what they could do for him, along with a dispiriting lack of empathy.”
Fun fact: Wilhelm was almost stillborn. The doctor almost gave up when the infant let out a cry. Had he not survived, his younger brother, who was much more competent and liberal, would have become Kaiser. Oh how different European history would be.
glc
@TBone: Learned it here, thanks for sharing. It seems to be up everywhere now but not when I was looking. Now I learn she entered Howard University at age 15. Not too terribly surprised given what we know of the sequel, but even so …
I wound up going down one of the Wikipedia rabbit holes on Killing Me Softly, and while I had been aware of the general inspiration for it I was completely ignorant of the backstory on the writing credits – and who actually had the inspiration for it. Maybe people more tuned in to things as they happened noticed that at the time – it seems to have caused a bit of a stir.
prostratedragon
@Gin & Tonic: Sounds like we got a convex combination of this sequence up to the Yanukovych [spelling corrected] election last year. I mean, our economy didn’t really suck, and Biden wasn’t physically poisoned that we know, but the main points are there. May we proceed to the next point before too much becomes irreversible.
New Deal democrat
@Matt McIrvin:
They are all trying not to be a target for his vendettas. Of course, in true mob boss fashion, once they submit, he will always ask for more.
karensky
@MattF: Thanks so much, Matt F.
TBone
@glc: my mother played that song a lot. Thank you for the news to me about it!
Torrey
Wouldn’t it make more sense to run that editorial in red and purple state newspapers?
prostratedragon
@New Deal democrat: Oh, you’re bonddad! Have read you occasionally since the former unpleasantness.
Have been thinking lately that we now can index how sanitized some descriptions of past figures must be. I’m suspecting that Wilhelm was a — gasp — ROYAL pain in the ass.
Jay
@catclub:
Not at all has the FTFNYT “improved”,
Images at link,
nitter.poast.org/ChrisO_wiki/status/1894115781991878880#m
jonas
@Elizabelle: Just what I was going to write. Once again the FTFNYT outsources news stories to an opinion writer.
Gvg
Is there an authority chain other than Congress that can say the firing of the JAG’s is illegal besides Congress? Can the Supreme Court? That is really bad. I would argue that it shows premeditation of intent to give illegal orders. I wonder if the next in line can draft an open order letter to the whole military making this point and saying certain kinds of orders should be disobeyed, especially if he is subsequently fired and others give in, citing the laws…..I am sure he would still be fired, but it would be said. And it’s not like there is any way to avoid a confrontation long term if you have any principles. Firing is inevitable.
Jay
@ron:
So far the DOGESHIT “savings” on US Government “spending”, have amounted to the equivalent effect of a single sardines fart’s impact on the Atlantic Ocean.
NotMax
@glc
One of the oddest bits on the SCTV program was Andrea Martin, as Indira Gandhi, singing that song.
New Deal democrat
@prostratedragon: No, Hale Stewart was Bonddad. He hasn’t written since he got a new job a few years ago that forbade it.
So I’ve kept the blog going. I wrote with him as early as 2009.
The Golux
Commenting here on mistermix’ subsequent post —
I was quite amused to see in the video in his post of Trump fellating Musk’s toes that Elon has two left feet.
Jay
@The Golux:
Well, AI has improved, some. Not long ago it would have generated 3 left feet with 6 toes each.
Quiltingfool
@Michael Bersin: I look forward to reading about Alford. Think he needs to remember there are A LOT OF FARMERS in his district. Some of my family are farmers in Johnson County. Maybe going through the upcoming shit tornado might cause them to re-think voting Republican. Who knows, miracles could happen?
Alford is a Trump suck-up. He will never go to bat for his constituents if Trump doesn’t want him to.
TBone
@NotMax: good eye, as always.
zhena gogolia
@Quiltingfool: Hi — I don’ t know how to find you on Etsy! You wanted me to message you?
TBone
When I changed the permissions granted to my cell phone keyboard, it got as spiteful as possible. Add arthritis and it’s a powder keg of bloopers now.
TBone
@New Deal democrat: are you still at angrybear? I haven’t had time to do my usual check ins there.
ETA I just checked and you are still listed!
Jay
@Quiltingfool:
reddit.com/r/LeopardsAteMyFace/comments/1ixctbc/you_voted_for_this_guy_republicans_now_hes_giving/
Screen shot of The Star coverage of Alford’s Town Hall.
He told pissed off fired Fed workers “that God has a plan”.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Quiltingfool: I wonder if it would be worthwhile doing a billboard campaign in farm country. We could list ways Trump is hurting them while stating that Democrats never did that to farmers.
TBone
Freedom On My Mind is on TCM right now. Almost over though. I wonder what else of excellence I missed today. Even this last half hour is absolutely riveting.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_on_My_Mind
Oh well, the house is cleaner and the cat pantry restocked with tempting variety.
Harrison Wesley
@Jay: A plan? Or a concept of a plan?
WTFGhost
@John S.: meh. He pardoned a war criminal in his first term.
@lowtechcyclist: you and Elizabelle hit on me – the NYT, allowing this as an editorial, should apologize, without wasting column space for a Biden admin speaker.
Elizabelle
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Great idea. I would contribute!
Quiltingfool
@zhena gogolia: I’ll save us a bit of time! Here’s the photo I wanted to show you. I just finished quilting it today, and just need to bind it.
I will be needing your mailing address, though. Maybe Watergirl can do us a solid and give you my email…or you can click on my nym and go directly to my Etsy store and message me there.
pin.it/6f2cqItyA
P.S. It looks better IRL. I’m a terrible photographer.
Elizabelle
@Quiltingfool: Hello pal. Emailed via your site last night.
Ramalama
@rikyrah: No Cookies Indeed!
Quiltingfool
@Jay: What an asshole. What a smarmy weasel (apologies to weasels, of course).
Someone should have punched that motherfucker in the throat and then tell him, “It’s God’s plan. He might restore your larynx if you’re deserving.”
Sorry for the violent rhetoric.
Ramalama
@Jay: Yesterday had to explain the whole Leopard Face Eating meme to my officially senior citizen wife (from France), because it’s getting round. I’m not sure it’s settled in there just yet. But, like Canadian politicians, I’m sure repetition in (my bad) French along with more English is on order.
TBone
@Quiltingfool: ah the old ball gargling thunder twat gambit! I am also very familiar with these sorts of outbursts hahaha!
Quiltingfool
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Well, it would be a big improvement over the multitudes of forced birther billboards.
I did see something interesting a few weeks ago. I get my taxes done in Eldon, and drive on 54 Hwy. some asshole flies a big ol’ Stars and Bars (that stupid flag is a BATTLE FLAG, not a flag of the Confederate Treason States, Lord, don’t get me started) on his property that borders the highway. It seems that a business across the road wanted to make a *statement* so they are flying an enormous U.S flag, like quadruple the size of the treason flag. Very gratifying and better than a billboard.
prostratedragon
@New Deal democrat: Aha.
rebelsdad
What is the point of letting MMM continue to post on the FP if no one is allowed to comment on his posts? I expect that type of censorship from Orange Foolius but I thought we were better than that here.
Jay
@Ramalama:
Chris O Wiki has a graphic that might help explain it to her,
nitter.poast.org/ChrisO_wiki/status/1891213005288817060#m
Quiltingfool
@Elizabelle: Your block is also quilted! I’ll need your mailing address; probably send them Thursday or Friday!
prostratedragon
@The Golux: You should get a medal for being able to look that closely. Or perhaps, if I may be impertinent for a moment, some kind of professional help, at least to promote recovery.
Jay
@rebelsdad:
If you want to comment, you can go to his site and subscribe.
The point of having MMM cross post, is so there are new posts up between 9am and 6pm for people to read if they so want.
Between 2023 and now, commenters have driven off 4 front pagers, (by my count) and there are few left. If this keeps going, Balloon Juice with become nothing but an aggregation site.
LAC
OT – RIP Roberta Flack
abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/Culture/roberta-flack-enduring-songstress-dies-age-88/story?id=10325375…
zhena gogolia
@Quiltingfool: Wow! Beautiful!
zhena gogolia
@Quiltingfool: I’ll send WaterGirl my address and ask her to give it to you. Thanks!
Elizabelle
@Quiltingfool: OMG. So beautiful. Slava Patron.
zhena gogolia
@rebelsdad: I know, it’s annoying. But I can just ride by.
TBone
@prostratedragon: *smirks quietly
prostratedragon
@Quiltingfool: It’s going around. I was thinking to ask him if strangling his worthless butt wad part of God’s plan.
Geminid
@rebelsdad: My attitude is, John Cole doesn’t tell me how to lay out a patio, and I don’t tell John Cole how to run his blog.
But if I thought it was my business– which it is not– I’d guess it’s a way for Cole to show his appreciation for all the work Mistermix has done here over the years.
Jay
@prostratedragon:
Wonkette has an article up on the ReThug town hall results.
wonkette.com/p/republicans-head-home-for-find-out
cain
Ha, as I thought would happen:
reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1ixezuw/boycott_usa/
The geeks are suddenly thinking why the fuck should I support US tech corporations and now thinking of making the move to Linux. You cannot trust Google, Apple, and others especially if they went to see Trump. Just like people moving from twitter to mastodon/bluesky – I think we’re going to see something similar.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Oh, neither am I. Just saying that mere words would fail to suffice.
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
Sounds like if any Federal workers have the sort of abysmal performance that deserves immediate firing, the DOggiEs are the exemplars.
AM in NC
@rebelsdad: You can comment on his blog site. Comments are closed here because it is a cross-post from MM’s blog and because comments in his posts were becoming untenable – fighting, name-calling, disrespectful. Just bad.
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
Are the DOGgie’s even employed?
Who is employing them, it’s not the Fed.
John S.
@rebelsdad:
Take it up with Cole. His blog, his rules.
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
Whatever. They’ve got access. Even if they’re volunteering their time, they’ve got to have some sort of official status, e.g. special government employee. They can be fired from that.
Jay
nitter.poast.org/ChrisO_wiki/status/1894153925361549462#m
lowtechcyclist
@The Golux:
To quote The Cars, “don’t’cha worry about two left feet.”
Jay
@lowtechcyclist:
As we know from Apartheid Clyde, he is a Schrodingers Special Advisor and Special Government Employee, when he is doing his DOGE he is, when it’s before the Courts, he isn’t. And the Courts so far are accepting that.
VFX Lurker
@cain: Best comment so far in your link:
Aziz, light!
@rebelsdad: Here’s an idea — stay with me here — you could scroll past MM’s post. Censorship my ass.
Elizabelle
@rebelsdad: I think it’s kind of brilliant to have MM posting here without allowing comments. First, he has had two very interesting posts today. I loved seeing that AI video that was up at HUD. Moar of this, Fed resisters! LOL.
Second, it’s very much a “see what you are missing” type of thing, and I hope people (who are not too dickish) are streaming over to his new site.
Having to look at the goodies in the window, and not being able to access them, makes me laugh and again, I think it is an inside joke — rather passive aggressive, but well done — and a brilliant solution, actually.
I wish him well, and do hope that he comes back and posts for us again in a while. He is a talented writer, and very funny and perceptive most of the time.
My two cents.
Geminid
@Jay: New Lines Magazine published a very good article about Elon Musk a few days ago. It’s by Capetown-based journalist Joseph Dana. Title:
I’ll see if I can put up a,workable link:
https://newlinesmag.com/argument/the-worldview-of-the-afrikaner-diaspora-now-haunts-the-us/
Oh snap! link doesn’t work. Worth looking up though.
Jay
@Geminid:
newlinesmag.com/argument/the-worldview-of-the-afrikaner-diaspora-now-haunts-the-us/
Copied from the page, see if this works.
WTFGhost
@Jay: Remember how, in Texas, they didn’t have any public official participate in the abortion ban, but they’d grant a bounty of $10,000 to anyone with information regarding one?
SCOTUS said “wow, we can’t possibly make a ruling on this novel way of breaking current law!!!”
So: they don’t have a fed official blocking payments, sending letters, demanding cuts, so, no one can be sued to stop it.
If Musk commits crimes, oosie doopsie, pardon poopsie!
Since Republicans will never impeach Trump, and since neither the house nor senate is going to try to check his power, they get to do whatever they want, and Congress can make it legal, but for the pardons, which the President supplies.
I fear Trump is going to do something stupid, like ask for a pause in interest payments on treasuries, due to the need to unwind all the complicated transactions and changes caused by DOGE’s work.
It’s unconstitutional – the full faith and credit of the US is not to be questioned – but that won’t stop anything. But it’s also so, so, so, stupid.
If we lost borrowing ability, for a few days, while a compromise was swiftly hammered out, treasuries will settle down and be fine – most likely. Anything behind that, or asking anyone to take a haircut, and people won’t trust treasuries anymore – not as the perfect, safest, asset.
WaterGirl
@Jay:
Sorry, but that is not the reason mistermix is cross posting here. Cole offers that to every front-pager who moves to a new site.
mistermix put up a total of 24 posts in all of 2023. He put up an average of one post every 3 days in the first 7 months of 2024.
I am very sorry to lose mistermix as a front-pager here; he’s a great writer and he’s interesting. I still hope he will return as a front-pager who posts with comments allowed. mistermix stepped up in a big way after the election when I lot of us were still reeling. He was on fire, and it was inspirational.
So we wish we still had his voice here, but the blog is not going to fall apart without him. I had pretty much stopped posting during the day because mistermix had it covered. Now I’ll step back up, and I’m sure others will, as well.
Geminid
@Jay: All right! Thank you.
The article covers a lot of ground. One interesting item: Musk’s grandfather Josua Haldeman was a follower of the 1930s Teknocracy movement. The Teknokracy movemeny advocated rule of society by experts, in place of democracy.
The article concludes:
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Elizabelle:
It’s an interesting look, given the commenters who had brought up counterpoints and additional context in MMM’s penultimate post were the ones painted as being too sensitive to criticism.
Elizabelle
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: I know. We are trollz and haterz.
Oh well.
I actually think it was cumulative; who knows what was on MM’s earlier posts? I rarely read them. And, one cannot discount Margarita Day and a bunch of superheated emailers.
Oh well. I do hope he comes back. To be seen.
Lauryn11
@Jay: Alford R-MO:
…Alford also at one point told people upset about all the job cuts that a government gig is not a lifetime appointment…
I would have shouted “Neither is yours, dude!”
Kayla Rudbek
@Leto: the only people who should be watching Fox are the ones who specialize in propaganda and counter propaganda. And they need to take breaks for their own sanity.