Those of us who oppose the fascist right-wing kleptocrat takeover are in a tough spot, not unlike the situation faced by Westley, Inigo and Fezzik as they planned to storm a heavily fortified castle in The Princess Bride.
What are our assets? Well, all of the House Dems except the Golden Tool from Maine. It sounds like most of the Senate Dems will not vote to cede their sole bit of leverage to Trusk & Mump; we can deal with the feckless and weak-kneed later.
In the meantime, less than two months into this nightmarish shit-show, ordinary citizens are saying HELL NO to this bullshit. Republicans are too scared to hold town halls, even in deep red areas. The few who do get booed and heckled and chased out of town or else dispatch goons to throw their own constituents out.
Dems like Governor Walz are holding town halls in districts where Republicans fear to tread. Dems like Frost, AOC, Crockett, Green, Warren, etc., are speaking with moral clarity. Bernie Sanders is attracting thousands of people to his anti-oligarchy roadshow.
For me, the most encouraging development is the grassroots anger directed at the unelected, apartheid South Africa-born emerald mine heir who purchased the co-presidency for more than a quarter of a billion dollars. Here’s the kleptocracy’s attorney barking and frothing like a coked-up attack shih tzu:
Pam Bondi: “If you’re gonna touch a Tesla, go to a dealership, do anything, you better watch out, because we’re coming after you.”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) March 14, 2025 at 10:04 AM
What she’s really doing is telling us who they fear. Same with the disgraceful Trusk & Mump South Lawn auto mall shtick earlier this week. Here’s an image George Takei posted recently that sums up the thinking:
I respect y’all too much to tell you that “no one is coming to save us” or to lecture you on the rules of Senate procedure. You’re adults who for some reason voluntarily expose yourselves to and actively participate in the maddening and bewildering bizarro world of U.S. politics, so you know that.
But I will suggest this: look at who and what the kleptocrats actually fear, not whom they attack for show. I think that is the way.
Open thread.
Old Man Shadow
The thought has crossed my mind to buy a paintball gun and use any cybertrucks I see as target practice.
brantl
A kickstarter campaign for billboards that say: “Want your government back? BOYCOTT TESLA!!!” Put them all over the whole damn country!
schrodingers_cat
Fuck Bernie Sanders of the rigged primaries fame, one of the reasons we are in the current mess. He wants to run for President again that’s why he was in Iowa.
But many of those who were bleating about Biden being too old will fawn over the Maple Syrup Messiah. I am looking at you Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.
LeftCoastYankee
@Old Man Shadow:
Where can I sign up? This year’s pickleball!
Ocotillo
As a shih tzu parent, hey wait a minute!
Asparagus Aspersions
My mom has been participating in weekly protests in front of her Republican congressman’s office. She’s considering switching to a Tesla dealership protest.
My mom hasn’t protested since the 60s. She is INCANDESCENT with rage. As am I, but as an overseas voter I’m limited to spittle-flecked phone calls to my congressman’s office,
Steve LaBonne
The only thing that’s clear to me is that the First American Republic is dead, though it may take the remaining decade or decade and a half of my lifetime for it to finish expiring. All the supposed safeguards against strongman rule have proven to be made of rice paper, because strongman rule is what a large and compact minority of the population has decided it wants, and that is sufficient to make it so. What will come next I can’t imagine and don’t expect I will live to see.
John S.
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, clearly the moment demands that we should be more critical of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert than we are of Chuck Schumer.
TBone
You nailed this so hard, B.C. Brava!
DebG
Woohoooooooo! The images in the Bondi clip are from my town, which is not as liberal as others on the Front Range of Colorado! Might be time to join a protest! Maybe I’ll even get arrested!
brantl
@John S.: +1000000.
Steve LaBonne
@DebG: My wife and I will be at the pro-democracy protest in our town on Sunday.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Our country’s institutions have failed. The rest is up to us.
John S.
I count Jeffries as one of our assets, even though I have been critical of him recently.
The fact that he held together the Democratic caucus to vote against the CR (except for the useless Jared Golden) is remarkable. That’s real action, not just a fiery speech or zinger on social media.
Compare and contrast to Schumer, who after pissing on our legs and telling us it was raining, has decided to leave Jeffries’ ass hanging out in the wind (and every other House Democrat along with him).
Actions speak louder than words.
lowtechcyclist
Is there a particular day of the week that people protest at Tesla dealerships? The nearest ones are over an hour away, and I’d like to have some company when I get there.
TBone
@Asparagus Aspersions: I’m hoping to be well enough to protest with my group on St. Peppermint Patty Day at Senator McCormick’s Scranton, PA office. We are all dresssing in the color of money, of course. The idea is everyone comes armed with a question they’d ask at a Town Hall. Will ask those to any media cameras present.
In honor of President Biden’s Scranton Irish roots too.
A Ghost to Most
@Old Man Shadow: A pop-up carwash would take care of the Clustertrucks.
schrodingers_cat
Another take from another Betty
I am not a fan of Schumer and not happy about what is happening either.
Deputinize America
The Founding Fuckheads weren’t really all that smart. The current constitution has been held together with duct tape and bailing twine ever since the whole thing failed courtesy of SCOTUS in 1861, and varying levels of good will and personal integrity on the part of the executive has been the primary adhesive on the backside of that duct tape.
They weren’t brilliant – they just had a spot of luck that their percentage of population within the empire was large enough compared to that of Britain to hold off an invasion, and that there was the benefit of a large ocean separating them from the King. I note that Spanish colonies in America split off in much the same way once their populations got large enough. Dudes were self-interested merchants who were fairly literate for the era, nothing more.
eclare
Nelle posted earlier that Walz is doing a town hall in Des Moines that will be broadcast on CNBC at 3 CDT. I plan to watch.
Kristine
Sink the money guy and everything else falls.
That tracks.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Good post Betty, yes stop worrying about how we will get hurt since that is a given, and start worrying about how we will hurt them.
I will point out, we already know Trump is a coward. As for Musk, someone who has to have twenty body guards, uses his own child as a human shield and can only face a crowd when stone out of mind on drugs is not a brave man.
KSinMA
Come sit by me, Betty C.
Mai Naem mobil
I was talking to a couple of gen z’rs and mentioned LBJ’s Daisy ad and neither had ever heard of it. Long story short I ended up on YouTube looking it up and seeing a bunch of other LBJ ’64 ads besides the Daisy ad. Yes, I know different times, different population demos, no social media etc but there were some really good ads in there. The Dems are supposed to be better at the creative stuff and supposed to own Hollywood etc. In the end aren’t you selling a product in politics? Why can’t the Dems use Hollywood creatives to sell their product?
eclare
@John S.:
Thank you.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
He can’t do that anyway? What law (or section of the Constitution) gives him more power to declare an emergency during a government shutdown?
Raven
@Mai Naem mobil: Fuck lbj
John S.
@schrodingers_cat:
Whoever that Betty is pales in comparison to Betty Cracker. What an utterly demeaning and infantilizing thing to say about people who are rightly upset by Schumer’s behavior.
Steve LaBonne
@schrodingers_cat: If this analysis were correct, I don’t see why Trump heavily pressured the House Republicans to pass the CR. People who take this line need to explain that.
eclare
@John S.:
My thoughts exactly. I had my doubts about Jeffries, but he came through.
Steve LaBonne
@eclare: Jeffries is a hardass machine politician. He’s not always going to be as progressive as we would like but he understands power and how to use it. Certainly he’s not a weathervane like Schumer.
lowtechcyclist
@Mai Naem mobil:
Can’t say I’m terribly surprised!
I realize this is a digression and apologize that this is not a response to the point you were making, but this reminds me of the time I mentioned to a couple of younger co-workers that I’d just discovered that Wernher von Braun is buried in the same cemetery as my father.
“Who’s Wernher von Braun?” they asked.
So I explained who he was, and mentioned that he was the subject of a song by Tom Lehrer.
“Who’s Tom Lehrer?”
Ouch.
eclare
@Steve LaBonne:
That is fine with me, all I want is someone who can herd cats.
YY_Sima Qian
@John S.: Agree wrt Jeffries & Schumer on the CR. No the 1st time Senate Dems (or a select few of them) hung House Dems out to dry.
Emily B.
OT, here’s a nice tribute to Kevin Drum from the New Republic, with catblogging.
Redshift
I suppose the reason I’m annoyed but not despairing at the CR result is that I was already clear that only a mass movement is going to stop this, and I just want our elected officials to understand that and be an effective auxiliary. But heck, if we can’t know which choice here is actually worse, then maybe people being pissed off at Schumer will help, if we can channel it into action instead of detachment. (I know, I have an unhealthy tendency toward optimism…)
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks so much for sharing that steaming load of condescending horse shit! It really underscores a point I endeavored to make in the 2nd to last paragraph up top.
It’s one thing to disagree about Schumer’s decision. Reasonable people do. It’s another to pretend, as Other Betty does here, that anyone who disagrees doesn’t understand the situation or doesn’t have as much at stake, blah blah blah.
I’m tired of that crap, and I’m not gonna sit still for it anymore.
Steve LaBonne
@eclare: He’s very fine with me. Everything I said about him is intended to be praise- it’s what we need at a time like this. Pelosi was much the same.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve LaBonne: This is not my POV nor am I endorsing it. Just sharing an opposing view point.
John S.
@YY_Sima Qian:
I’m solely focused on Schumer’s actions as the source of my contempt. He gets no bonus points for what might have happened. He gets dinged for 1) trying to manipulate Democratic voters and 2) abandoning his fellow elected Democrats.
Those things actually happened.
Steve LaBonne
@schrodingers_cat: And I was simply pointing out an obvious logical flaw in it that the author needs to address.
John S.
@Betty Cracker:
I see you. 😊
eclare
@Steve LaBonne:
I didn’t mean that as an insult, rallying the caucus, knowing how to count, are incredibly important skills. I’m impressed he only lost one rep, and I don’t think I ever saw Golden’s excuse.
Redshift
@lowtechcyclist: The one thing that clearly isn’t good about the shutdown path is that we already know they want to fire everyone and fill the jobs they think they need with MAGA loyalists, and in a shutdown, the heads of agencies decide who is “essential” and everyone else stops working, so they’d no doubt use it for that. But on the other hand, those “essential” people don’t get paid until the shutdown is over, so that might make it more difficult.
Ohio Mom
@Steve LaBonne: That is true for me as well, the idea that whatever comes out of this, I won’t see it. Add in climate change, and I can’t begin to imagine what I won’t see.
Steve LaBonne
Aside from the flawed logic of his position, by hanging the House Democrats out to dry Schumer and the wobbly members of his caucus have opened up a huge division in the party at the time when it most needs to present a united front.
eclare
@Steve LaBonne:
Exactly. Civil War in the Democrats.
Steve LaBonne
@Ohio Mom: Oh Christ I hope I won’t be around to see that. Which is horribly selfish because I have a 32 year old daughter and my wife has grandkids.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: See #39.
My bad for posting another take. BTW I don’t agree with it. I am not sure what Schumer is doing is right. Delete that comment if you find it so offensive.
Steve LaBonne
@eclare: There has never been an excuse for Golden. What an asshole.
John S.
@eclare:
Yup. Brought about by the actions of elected Democrats, not by a bunch of Democratic voters saying mean things on the internet.
TooManyJens
Even if Schumer’s right—and I’m sympathetic to the argument that people will suffer during a shutdown! I just don’t think going along with the CR is necessarily safer—the way he’s gone about this is so irresponsible that he’s got to go.
Why the fuck, if he had no intention of voting against cloture, did he get up and announce that the Republicans didn’t have the votes for cloture? Did he think that one little speech would make the Republicans just give up and go for the clean CR? Because Republicans are notoriously happy to shut the government down and try to blame the Democrats for it. What the fuck is his plan?
This is the part that makes me so insane. There’s never any thread between “this is the action we’re taking right now” and “this is how it’s going to help us achieve our goals.” Realistically, Democrats in Congress have very little power to achieve their goals right now, but the No on Cloture side at least has more of a theory of change than the Yes side does and is a lot more organized.
Pelosi just released a statement about all this nonsense, and she’s calling for a No vote. Can you imagine how pissed she must be about the sheer incompetence of it all?
Martin
A lot of the disagreements I see here are people who work problems forward out of phase with those who work them backward. Forward working folks take the current state of things and consider how they could be modified and adapted to address the new problem. Backward working folks start with the thesis that the current systems failed to prevent the problem, look at what will in the last step address the problem and then work back to which of the current states can be adapted to achieve that path.
I’m in the work backward camp. The argument that a CR gives democrats some kind of legal backstop, when so far the judiciary has been completely useless to address this moment begs the question – what’s the utility of that legal backstop? We’re currently in a moment where the US Department of Education is the designated entity to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act which banned school segregation, but now lacks an enforcement mechanism because there are no staff in the units to do that work. As such, the 1964 Civil Rights Act is effectively dead letter law. That’s the value of a legal backstop. How can Democrats in Congress bring a case against Trump if they don’t have the majority to make a recommendation to the DOJ and have no legal authority to bring it themselves. Courts cannot take up a case without a prosecutor or claimant. Note, all current legal challenges are brought by states or workers themselves.
If you have an executive with no regard for public opinion, no regard for checks and balances, no regard for federal labor laws, relying on the very systems that they ignore and defund is pointless. You need to focus on the systems that they value – which is money, power, and their own personal safety. These are not things that Democrats are comfortable exploiting, but that’s what you need to attack. Now, does the CR help the effort to attack that, or does it hamper it? To the extent that it continues the status quo, it would seem to only serve to hamper that effort.
John S.
@schrodingers_cat:
Nah, I think most of us would just settle for not presenting viewpoints which assume that anyone who disagrees with them is a child who doesn’t understand how the world works.
ETA: You’d probably have a better sense of that if you didn’t have half the commenters in your pie filter.
JaySinWA
Pelosi says “listen to the women” comes out against the GOP CR.
https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lkdy3fmqos2
ETA statement:
Rusty
@Steve LaBonne: My view is there was a very concerted effort to take over various institutions, and then leverage them together. I recently watched a short documentary on how a small group of conservatives took control of the Southern Baptists in the 70’s. They did this taking over the main seminary and the board leading the denomination through careful attention to getting their people elected, and then leveraging those positions to drive out more moderate voices. (The documentary was about the first women professor at the seminary being expelled for heresy). The same has happened at the national level, taking over the court system and particularly the Supreme Court with the Federalist Society, and then leveraging gerrymandering and unlimited campaign funds (gifts from the conservative Supreme Court) to gain more control. It’s not some grand conspiracy, but it is a bunch of wealthy, aligned parties working enoughbin the same direction to gain what they want. The system is weaker than we thought, and acting in bad faith is particularly powerful. I agree with tou, whatever comes next can’t be the same as what was before.
arrieve
@John S.:
100%. This is what I just sent to Schumer (calmer and more reasonable than I actually feel because I want what I am saying to maybe register a little)
Dear Senator Schumer:
I am writing in response to your statement that you will be voting for the GOP bill in order to avert a shutdown.
I have read your statement. I understand that being in the minority against a party (and an Executive Branch) that absolutely refuses to compromise puts Democrats in an impossible situation. I do not agree with how you are choosing to address this, but again, I recognize that there are only bad options.
But I am furious. No, I am incandescently angry. It is not over this particular decision; it is over the way the Congressional Democrats in general, and the leadership in particular, have failed to address the crisis in our government. Some people are calling it a slow-motion coup; I think the only problem with that description is that there is nothing slow about it. The President has been allowed to make decisions about the government that constitutionally belong to the Congress, and a group of unelected, unconfirmed barbarians are rampaging and ravaging their way through agencies with almost no pushback from elected Democrats.
This is in no way politics as usual, but your responses, and those of your colleagues, never seem to acknowledge that. It is frequently remarked online that you are “not a wartime consigliere.” The problem is that you don’t even seem to realize that we are in a war.
We need you to lead. If you are as unwilling to do this as you seem to be, then we need you to get out of the way.
Redshift
@John S.: I think the biggest problem we have with elected Dems is that the strategy from the beginning has clearly been (since they have very little power) to hang on until the midterms and focus on setting themselves up for that. Schumer’s plan is the classic way to do that – have a solid No vote to run on when people have forgotten the details, and don’t risk the wild card of who gets blamed for the shutdown.
When there’s no other clear path to any success, it’s hard to get them to to come to grips with the fact that this isn’t enough.
Ohio Mom
@Emily B.: That was sweet of the New Republic (who’d ever imagine using sweet and the New Republic in the same sentence?) but this kind of boggled me: “before that, he hadn’t even been a journalist—he’d worked at Radio Shack and in the software business”
I might be wrong but I was under the impression that he in got in on the ground floor of “the software business” and made a nice bit of money there, which freed him up for the rest of his life to follow his dream.
I don’t remember what he did, he wasn’t a coder, something like marketing. Anyway, I wouldn’t quite compare his stint at Radio Shack to his time in the computer biz. But whatever, I hope his wife and sister see all the tributes scattered about, some in obscure corners of blogtopia (Rude Pundit, Suburban Guerrilla, add I don’t remember where else, they are all over the place).
eclare
@TooManyJens:
Wow. Pelosi saying no in a statement.
French Onion Soup
@eclare:
I don’t like Schumer but senators are not reps. Senators are arrogant blowhards. They are all self important. Most look in the mirror and see a future president. They each have massive individual power and will not cede it.
Managing the house is a much easier task than controlling the senate. It’s not possible to machine politic in the senate the way it is the house. This is not Schumer’s fault. Even with Manchenma we had the nasty reality that they were covering for other senators that would have been a road block had the two most obnoxious not been one.
A huge reason our house leadership looks so good is the Republican base has a nasty habit of voting in frothing at the mouth lunatics who truly represent their base. Our rabble rousers are AOC, Crocket, Omar, Frost, and others who aren’t demented lunatics.
We can’t fix the senate and only Republican voters can fix their representatives. Our hands are tied on this disfunction. Contra what others have sad Sanders is not the problem and constantly blaming an outspoken Jewish man as being a back stabber is getting old. At least the GOP has the guts not to pretend to be my ally. The biggest problem now is Fetterman. He can be voted out later.
Redshift
@arrieve: Very well said!
dc
@JaySinWA: I guess someone knows how to be a wartime consigliere.
New Deal democrat
Good summary by Dana Houle:
https://bsky.app/profile/danahoule.bsky.social/post/3lkdwp6ffes2w
Since this is an Open Thread, on a happier note I hereby request a Friday Cat Blogging post in honor of Kevin Drum.
John S.
@arrieve:
What an excellent turn of phrase, and very strong closing to your letter.
sentient ai from the future
@eclare: and this is why i find schumer’s capitulation difficult to swallow, and think it likely wrong on the merits.
schumer’s priority number one job as leadership is counting votes.
if he miscalculated initially, and then had to change tacks, then that shows he wasnt doing his job in the first place. you don’t put down a marker unless you know you have the votes. jeffries by contrast has earned some criticism, but he has not done this. he is a leader. he can count votes.
if schumer was trying to bluff, then that is worse.
either way, he can’t do the job of leading the party in the senate, and everything he suggests should be considered suspect.
Juju
@schrodingers_cat: I think Betty Cracker was referring to the post you highlighted written by Betty not Cracker.
Hoodie
@schrodingers_cat: (partial repost) I’d say that’s probably accurate. I’m not a big Schumer fan, mostly because he’s out of date and a poor communicator and thus not equipped for the fight ahead. But you can say that about a big chunk of the Dem Senate caucus, which he personifies. But that doesn’t mean he’s making the wrong choice here.
Among the Democrats’ fears is losing the normies by looking like they’re driven by a vendetta against Trump, even if he is an evil, toxically stupid fuck who richly deserves it. The key is to be on a vendetta against Trump but only incidentally in the pursuit of a better, more realistic and fair agenda that is blocked by him and what he represents. What’s truly bad about Trump is what he is pursuing will suck for the vast majority of Americans.
One way to do that is to learn from Trump – change the topic, shift the rhetorical ground. Shutdown just keeps bringing up all the old arguments from the election and a too large segment of the public has already given an initial pass on that. They wanted to “shake things up” and Trump is at least appearing to do that. It’s fucking idiotic and destructive, but it is what it is. We’ll need more than a few months for them to reassess that choice and to offer them some alternatives that don’t look like warmed-over versions of the Biden administration. I was generally ok with Biden’s policies, but there were some big problems looming that stemmed from the massive wealth inequality that has developed over the past few decades and that Dems did play a role in creating.
With that in mind, why inflict a bunch of further damage when you can’t be very certain that a shutdown would achieve what we need politically? As pointed out, there are some legal constraints to the CR and, while the ability of the courts to rein Trump in is doubtful, there is some evidence that a slim majority in the SC would at least try to impose some constraints on him. Then the issue is whether he will bother to even fake obedience to the law and, if not, what the public might do about it. But that’s a fight for a later day.
eclare
@sentient ai from the future:
Agree. Anyway my blood pressure cannot take this, so I will watch stupid TV and hope for the best: no CR.
HopefullyNotcassandra
I called & wrote my senators and urged no.
It is a vote to equivocate over though. It actually is.
on the one hand, no money for the clown car posse. Yeah!
on the other hand, the courthouses could (will….) get shuttered. Yikes!
on the most important hand, this is the fault of the GOP and their cosplaying presidential know nothings. (Yes, we all have 3 hands… or maybe this is the first foot)
Marcy Wheeler outlines it all at this link
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/14/democrats-have-to-stop-making-political-decisions-with-an-eye-towards-2026/
Please take some of your precious Friday time to read it.
We are here because the president of the United States has extorted members of Congress by illegally impounding our funds. This is not any democrats fault.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@eclare: We are finding Gunsmoke to be particularly nerve settling.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@schrodingers_cat: I disagree. Bernie Sanders waited and waited for a different democrat to do what he is doing — explaining the awfulness that this president is bringing. Somebody had to do it. He speaks well, explains exceptionally well and draws large crowds. I am grateful Senator Sanders is on democracy’s side.
We cannot change the past. We need to win the future!
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Steve LaBonne: please do not surrender in advance
lowtechcyclist
@Redshift:
OK, so they want to fire people. How does the shutdown give them additional power to do so? The furloughed workers are still on the payroll, they’re just not being paid while the shutdown continues. All that’s (temporarily) opened up is desk space in Federal buildings. They can bring people in, I suppose, but they’re not getting paid, and there’s no one around to train them, or even give them a username and temporary password to the agency’s intranet site.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Steve LaBonne: my apologies! You have not surrendered anything. I jumped too soon without knowing all of the facts. I would say I acted just like a maga, except those folks jump without knowing any facts because orange Simon said.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: House Democrats are coming out if this affair stronger politically than before. They got to take a high-profile stand popular within the Party. And while not too long ago there were Democrats who were beating on Hakeem Jeffries like he was their rented mule, now they are praising him (although that might not last very long).
And you know what? I expect a lot of those House Democrats will be relieved when the government isn’t shut down. I know a lot of people are certain that would be a winning power move, but those Representatives might be more sceptical about the politics. So I think they weren’t hung put to dry so much as protected politically.
TooManyJens
@HopefullyNotcassandra: That’s a really good article, thanks for sharing it. I don’t think she’s fully right that the pro-cloture faction are taking their stand with an eye toward 2026. There’s some of that, but I’m feeling more of a shift toward the mindset that the fight here and now is worth doing for its own sake.
RaflW
@John S.: I see a lot of this sentiment around here.
Yes, some folks may be in the ‘eat our own’ mode, but I think more or most of us are expressing anger and frustration that the people we supported and helped elect are screwing up.
We can be well aware that the Republicans have the bulks of the blame and almost all of the (totally wasted) agency, and still be up in arms that Democrats appear feckless, disorganized and strategically limp.
I can also note when things go well. Jeffries and the caucus stuck their necks out and (minus the Goldendweeb) voted No on Johnson’s craptacular budget. Jeffries issued a well-rounded diss on the CR heading to the Senate and an implied WTF to Schumer.
So, yeah, we’re mad at Dems. They can do better! I know they’re in the minority but the job is to rally us all to resist all this shit. Waffling lets the air out of our grassroots work (or risks deflating us, anyway).
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Raven: LBJ had his flaws
He also is the guy who brought us Medicare among many other good, wonderful things. Medicare alone must have bought LBJ a little time out of purgatory. It saves real lives and it is a bargain for the country. Imho
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Is this a variation on the old “just asking questions”? Sure comes across that way. You sure seem to be pissed that people found fault with it.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Steve LaBonne: because otherwise the stories would be all about the feckless GOP’s inability to get along
and this president truly seems to enjoy making his peers fetch and grovel after he extorts them. Inflicting pain appears to be the only release he has from his inner pathos.
azlib
@schrodingers_cat:
I generally agree with the other Betty’s analysis.
espierce
@New Deal democrat: Cheryl Rofer over at LGM started one too.
https://bsky.app/profile/cherylrofer.bsky.social/post/3lkdxud3wrk2y
rikyrah
Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) posted at 9:09 AM on Fri, Mar 14, 2025:
NEW: Alabama mother of two and a Maryland-based organization of parents files suit asking judge to order US Education Dept to restore its civil rights division’s investigations of racial discrimination in public education
Suit says Trump Admin. “has abdicated its responsibility to enforce civil rights protections, leaving students who should be able to trust and rely on their government to protect and defend their rights to instead endure discriminatory and unsafe learning environments without recourse”
(https://x.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1900549908928586167?t=On1zAEryZp5uR4UUZs5N2Q&s=03)
kindness
Schumer did fine while running the Majority. Schumer was no Harry Reid, but he was good enough. In the minority, Schumer isn’t the right person for the job. I wish seniority didn’t rule/guide leadership or Committee chairs so much. When we cobble back a new Democratic Republic from the rubble Trump leaves us with, we need to seriously change some of the rules in running the Senate.
dearmaizie
@Kristine:
Best take on here.
terraformer
@brantl: It seems the billboards and various signage appearing in England is working quite well. Why isn’t that happening here?
brantl
@schrodingers_cat: and Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are really scared too. You should see them shaking in their boots.
brantl
@A Ghost to Most: Wash them with paintballs, aim at the windows, scare the shit out of them, it will fill the cybertruck!
dearmaizie
@Emily B.:
Oh no. I hadn’t read him in a couple of weeks thinking he was on the mend. Thanks for the link. Very nice.
pajaro
I think Schumer’s position is a big mistake, even though I am well aware that this isn’t an easy choice. People will be harmed by a shutdown, but those Senators whose constituents are most likely to be in Elon’s crosshairs–in Virginia and Maryland–are not going to support closure. They have been hearing from their constituents that giving up to Elon is the worst of a series of bad options. It’s true that a shutdown might make things even worse for a time, or that there is some extreme action that Trump may take that he hasn’t yet, but it’s also true that the effects a shutdown may be shocking enough that it will induce Congressional Republicans to actually be willing to negotiate with the Senate Democrats on a decent resolution. I don’t think anyone has perfect foresight, but I think that those who care about the future of the country the most are willing to sacrifice to attempt to get these monsters to obey the law.
rikyrah
Tell that truth, BC.
Tell it
WTFGhost
Forget it. If I had a month, MAYBE I could come up with a plan. If only we had 200 thousand people who just lost their jobs.
“Trump has fired 200,000 people…”.
Then *why* was that not listed among our assets? Anyway: what I wouldn’t give for a lot of Republicans so angry they would shout down their representatives in town hall meetings.
“Um… that’s actually happening. It fit the situation so well, Miracle Max said we could use that plot point.”
Anyone else want to continue being Westley, and remembering our assets?
dnfree
@schrodingers_cat: I appreciated the additional viewpoint. I think Betty Cracker’s response was to the attitude of that person, not toward you for sharing it.
Manyakitty
@dnfree: also my take, FWIW.
dnfree
@lowtechcyclist: If the courts are closed in the shutdown, they are more able to act with impunity, I think is the argument.
Lauryn11
Schumer appears worried about the court system during a shutdown. OTOH, do you think that passing a CR with no stated guardrails against rescission or redirection of funds by the executive will make the job of the courts more difficult? If a (now bipartisan) Congress won’t defend its Article 1 powers will that weaken plaintiffs’ arguments with respect to impoundment? It just seems the longer the legislative branch lays down the worse this gets.
Seanly
My wife & I went to a town hall with our local representatives. We live in deep red Idaho but are represented by 2 state legitslators and a state senator, all 3 of whom are Democrats. Idaho, like a lot of states, has to have a balanced budget but is trying to do a give away of money like the AZ private school debacle. Some of the federal stuff came up – some funding & personnel cut by DOGE asshats has to be paid for or adjusted for by the state. I haven’t seen anything about this concern coming up in the media. Anyway, our district in Boise must be pretty blue as everyone was clapping and very friendly to them. Got my wife to stop suggesting we pull up stakes & head for foreign lands (limited choices since we only speak English).
Our congressional delegation is nowhere to be seen of course.
Boise has a lot of vets and a lot of retirees so I don’t think that most of the DOGE BS will fly too well even in this red state.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: You know, my natural inclination is to be cynical, especially about politics. However, if so many House Democrats really are as cynical as you just stated they are (& presumably many of the Senate Dems who voted No on cloture, too), we might as well give up on the Dem Party as the foundation on which to build & sustain an anti-Fascist coalition. How can anyone believe anything they say, or stand for anything other than winning the next election, or what they claim they will do should they win the next election?
This kind of cynical politics is what contributed to the current disaster, & why do many voters are disaffected from the status quo & think there is no difference between the Parties. It certainly is unacceptable at the current moment, when the U.S. polity is coming apart (& not just at the seams) right in front of our eyes. I for one choose to believe that the vast majority of House & Senate Dems who voted No are doing so out of sincere convictions. If that is not the case, then we have to search for alternatives to the Dem Party to defeat the reactionary counterrevolution.
Gloria DryGarden
@DebG: speaking of Colorado, I see ads now for the Bernie and AOC show in Denver, march 21, 5 pm, civic center, the MDT.