This Politico piece makes the fighting within the Trump administration sound like something from the Clinton or Reagan administrations, when instead it’s a bunch of incompetents, grifters, & lunatics doing their own thing w the senile president not controlling them www.politico.com/news/2025/04…
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) April 10, 2025 at 3:31 PM
We're told FDA Commissioner Marty makary has now greenlighted a plan to address at least some of agency's steep layoffs: hire contractors to replace laid-off federal employees
"It's a waste," one laid-off FDA official said
www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-rep…— Alexander Tin (@alexander-a-tin.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Something that may be worth saying is that with agencies floating contractors, Elon seeming less important, spending continuing to go up and the GOP senate plan..
The vought/elon "completely destroy state capacity" wing seems to be losing power quickly.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 10:26 PM
Florida's economy is so fucking screwed rn
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 9:50 PM
The silly thing about all this is that there simply aren't that many "criminal illegal aliens." That's why these guys are upping the volume.
— Cheryl Rofer (@cherylrofer.bsky.social) April 11, 2025 at 5:10 PM
It’s too late to keep out ideas from South Africa
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) April 10, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Baud
Finally someone is doing something about Idea Mules.
Liminal Owl
Friday??
sab
It is nice to see Erik Prince looking older
ETA Someday he might actually die.
Suzanne
So here’s a thing I wonder about: is he actually senile? Or is he just really the same level of fucking stupid that he’s been his whole life?
sab
@Suzanne: Probably both. He sounds a lot more clueless lately than he did in the 1980s.
Spanky
@Suzanne: Fair question, but one also has to wonder if that matters.
prostratedragon
Ideas. Getting measles and such is ok, but don’t, don’t get ideas.
prostratedragon
@sab: You know, that’s just what I thought.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Suzanne: He may not be medically senile, but there’s no difference in his actions. So, I’m fine with that term. I’d extend it to the Cabinet and the rest of the GOP.
Ohio Mom
You replace laid off employees with contractors, then you employees to manage the contractors — write the bids, decide who to hire, monitor their work, evaluate whether you want to keep them — you most likely will but it all probably needs documenting.
Of course on the contractor’s side, you need staff to manage the contract, not just do the work. The government pays for that too.
You might say the entire enterprise is wasteful and prone to abuse and fraud.
Suzanne
@Spanky:
Oh, it certainly does not. I just like to be precise.
Shakti
@Suzanne:
I will not say he’s senile because that would serve to excuse him from culpability. And he is amazing at avoiding culpability and consequences.
Just like Reagan was aware of everything that happened and nothing happened to him with Iran Contra.
The cabinet is fully aware and acting of their own free will. Nobody is senile. Marco Rubio was my senator and fully knows what he’s doing.
The four democrats in the House who voted for the SAVE Act fully know what they did. They will stay in the party. I believe married women who have changed their names have the right to vote and shouldn’t be disenfranchised because their birth certificate doesn’t match their current name.
A party for whom this isn’t a red line is not a party I have a place in.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
And with the tariff on Canadian lumber, they’ll be keeping Idea Logs from crossing our northern border.
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom: Contractors work well for projects with a defined beginning and end. They’re terrible for ongoing work. This is stupid.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
It depends. At Census, it wasn’t unusual for people to retire and then come back as individual contractors. They’d be doing the same work they were before retirement, or very similar work, but it was ongoing work rather than projects of limited duration.
I assume there was some financial benefit for them doing that rather than just staying as a regular worker, but I’m not clear what it was, since I never looked into it. When I retired, I was gone
ETA: It strikes me that agencies that have been given the green light to hire contractors could hire back their former employees as contractors. I bet contractors wouldn’t be subject to any requirement that they show up in the office five days a week, or even any days a week. Could be a useful workaround.
NotMax
An opportunity to decompress. Strictly for funsies.
All “aboot” deconstructing Lucky Charms.
;)
Ohio Mom
Trump seems tired to me, and mostly just phoning it in. He has a formula for being president, it worked enough to get him reelected.
Librettist
Some of the more egregious lies are clearly just truth flips. “I made two billion dollars” = dumbshit is broke again. “Everyone’s calling and kissing our ass” = no one is calling.
.
Ohio Mom
@lowtechcyclist: I think if you have maxed out on your pension, you aren’t going to get a bigger pension no matter how many more years you work, you might as well start drawing it while also working as a contractor.
Salty Sam
James Fallows published a Substack piece not long ago where he analyzed Trump’ SOU speech, comparing it with previous similar speeches. He found significant diminished vocabulary, just as would be found with a senile dementia patient.
“Waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck…”
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I don’t think he has any identifiable dementia, I think he’s just an asshole who’s been pandered to by everyone in his orbit for his entire life, has always gotten what he wants by making threat displays and throwing tantrums, and has now been granted essentially ultimate power, and that situation itself causes progressive mental deterioration, exacerbated a bit by age.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Turns out he’s actually smuggling mules, not ideas! Of course, he and the mules were sent to El Salvador…
Rusty
I’ll repost this the end of the last thread.
I was reading Heather Cox Richardson this morning, and at the end of her email she mentioned “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions”, and stated it was a memorandum from last night that would make the border a military zone, thereby allowing the military to arrest anyone in that zone. She didn’t provide a link. A quick look found a handful of news articles, stating its about doing this to public land along the border. This seems like a big deal, maybe it’s just because it was from last night it hasn’t made a bigger splash. I screw up links, but a quick search on Google news will find legitimate news agencies with at least something. Any better sources?
jimmiraybob
What’s the difference between the former Atlantic slave trade and Trump’s selling of humans to a foreign nation? This is literally – and I do mean literally – human trafficking by the Trump cartel.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: So in AZ, I use to work with the State and City governments a lot. A few of the people I worked with retired at the end of their 20 years and returned as contractors to their same job. I think of that slightly differently, because they already knew the job.
But dealing with contract agencies rather than permanent employees seems like the perfect way to lose institutional knowledge and effectiveness in most situations. High turnover.
Scout211
@Rusty: It has been all over the news. Here’s USA Today.
Added last paragraph
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
AM in NC
@Suzanne: Yep. My mom used to be HR director for the City of Winter Park, FL. A new crop of ultra-CONS got elected to the city commission and decided to fire a ton of employees and “save money” by contracting out all the work. My mom strongly advised against this, on economic and moral grounds. Of course the CONS knew better and went ahead with their deeply stupid and cruel plan.
And they were just shocked (SHOCKED!) when the costs were higher and the service was poorer.
Because cruel and blinded by ideology to the point of stupidity is just how CONS go through life.
And decent people suffer (always) from the cruel stupid of CONS.
Betty Cracker
@Shakti: Re: the SAVE Act, I wonder what its chances of passing in the Senate are? They’d need every Republican and 7 Dems. I don’t think they’ll find that many, but who knows?
ETA: Also, does anyone know how it will be implemented IF it becomes law? Will every voter have to re-register with proof of citizenship, or will that requirement be for new registrations, address and name changes, etc.?
Rusty
@Scout211: Thank you
rikyrah
@Shakti:
And those four should be primaried
Peale
@Rusty: so the Roosevelt Reserve is an actual thing. But it’s only 60 feet wide. While yeah, this is just an excuse to get around the rules that prevent the US armed forces from operating in the US, all this does is make a new crime. Great. Now it’s illegal to be close to the border. For anyone, really. Since what kind of military base just lets randos in without permission?
Jackie
@prostratedragon:
Me, too! Or thirded…
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
bluefoot
@jimmiraybob: Human trafficking by the US Federal government. Yes, it’s the Trump administration, but I feel like we need to be clear that the apparatus of government is doing this happily, out in the open without a fig leaf of legality.
Baud
Maybe it’s my old man bubble, but unlike the 60s or even Bush II, I don’t feel like our long fight against fascism has inspired or been reflected in a lot of art, music, and culture.
prostratedragon
O-o-o-o-o-o-o!
Illegal IP under whose laws would they be stopping?
oldgold
In my small corner of the world, it seems the non-MAGA Republicans have had enough.
The madcap economic events of the past week has broken them. He is threatening their holy of holies – their wallets.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
Totally depends on the agency and department. In DoD and procurement/development, it happened all the time. Where I was in DOT, it never happened.
In DOT, every attempt to outsource (and it started under Gore’s “Reinventing Government” bullshit) meant that the contracted jobs paid far, far, less with shitty benefits.
Watched that for 27+ years at DOT. Nobody who left came back unless it was under some of the later-Biden “you’ve retired, come back for a year as a Fed and we’ll make it worth your while” initiatives as they discovered with the two spending bills they needed tons of people to manage them.
That, of course, was shitcanned when the Orange Fart Cloud took over.
And when it comes to rules like telework, contractors don’t get that, it’s “get your ass in here”. Again, depends on the agency. If someone’s doing some freelance contract work for lets say an Army R&D group (where my wife was when she left), then it’s different.
But for a job that’s basically a Fed job, 40 hours a week, contractors aren’t any workaround.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@AM in NC:
The outsourcing of governmental services is the road to tyranny. Every time you contract away the public good to a for-profit company democracy dies.
Just more neoliberal, Reaganomic crap. They lead off with “it saves money” when outsourcing services like this always costs the governmental entity more than if they simply staffed up internally.
Outsourcing in general is like this. If you go into thinking “I don’t have to worry about this, vendor X will solve this problem for me” you’re almost certainly going to get screwed. You need to get every detail into the contract, and spend almost as many hours riding them to deliver on everything to your substantive satisfaction.
Outsourcing firms throw (relatively) cheap bodies at tasks, they deploy resources stupidly and haphazardly according to their profit motive, and they live in a world where running up the bill, not delivering a working system, is the end goal. In some situations, it does work, namely highway/road projects. But even there, it takes really good state DOTs to make things work and you can see the good ones and bad ones by the results around you. Heh heh, I know some atrocious state DOTs who can’t manage the contracts for road work worth a crap and they’re nationally known for being inept at best, corrupt at worst.
It’s about blatantly drumming up (creating an environment) of public frustration to push for further cuts and eventual privatization. And it’s a tactic not confined to just the right. Our wave of pale blue New Dem/New Liberalism, self-professed progressives will float this approach. Our current Great White Dope Mayor has actually hired PR firms to test the public reaction to this for certain departments.
prostratedragon
@sab:
@Jackie:
We often decry the arts critic approach to politics, correctly, but the ancient wisdom that there is a time for everything is also true, to wit this from
Carl Bergstrom:
Chief Oshkosh
ABG
Always be grifting
prostratedragon
@oldgold:
Look at what has come out in The Wall Street Journal.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
The headline should be “The leopards are eating our faces.”
Geminid
Henry Cuellar hopes he gets the chance to be primaried. The TX28 Rep’s federal corruption trial is set for September.
trollhattan
The voice on the receiver said
You got another idea mule, kickin’ in your stall.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: federal contractor here and I had to return to office with the current administration, no telework time at all
Paul in KY
@Baud: Good point. Hadn’t really thought of that, but no ‘American Idiot’ level stuff playing that I have heard.
oldgold
@prostratedragon: Yes, I saw that. Of course, it is going nowhere fast, but it does speak to the deep dissatisfaction that exists with his madcap machinations with our economy.
The next batch of polling is going to be brutal for the Tangerine Terror of Tariffs.
trollhattan
@prostratedragon:
I thought it was going in one direction and then near the end, turns out Trump is the fault of the press and liberals.
Rusty
The other reason conservatives want to outsource, is that by the actions of the reactionaries on SCOTUS, outsiders can discriminate in ways government can’t. If I outsource adoption to a religious group, they can discriminate against the LGBTQ community in ways government employees can’t. The goal is to outsource schools as a way to reverse integration, that is already happening in places with the use of vouchers, we are only a few steps away from some state going all vouchers, no public schools.
Jackie
More capitulating to China, Tim Cook, and Jun Young-hyun, who was appointed Samsung’s CEO following the death of her father, Han Jong-hee this past March.
Chief Oshkosh
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
This is 100% been my experience. You may as well create your own team. OTOH, my brother made an excellent living (wrt paycheck) being the contractor/consultant/analyst who was contracted to get every detail into the contracts with other contractors and then he was contracted to ride heard on the other contractors.
He retired very early, not because he could afford it, but because the work was making him despise so many people he was worried he’d grow to hate all of humanity. He’s a brutally honest and thorough guy – and it all just wore him down because this is the state of affairs, the “business as usual,” in our form of late-stage capitalism.
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan: WTF does that even mean?
prostratedragon
@trollhattan:
Oh, of course. Made me recall the US and UK alliance with Stalin/USSR during WWII. Urgency can produce such results.
From a Hollywood “A” movie of 1943, with Dana Andrews and Anne Baxter among the happy farmers of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Kayla Rudbek
@prostratedragon: Customs has had the power to seize infringing goods at the border for years (goods that infringe other people’s or companies’ patents or trademarks, and I think pirated goods that violate copyright as well). Customs/CBP used to have a booth at the National Trademark Expo with sample goods that had been seized (e.g. fake UL-certified extension cords that melted in use because they didn’t really meet the UL standards, counterfeit pharmaceuticals that don’t contain the actual drug, consumer goods like counterfeit purses/clothes/shoes, etc). Organized crime actually makes a lot of money from counterfeit products (including other oils sold as olive oil) and pirated DVS/CDs/software/movies/music. So I have no problem with that, as an IP attorney. But presenting it as “ideas” is wrong and stupid.
And generally the responsibility is on the patent/trademark/copyright owner to get a court order in the first place and then Customs gets notified to go do the seizures. Y’know, that whole due process thing, instead of having some random schmoe in CBP deciding that someone looks/sounds funny or foreign and messing with them.
Baud
@Jackie:
If a Dem acted like this, everyone would be calling him weak and crazy.
me
@trollhattan: The press did give him legitimacy. Press like the Wall Street Journal for example.
Geminid
@me: WSJ to op-ed writer: “We need you to brush over our tracks. Right now we’re riding with the posse.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
After Trump’s physical yesterday he was boasting about how he passes all the answers on the cognitive test, which means of course he blew it.
trollhattan
“I’ve got an idea: the world’s longest, skinniest Army base. Do this, by next Friday! I want pics when I’m on the golf course.”
Scout211
The art of the deal!
And sure, the deal is for the consumers. Riiiiiight.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Scout211: The state national guards been doing this since forever. One of my Housemates was NG and he would do his two weeks in the desert on the Mexican border.
The Audacity of Krope
As someone currently working in a long term care pharmacy that mainly supports group homes and hospice patients, I really look forward to seeing how Medicaid cuts affect my employment.
That is to say I look forward to blaming my parents to their face every day when those cuts crush facilities like the one where I work.
But no use getting personally worked up about my own job security. A Republican President running the whole economy into the ground is just another Tuesday for us Millennials.
Librettist
The social media feed is generally various right-wing idiots “owning the libs”. Last night the only thing popping was clips of that idiot Leavitt. They’re trying to hide behind her skirt.
prostratedragon
@Kayla Rudbek: So then, counterfeit goods. I always thought of IP as the various underlying “paper.” Still comes off as a lame excuse for what was first written; they could have just said “goods.”
danielx
From WaPo:
When did questions about competence ever apply to Donald Trump, or worry him either for that matter?
Aziz, light!
Contracting serves an important purpose. It puts tax dollars into the accounts of private businesses, which then donate some of that money to Republican politicians.
prostratedragon
@Aziz, light!: Ah yes, the great circular flow.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@zhena gogolia: It means Trump views the Presidency as a reality TV show, so he obsessed with his ratings because he is and idiot, and meanwhile, the Left has stubbornly insisting Trump is the second coming of Hitler, and ignoring anything that doesn’t fit that narrative.
The Audacity of Krope
Don’t forget that it costs extra for the taxpayer and, thus, draws money away from other useful priorities.
ETA: Fuck autocorrect, “thus” is a perfectly good word.
Librettist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yup. His lies are increasingly simple reversals of the truth. There isn’t much left there anymore.
Scout211
@Aziz, light!: Yes. And I can foresee a new bunch of contracting companies (or renamed current ones) competing for those lucrative government contracts providing workers for government agencies.
I wonder which companies will
pay Trump the mosthave the most competent workers.Spanky
Those “four democrats” who voted for the SAVE Act don’t get named enough. They are
The Audacity of Krope
The ones whose company picnic photos look the most like the Mayonnaise family reunion, no doubt…
Jackie
@Scout211:
Ya, I snorted out sarcastic coffee over that bit of BS.
TS
@Chief Oshkosh:
I doubt the current administration worries about what is in the contract as long as their friends get the benefit of same.
zhena gogolia
@Spanky: Perez was one of the first to shiv Biden.
The Audacity of Krope
I always knew that new electronics would have to be the first thing I boycott as a class because of Trump. I thought it would be because they would strongarm Ukraine into an inequitable resources deal, but tariffs have moved up the calendar.
Shakti
@Betty Cracker: No Democrats should’ve voted for that fucking law in the House. None. And yet 4 did.
I am not relying on the idea that “people who change their names should continue to vote” is a red line for that party.
What I’ve seen specifically doesn’t mention driver’s licenses, which are REAL ID in Florida. Mine matches my passport, which doesn’t expire for five years.
In practice?
I am not optimistic – I’ve had HR at big companies not understand that naturalization papers are acceptable documents for an I-4.
It really, really depends on which official you have in front of you.
The Audacity of Krope
But she was so important to our narrow house majority a couple years ago…🙄
trollhattan
@danielx:
Since never? I’m going with never.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Sucks being an unpopular party.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Eh, I’ve pretty much disowned the Party myself at this point.
Baud
@danielx:
When he stated hurting money?
Esp. Amazon stock price.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Have you noticed have discussions of age have completely disappeared from the media. Including left wing social media and blogs.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I hope that makes you more popular.
gene108
@Baud:
There’s an entire media complex that exists to portray Republicans as strong and manly, and Democrats as weak and effeminate.
I’m not sure when these stereotypes set in, but it seems like it’s been this way my entire life.
trollhattan
Looks like Donny is taking Tim Apple’s calls. Good move going to that inauguration, Timmy.
Titans of industry looking like manbabies if you ask me.
Jackie
@Spanky:
I can’t speak for the others, but should Gluesenkamp Perez be primaried, her seat will most likely fall back to GOP/MAGA. She barely squeaked out a win over MAGA darling Joe Kemp – who is currently waiting to be confirmed as deputy sumthin in Gabbard’s cabinet.
eta: NOT that I wished she hadn’t voted for the SAVE Act :P
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: It is the shortest route to popularity in the media. Bash the Ds for what Rs do. Ask Jon Stewart.
Many lefties are out there doing Trump’s work for him by defending tariffs.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Popularity is definitely not what I am seeking by mocking Balloon Juice homilies on Balloon Juice.
WTFGhost
If “Ideas” cross our border? “Illegally”?
Forget the full-blown fascist neon flashing of “ideas crossing our border illegally!”
How does an idea cross a border unlawfully?
(NB: intellectual property, classified information, etc., are not mere “ideas” but very specially constrained collections of data. The idea existed before the patent – you just cursed it if it came “after” and you had to license it.)
Baud
@Jackie:
Golden too.
We had 60 Senators for a period in 2009, and the extra 10 sucked, but most of those were from states that subsequently went red.
We’re righteous but not powerful.
Librettist
So Bessent has replaced Navarro who replaced Wiles as this weeks Al Haig?
Geminid
@The Audacity of Krope: Rep. Perez was first elected in 2022, so she was not part of the 5-member Majority that passed Biden’s legislation 2021-2022.
Washington has an open, “jungle” primary system, so district Dems won’t have a chance for a direct challenge.
I think Ed Case is the one of the four who has to worry most about a primary, especially if the Senate passes the SAFE Act. If it doesn’t, Case’s vote might be so much water under the bridge for Hawaii Democrats.
WTFGhost
@The Audacity of Krope: So – Baud is being especially mean, wishing upon you that which you do not desire?
HOOO! THGIF!
Damn. I always got that kind of thing backward. No wonder people think I’m weird.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
No problem on my end. People should do what makes them happy.
Spanky
@gene108:
Somewhere between ’64 and ’72. LBJ was, well, LBJ, and George McGovern won the Distinguished Flying Cross flying 35 missions as B-24 pilot in WWII, yet somehow Nixon got him labelled as weak on defense, mostly because he opposed the Viet Nam war.
Miss Bianca
So, “ideas” are now crossing the border illegally? What kind of “ideas” does this Administration call illegal? “Liberty and Justice for All”, perhaps?
Jesus wept.
Baud
@Geminid:
Case is new to me. Is his district very swingy?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@The Audacity of Krope: With stalwart allies like you, how could Dems possibly lose?
Baud
@Spanky:
Besides Vietnam, there was this backdrop.
Baud
@Miss Bianca: .
catclub
fed pensions do not max out. Pension calculation is #years * 1.2% * high3 salary.
so even if your salary stays constant your number of years will go up.
However, if you retire and are receiving a pension, then you can come back at full salary with a contractor.
The Audacity of Krope
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Dems threw out the results of their own election. Don’t talk to me about who is stalwart, with all due respect.
Geminid
@Baud: Ed Case has been around for several terms. He was a Blue Dog, not sure if he is now. There are only around 9 of them left.
Ed. Case’s dustrict is definitely the most Democratic of the four. Trump carried Golden’s, Cuellar’s and Perez’s.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: I know.
Another Scott
@Baud: I saw a sold-out show of the Dead Kennedys recently. They changed the lyrics of at least one song (MTV Get Off The Air => MP3 Get Off the Web). I was disappointed that they didn’t play Soup Is Good Food or the Stars and Stripes of Corruption, but it was a good show.
IOW, musicians are out there, doing the work, also too.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Given the current situation, they should change their name to Death Kennedy.
The Audacity of Krope
@schrodingers_cat: I mean the stroke talk on this very thread isn’t explicitly about age, but it certainly runs parallel to it. And Mistermix certainly seems to be carrying the banner of team ice floe. See Dem Congressional leadership elections.
UncleEbeneezer
@Rusty: This has always been central to their love of privatization. Whether it’s contractors or schools etc. It’s not JUST about freeing business-owners from taxes and regulations that put limitations on their profits. There’s always been the social aspect of them wanting everyone to be allowed to discriminate and enforce social hierarchies. I’d argue that they actually care more passionately about this aspect than the free-market/profit angle.
Melancholy Jaques
@Spanky:
Cuellar is just the last of the right-wing Democrats, but Perez doesn’t seem to be that. She was a Sanders supporter in 2016. She seems to be playing the “if I vote with the MAGAs right-wingers will be nice to me” game. Do Republican voters think, “I hate Democrats, but she did vote to make it harder for people to vote, so she’s okay” or do they just vote for someone who gives them the racism they desire in their heart of hearts?
WTFGhost
@schrodingers_cat: One does not need to mention the benefits of a fine apertif or even a small glass of port, when attending the collision of multiple serial-DUIers. Not even if tariffs make sense, nor if red wine has CV benefits.
(for example…)
@trollhattan: Like, in the quoted bit, a looser tariff on India, and stricter on China, might achieve stated foreign policy goals, assuming we’re good on strengthening India, qua China. But nooo-ooo-ooo, trump is a moron, spelled “s-t-o-o-p-i-t”.
@gene108: “sublimation” is the word being sought…
@Betty Cracker: The ability to make such choices is part of the point. In NC, the SCONC race, they’re trying to disenfranchise voters for having registered on older forms, without a space for license/ssn, with the “never to be sufficiently disbarred” candidate trying to disenfranchise voters en masse. Well, if they specified mechanisms, there’s no room for a sec-of-state to make choices like that, if a close race demands disenfranchisement.
Melancholy Jaques
@gene108:
Reagan & Bush I
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Her district has voted for her twice now. I don’t like her vote, but she seems to know what she’s doing. But it’s possible that won’t last and the district will vote red because their population finds Republicans attractive. That has happened in a number of areas in this country.
I don’t think her being a Sanders supporter means anything ideologically.
prostratedragon
Queen Taipei runs it down:“Fascists Have No Drip | the history of fashion in fascist Italy.” They show the relationship of fashion to seven core principles of fascism. A quick 20 minutes. Thanks to Wonkette.
Steve LaBonne
@Ohio Mom: Hear me out, what if- and I know this is really far-fetched in this totally honest and transparent Administration- what if fraud and abuse are the whole point?
The Audacity of Krope
That can’t be. It leaves out the very purposeful waste.
Suzanne
@Melancholy Jaques: Perez has done a lot of stupid shit. The one that irrationally sticks in my craw is sponsoring the “Preserving Woodworking Traditions and Blocking Government-Mandated Monopolies Act”, which protects your God-given freedom to chop your fingers off on a table saw.
I have to muster up my most cynical “we’re a coalition” impulses. The more I listen to the “politics is for things more important than winning!” feelings, the more I’m depressed about life.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Many lefties are as hopeless in wanting to return America to the “good old days” they think existed right after WW2, where the U.S. was the sole economic superpower, accounted for something like 80% of the world’s manufacturing capacity, and more factory workers were unionized.
A lot of this “utopia” excluded women and non-whites from the good jobs.
The economy has moved on. If these folks are serious about the “working class” they’d be working to unionize more service sector jobs like grocery stores, Starbucks, and more importantly “women’s jobs” like home health aides.
Somehow the idea of taking an old person to the bathroom isn’t as romantic for their conception of the “working class” as men in factories, though this notion is prevalent throughout the public.
Steve LaBonne
@The Audacity of Krope: I promise that not a dollar will be wasted. They will all go into the pockets of the Republican donors who own the contractors. As God intended.
Jackie
@Baud:
Be kinda funny should the SAVE Act actually pass, and Perez’s women voters couldn’t vote for her because of last name discrepancies…
Actually that could happen with all four DINOs.
oldgold
@The Audacity of Krope: Let it go. It’s over. And, recent revelations are not supportive of your view.
kindness
When folk use Politico as a standard it sanewashes everything Trump 2.0 does. The difference between how Politico treated Biden (or Kamela or Hillary) vs how it treats Trump (and Republicans) makes it pretty clear who Politico wants to win the day. Screw them. If only we could get the rest of the media to point and laugh at them but that media is just as invested in keeping up the facade as Politico is.
Steve LaBonne
@Jackie: If Senate Democrats don’t filibuster this, it really is time to try to leave the country. Fortunately I think the probability of that is zero.
tobie
@The Audacity of Krope: Yikes. The Medicaid cuts are horrifying. Everyone from poor people to people with disabilities to seniors in assisted living facilities is being kicked to the curb. Party of life, my foot. Republicans have decided that there are “lives unworthy of life.” We need to hammer home what the GOP in the House just voted for with the budget.
Geminid
@Baud: The Washington 3rd CD Perez represents now was held by Republican Jaime Herrera Butler for several terms until 2022. Butler was one of the 10 Republicans to vote for Trump’s second Impeachment the year before. That probably cost Butler her seat.; she came in 3rd in the jungle primary, and that enabled Perez’s very narrow win that November. I think Perez pushed her margin of victory to 15,000 votes last year.
The Washington 3rd CD is based in Clark County, right across the Columbia River from Portland. It extends into a few other rural-exurban counties to the north.
jonas
@Suzanne: He really is a sui generis case of someone so stupid that it’s clinically indistinguishable from dementia.
The Audacity of Krope
@oldgold: Please name your recent revelations. What? Did Biden have a birthday?
You were on that bandwagon before it was a bandwagon from what I recall. Frankly, I don’t care if Biden is drooling into his breakfast as long as the work product out of the White House continued to be good and Biden wanted the job.
And throwing out the results of elections against the will of the victor absent a justly decided criminal conviction is kind of a red line for me. I’m funny that way.
matt
‘smash the state’ which makes as much sense as ‘burn this tractor now that I own it’ was never going to stay as the organizing principle of this administration.
tobie
@Baud:
Yes and no. The horseshoe theory is real. See Gabbard, Fetterman, Sinema. Gluesenkamp Perez is a populist who frequently divides the world into the innocent, struggling working class and the sinister cosmopolitan blood suckers. It’s the form of nativism that many in the Sanders circle spout. And, like them, Gluesenkamp Perez loves to denounce Democrats.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jackie: The cave here is not surprising, otherwise the sudden cleaving of the consumer electronics supply chains would have enraged an awful lot of consumers very quickly.
However, I doubt there are so many exemptions in the retaliatory tariffs imposed by the U.S.’ trade partners, especially the PRC. For example, so far the PRC government has clarified that the tariff on U.S. made semiconductors will be assessed at the wafer level, meaning wafers w/ patterned chips made in the U.S., but diced & packaged in 3rd countries (including the PRC) will still be subject to the full 125% tariff. AMD is OK, US design houses that use TSMC in TW & Samsung in SK for foundry manufacturing (Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, etc.) are fine. Intel, TI & Micron are SOL for the chips that they only fabricate in the U.S.
If the PRC decides to exempt US made automobiles (especially Tesla Models S & Y), that could be Xi giving Trump an off ramp w/o calling the latter.
Kristine
Trump’s exempted phones and other electronic devices from tariffs.
tobie
@Jackie: Perez may not be able to vote herself. “Gluesenkamp” is her husband’s name. Her current name differs from the name on her birth certificate.
trollhattan
@tobie:
Gabbard and Sinema are, okay were only ever cosplay Democrats. Tulsi of course is a serious tankie through and through, now occupying the most dangerous job she could have been awarded.
Fetterman I don’t get but also am not from Pennsylvania and ultimately, he’s their problem to deal with. For all I know it’s the stroke. At least he saved us from Senator Oz.
Steve LaBonne
@Kristine: I just saw that. LOL. Hiding the capitulation in a late Friday news dump so Donnie Dumbass doesn’t have to admit he caved. Xi may choke to death from laughing too hard.
RevRick
@Spanky: Except for Ed Case, the other three are hanging on by the hairs of their chinny, chin, chins. I’m inclined to respond to their dumb, questionable votes with a sigh and a shrug. We need their votes to retake control of the House. But in any case, they are matters for their own districts to deal with.
The only time I contribute to a Democratic primary is in my own PA-7 district. Otherwise, nope.
schrodingers_cat
@The Audacity of Krope: Yes he can be pretty ageist.
The Audacity of Krope
Something tells me a person of her resources can figure it out. The concern is for busy working people who may not have the time, money, or will to resolve any barriers the proposed law would create.
BlueGuitarist
@Jackie:
@Baud:
@Geminid:
Cook PVI 2025
HI-01 Case D+13
TX-28 Cuellar R+2
WA-03 Gluesenkamp Perez R+2
ME-02 Golden R+4
No excuse for Case.
Former WA-03 Republican Rep Jaime Beutler-Herrera got more votes than anyone else on the ballot in WA-03 counties on the way to losing statewide Lands Commissioner election.
Shakti
@rikyrah:
More to the point, fuck with their other sources of income while in office, outside of office, etc.
Part of the problem is LOL I’m sure most of the people who’d vote against them in a primary would have massive difficulties voting if not be unable to vote in the SAVE ACT.
They will still have the full party support of fundraising and infrastructure. Rep Golden doesn’t care he’s getting ratioed on bsky.
I’m not in their districts so can’t vote against them and they don’t fucking care.
@Jackie: How can the bestest president ever push out his stupid screeds with people just keep using old phones, or god forbid go back to landlines? Or like keep their dumb tvs instead of smart ones?
I mean, the new phones have new improved information scraping built right in as well as extra surveillance and probably extra backdoors. But if they’re 30,000 instead of installments over 2 years for 1200 or even $300-800 phones nobody’s updating that shit and they might demand actual features. You realize you can’t attend major league football or hockey games with paper tickets anymore? nope, it’s electronic, in a certain app. If the marks don’t have constant entertainment or little treats, they might do something else with all the free time* and anger** they have on their hands.
Woops.
Eolirin
@The Audacity of Krope: Only ever applied to Democrats, especially coming from Mix.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: I have seen the Dem hating purity left cheering Trump’s tariffs because that could supposedly end capitalism.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
The hack gap is real.
Baud
@BlueGuitarist:
That is weird. I wonder what was in the bill that got Case to vote for it.
Baud
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
100%
oldgold
@The Audacity of Krope: Recenty, two books “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the Whitehouse” and “Uncharted” have been published that document Biden’s diminished capacity.
I think Ron Klain, Biden’s first Chief of Staff is someone worth listening to.
“Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain revealed that former President Joe Biden was “fatigued, befuddled and disengaged” before his debate with President Donald Trump in June, according to a new book.
“At his first meeting with Biden in Aspen Lodge, the president’s cabin,” author Chris Whipple wrote, Klain “was startled. He’d never seen him so exhausted and out of it. Biden was unaware of what was happening in his own campaign. Halfway through the session, the president excused himself and went off to sit by the pool.”
The Audacity of Krope
@schrodingers_cat: Point of order, I’m not cheering the tariffs. I’m cheering the destruction. The financial services sector of the economy can go to hell.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: One more thing, the actual working class hates these trustfund socialists. And Ds pay an electoral price because normies don’t differentiate between the purity left and the Democratic Party.
Baud
Case apparently agrees with the bill.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2025/04/hawai%CA%BBi-rep-ed-case-angers-democrats-over-proof-of-citizenship-vote/
Really off the wall.
Geminid
@trollhattan: I’m pretty sure former Rep. Conor Lamb would have beaten Mehmet Oz too, but Pennsylvania Dems picked Fetterman.
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: Yep never applies to Magic Grandpa though. Ever.
Eolirin
@schrodingers_cat: He’s not a Democrat.
schrodingers_cat
@The Audacity of Krope: That sector is essential it needs more regulation not destruction.
Elizabelle
@oldgold: I would take Biden, with his decency and judgment, any day of the week. And I bet he was exhausted. He was explaining to American voters that they had to vote against fascism, and the ignoramous vote won the day. Ashamed for this country.
schrodingers_cat
@Eolirin: Leap year Democrat, when he is running for President.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: I have seen his recent photos out and about in Delaware and DC and he looks 10 years younger than he did when was President.
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: Right.
YY_Sima Qian
Western MSM seems to consistently forget that the PRC has been facing the Trump-Biden-Trump trade & tech wars for the past 8 years, w/ virtually every escalation initiated by the U.S., an effort widely interpreted in the PRC as the U.S. attempting to cap the economic & technological development of the PRC. So yes, Xi will enjoy broad domestic support for refusing to concede in face of the latest & massive escalation from Trump, again unprovoked. (Gift link to NYT article below.)
Besides, as we have seen over the past week, Trump will end up caving on the most damaging aspects, anyway.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
Agree with you mostly. Strange how that is the case with some people. Like Sinema going from Green to full on corporate hack.
I realize she won twice in an R+2 district, but remain skeptical of that it’s because she votes with the Rs on things like making it harder to vote. If it were a deal for local business or some such thing, I’d get it. But our Democratic brand suffers when we cannot all say the same thing.
oldgold
@The Audacity of Krope: Lordy! Be very careful about what you wish for.
Geminid
The US/Iran nuclear talks in Oman seem to have gotten off to a promising start. NYT reporter Farnaz Fassihi:
Trump friend and envoy Steve Witkoff led the US delegation, while Foreign Minister Araungchi led Iran’s. More from the NYT’s Fassihi:
me
@Geminid: I’m sure Bibi loves that.
BellyCat
@Kayla Rudbek: BTW: My GF’s brother is an attorney who works at the patent office. Been there a while. Nice guy. Maybe you’ve crossed paths.
Matt McIrvin
@prostratedragon: God, that guy is a complete tool. Light dawns on Marblehead.
The Audacity of Krope
@oldgold: Well, if so, the time to deal with that was before the primaries. And, again, I care about the work product above all else, which was better than any President of my lifetime. The Presidency isn’t just one man and elections should not be fucked with in that manner.
Nothing surrounding the nominating process last year looks good for Democrats; the effects of large donors and their primary beneficiaries among the Dem upper ranks*, the utter lack of transparency (no matter what you believe is true of Biden’s condition), the wasting of a political talent by saddling her with a giant mess they created.
I really need to see where this party is going in two years because there is a real push to back off on support for immigrants and trans people. I’m less tolerant of their support for one much beloved genocidal colonial project not-to-be-named now, despite that support’s bipartisan nature, or maybe because of it. I don’t see that going anywhere. And I never really supported Dems on trade and economic goals to begin with. So we’ll see…
*Just wanted to pull this out and expand upon it a little bit. The moneyed establishment among Dems not only resists but is offended by the idea of a challenge in a primary. This is true whether there is an incumbent or not. Biden was first the beneficiary then the victim of this same phenomenon last year. Money is the power that sits outside small-d democratic control which is the biggest threat to our democratic processes. It weakens the will for demcratic reform and empowers those who would abuse others based on a person’s features, the culture they came from, or the way they viewed the world. And money has more sway in big-D Democratic elections than voters.
Melancholy Jaques
@Steve LaBonne:
I hear Uruguay is nice.
YY_Sima Qian
The credibility of U.S. markets going down the drain in real time:
Steve LaBonne
@Melancholy Jaques: I can get an Irish passport, and hopefully residency for my wife could somehow be arranged.
Geminid
@me: I’m pretty sure Trump doesn’t care what Benjamin Netanyahu thinks. He showed that in their Oval Office meeting last week. It seems like everyone who deals with Israel’s Prime Minister ends up disliking him, if they don’t hate his guts outright.
These talks will also disappoint a lot of US Iran hawks. They’ve had visions of B-2s and Massive Ordinance Penetrators dancing in their heads, but they may have to settle for some big holes in Houthi-controlled Yemen instead of a war with Iran. While a deal is not certain, it looks like Trump will take one and claim victory.
different-church-lady
I have to say, I’ve found reading about the vast pageant of evil personalities around Hitler to be just as fascinating as reading about Hitler.
Betty Cracker
@oldgold: I read an article in Vanity Fair by Whipple (link). Depressing in the extreme.
Melancholy Jaques
@schrodingers_cat:
Same with Gaza.
Eunicecycle
@The Audacity of Krope: it seems to me that the SAVE act might hurt Republicans as much as Democrats. I would guess more Democrats have passports than Republicans; you don’t need a passport if you never want to leave the US of A. Who wants to go somewhere there’s lots of foreigners?
different-church-lady
@oldgold: I don’t doubt he was somewhat diminished in general, but he was also quite sick at the time of the debate.
What still gets my goat is the double-standard.
Captain C
@Geminid: What are the odds the deal is worse (for us) than the JCPOA of 2016 that TCFG tore up? The one which the major media outlets seem to have forgotten about or not bothered to mention as context when His Orange Corruptness started howling about the need for a deal.
@me: Bibi can suck it. If he had any honor he’d resign, plead guilty, and demand the maximum sentence for his crimes.
YY_Sima Qian
Uttely shambolic policy making:
The Audacity of Krope
One thing we should have learned during COVID is that no, it is not essential. Growing, picking, butchering, packaging, and disseminating food are all essential. Health care services are essential. Manufacturing and repairs are essential.
Financial services build nothing, they move money; the one-but-infinitely-divisible ring of power that everyone grasps at that makes decisions on food distribution, health care, and housing into power (money) plays that prioritize the power (money) of those currently making those decisions over the goods and services provided.
CVS isn’t the biggest pharmacy company in the US because it is the best at providing pharmacy services. It is the best at money.
I already discussed this upthread. Republican Presidents leading us directly into financial ruin is nothing new for millennials. Yawn.
Baud
@Captain C:
My thought too.
Still. Better than war.
prostratedragon
@Matt McIrvin: If that thing (by that author, though I don’t know him well) could get published in that venue, we could soon find ourselves in uncharted waters.
Betty Cracker
@Shakti: It sucks. I’m hoping there won’t be enough support in the Senate for it. They’d need seven Dems, and that seems unlikely, but who knows. The unfairness of it aside, I do wonder if such a law might blow back more on Reps than Dems.
trollhattan
@Geminid:
Not buying that. Trump will bend to Bibi. And Bibi wants the Iranian enrichment facility shut down (or blown to bits), not merely throttled by a promise to halt further enrichment.
Saudis will have their thoughts too, has prince Jared been seen lately.
Miss Bianca
@oldgold: Shit, man, I get “befuddled and disengaged” myself, and Joe had 20 years on me and the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Fuck that guy – he’s just cashing in on the “Biden so old, so we did the right thing by cashiering him, right? RIGHT??!” bs train.
Captain C
@Baud:
Undoubtedly. Especially one run by the drunk incompetent in the Pentagon.
different-church-lady
I remember four days ago when someone said, “Hey the kick-Biden-books are coming out, hope we don’t get distracted by that…”
RevRick
@Melancholy Jaques:
The typical voter has no awareness of Congressional votes, except when it gets played in local media. It has zero impact on the Democratic brand.
different-church-lady
@YY_Sima Qian: Also if it weren’t a secret.
different-church-lady
@Melancholy Jaques: Money and positive attention: she goes where those are.
trollhattan
@Captain C:
Seems the JCPOA was pretty restrictive for Iran and tilted in the West’s favor, which of course explains why Trump tore it up: it was Obama’s deal!
Iran had a few % enrichment at the time, now they have 60%.
prostratedragon
@Miss Bianca: Then and now, I think of it in relative terms.
Baud
@RevRick:
Social media criticism also hurts our brand. People always focus on heretics and ignore the large majority doing the good work.
Baud
I assume Iran has an incentive to deal because why risk war with the US when the US is committing suicide.
Melancholy Jaques
@RevRick:
I agree somewhat, but believe that consistent, loud defense of voting rights should be part of our brand.
And if the congressional votes don’t matter, why does she feel the need to vote with Republicans on something so plainly awful?
Betty Cracker
@Melancholy Jaques: I think part of the problem is that requiring proof of citizenship to vote sounds reasonable to people on its face unless you understand the barriers it raises for millions of people and that it’s a “solution” to a made-up problem. There’s an entire media ecosystem that regularly pumps out garbage about noncitizens voting.
Steve LaBonne
@Betty Cracker: I think that would be a real possibility. There obviously are plenty of white Democratic women who took their husbands’ names but that is certain to be a majority Republican demographic. And people in rural Trump counties would also have a lot of trouble complying.
YY_Sima Qian
LOL:
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
Trump would be far worse for us and the world if he were smart or strong or both.
RevRick
@Melancholy Jaques: IIt’s her brand in her district that matters to her.
Captain C
@Baud: Or they declare the majority doing the good work to be heretics, because they’re Doing! It! Wrong!
Kristine
@Steve LaBonne: Wondering where else he’ll cave? Big Pharma sends starting materials/intermediates across borders to reduce taxes etc—how are they going to calculate those tariffs? Earnings are supposed to go to the C-suite, not taxes!
Steve LaBonne
@Kristine: As if either Trump or Ron Vara are capable of even the simplest chain of thought.
Baud
FOX: Trump massively lowers taxes on consumer electronics used by working class Americans.
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: [Cleavon Little holding gun to his own head]
Melancholy Jaques
@RevRick:
I guess we just disagree on this. Who are the Democrats? What do they stand for? The average person cannot answer those questions.
Baud
Interracial relationship.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
And they never will, no matter what we do.
EireIAm
@Steve LaBonne: Irish residency for a spouse is easy if you have a passport. We did it back in 2018.
The Audacity of Krope
This, all, exactly.
And I don’t think the misperception of mass voting by undocumented immigrants and dead relatives is something that is easily dislodged. One could argue regarding existing safeguards and the real life incentives of undocumented immigrants to, um, stay undocumented until one were blue in the face, I know this from experience.
I think politicians of good conscience could gain some support not just pointing out Republican unwillingness to render assistance for these voter registration schemes but actually offering that assistance. There are more reasons than simply voting where it would benefit citizens to have a good grip on all that which identifies them. Think of matters of identity theft.
The spurious argument wins…too often. In those cases, it might be best to not only make sure the solution to the fake problem causes real problems but harness that energy to solve some real problems.
Steve LaBonne
@EireIAm: Good to know, thanks!
EireIAm
@Steve LaBonne: Irish residency for a spouse is easy if you have a passport. We did it back in 2018. He got his Irish passport (born in wales, but Irish grandparent) after Brexit and after trump 1 we started looking at moving.
(sorry for the double post)
we just showed up at the airport with marriage certificate, passports. Got stamped for 90 days and then booked an appointment for my permission to work (stamp 4 is the magic search phrase)
YY_Sima Qian
Off the front pages, Ecuador at crossroads:
& yet, US staying true to form:
The conspiracy minded part of me starts to wonder if the escalating violence in Ecuador has been fueled at least in part by the CIA. MAGA has been clear about establishing an exclusive sphere of influence in LATAM (a.k.a. Monroe Doctrine 2.0), & root out “malign PRC influence”. This kind of play would not be surprising in pursuit of the openly stated goals.
Geminid
@trollhattan: The Economist‘s Anshel Pfefer took a different view after watching that Oval Office press meeting:
As for Jared Kushner, I think the Saudis regard him as their employee, not an advisor. And the Saudis don’t seem to want a war, and their Crown Prince swings a lot more weight with Trump than does Netanyahu.
Baud
@Geminid:
They’re part of the Fellowship of the Orb.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: True in terms of entrenching authoritarianism, not so for the US’ economic stability.
As I’ve said, the utter incompetence, transparent malevolence & unbound ambition of the Trump gang will help precipitate a widespread & intense reaction at some point, & thus lowering the risk of authoritarianism becoming slowly but surely entrenched in the US. However, the same would also ensure greater ruin in the meantime.
Fair Economist
Outsourcing normally only makes sense for a temporary or part-time project. It’s cheaper to hire somebody than to pay somebody else to hire them, *plus* their profit, *plus* legal fees, *plus* contract oversight. In addition, since DOG-E is a bunch of crooks, they’ll be hiring crooks, so it would require extraordinary efforts to prevent out and out fraud.
jonas
MAGA voters seem convinced he’s some kind of Sooper Geenyuz with business and everything. Based on a character he played in The Apprentice.
For how this happened, I recommend Neil Gabler’s Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality.
jonas
There’s a reason the first people they sacked were in the IG office and DOJ divisions for fraud.
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: Part of the ruination – turning US equities market into an “Emerging Market” cesspool:
A competent authoritarian would not have been so blatant.
Anyway
@Betty Cracker: I’m surprised by the Ron Klain remarks. He’s a solid Biden loyalist, they go way back, he’s more policy guy than a politician. Willing to dismiss other reports as gossip.
YY_Sima Qian
@Anyway: I was too, Ron Klain & Biden go way back.
RevRick
@Melancholy Jaques: The average voter’s thoughts about the Democratic brand?
Black people. Gays. DEI. Tax and spend. Big government. Right to choose. “Illegal” immigrants. Minorities. Gun control.
I gladly own every one of them, because I know the GOP characterization of them is a lie. But the average voter fills in those blanks according to their own priors.
The average voter elected Hoover by a landslide in 1928 and ousted him by a landslide in 1932. And FDR attacked him from both the left and the right in that campaign.
Trump and his tariffs are turning the GOP toxic.
TS
@YY_Sima Qian:
Does anyone ask the US to do this – or does the US admin consider they have the right to send troops anywhere in the world?
Geminid
@Captain C: Assuming there is a deal, it will likely be worse objectively than the JCPOA. But it will be Trump’s deal, and that will make it better in Trump’s eyes.
All the Iranians have to do is allow– after letting Witkoff twist their arm– some provision arguably tougher than it’s JCPOA counterpart. They are smart guys, smart enough to understand the pro wrestling concept of “Kafeybe.”
YY_Sima Qian
The US must be unique among high & middle countries to have such a large & rapidly expanding for profit prison industry:
Harrison Wesley
@YY_Sima Qian: Who’s going to stop it? AG Bondi? SCOTUS?
Professor Bigfoot
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: As long as the Democrats are perceived as “the party of hoes and Negroes,” they’ll be fought to the knife by conservative whites and knifed in the back by liberal whites.
jonas
Yet they always poll “better for the economy” among most age brackets. It’s absolutely gobsmacking.
Another Scott
@BlueGuitarist: Made me look… CivilBeat.org:
Should is getting a massive workout there!
I know what we can do to take care of all those “should”s and a whole lot of other problems in the news – make passport cards free for everyone who applies, simplify the applications, and hire enough people to process the applications in a timely manner.
It would take care of that fear of non-citizens voting and resolve all the ID problems once and for all, amirite? Surely the MAGA and GQP people who are oh so worried about these non-citizen problems everywhere would be on-board for that. Right? Right??!
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
—
(Who realizes that yes, it would not solve all the problems, but it would create a uniform standard and put the burden on the federal government rather than people who don’t have the 30-40-50 year old paperwork that local tyrants demand.)
frosty
I read the head and subhead. I don’t need any more depression. I guess I’ll finish my taxes instead – it’s more uplifting LOL!
ETA It’s all water over the bridge. Water under the dam. The horse has left the station, the ship has left the barn, the train sailed.
YY_Sima Qian
@TS: Presumably the corrupt right wing government in Ecuador is “asking” for this. Such strong Cold War vibes.
The Audacity of Krope
Funny way of saying “make it easier to exploit and steal from others.”
ETA: I also can’t rightly claim my entire age cohort is paying full attention all the time either.
YY_Sima Qian
@Harrison Wesley: Hence, ruination.
Baud
@jonas:
All age brackets, and I would suspect, both political parties.
prostratedragon
Actual funny bit from The Daily Sow: “How to understand the stock market if you only watch Fox News”
YY_Sima Qian
Ugh, I did not know this:
Splitting Image
@RevRick:
I hope so. But I think that the average Trump supporter is a good deal stupider than he is, and that’s not easy to achieve.
jonas
I’d like to think so, to, but then I always come back to Davis X. Machina’s dictum about American politics, sparrows, and curtain rods. It’s a powerful truism…
The Audacity of Krope
I’ve interacted with quite a few, somehow I don’t actually thing this is so. I honestly don’t get what is happening there.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
Even pig channels are mocking Fox. Nice.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Smart people join cults too.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: John Stewart is getting a little lazy in his old age*. Fox News remains the easiest target in the world for mockery.
*I’ve seen some questionable choices from him lately and he’s not looking so good in TV. Perhaps it’s time he gracefully stepped aside…
laura
@Baud: you’re not listening to enough punk rock music- they’ve been telling nazi punks to fuck off since back in the Reagan days. Coincidentally, Roadie Brother the Younger sent me an instagram clip this am of Reagan reading a speech extolling the virtues of America as a welcoming place for which any individual could come, be made welcome, and ultimately become and American citizen. I almost had a puke-cry.
YY_Sima Qian
Reminiscent of how the CPC regime reportedly used “Big Data” & “AI” to identify members of Turkic minorities for “de-radicalization” in “re-training facilities” in the late ’10s:
Baud
@laura:
True.
Captain C
@Splitting Image: Similar beliefs and obliviousness to reality, less skill at grifting and conning people.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I’m so glad to hear this— if there’s a soul who’s thoroughly earned the right to tell ERRRRBODY to go fuck themselves, it’s him.
Followed immediately by HRC and MVP and finally BHO, because his mere existence is what has driven these neo-Confederates to treason.
Baud
I have not heard of Hayes before.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: that’s marvelous to hear. Although, I do wish he would resurface.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
100%
Geminid
@Baud: Jahanna Hayes represents an eastern Connecticut district. She’s a Black woman representing a majority white district, and is another member of the talented House Democratic Class of 2018.
barbequebob
@zhena gogolia:
Song Lyric, Long Distance Call, Muddy Waters
minus the word “idea”
Professor Bigfoot
@Melancholy Jaques: The average WHITE person.
Y’all gotta start remembering y’all ain’t everybody.
Baud
@Geminid:
Thank you.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: As I recall, the thing that really makes it an unusual burden, beyond the obvious, is that you need to provide legal documentation for every name change if your proof of citizenship is a birth certificate and it doesn’t match. This is probably intended as an attack on trans people, but it gets the majority of married women in the process (I suspect trans people are actually more likely to have it).
RevRick
@jonas: Each party has a bedrock support of 40%, which means the middle 20% decides the election. Since 2000, we have basically had jump-ball elections nationally. But signs are building that the GOP will get its butt kicked in 2026.
U of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey has hit an all-time low. The bond market is NOT happy, and that portends bad economic times. Trump’s approval rating is plummeting.
rikyrah
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
What city
Anyway
@schrodingers_cat: Haven’t seen the pics but happy he’s enjoying retirement. Hope he’s eating lots of ice cream!
rikyrah
@Jackie:
Of course, he caved
Our bond market is still imploding 🤬
YY_Sima Qian
More on the wave of visa revocations of international students (map of reported cases through the link):
Kristine
@Steve LaBonne: I still can’t believe these times we’re living in.
Anyway
Good list — tracks with my observations. yep, plenty of people don’t distinguish between illegal and legal immigrants…
rikyrah
@Spanky:
Primary them all
rikyrah
@Shakti:
Not one
It was a phucking POLL TAX 😡😡
Gin & Tonic
From the “good news” file, my son and his wife welcomed their first child, our third grandchild, this morning.
Here’s the timeline: last night at around 9:00, we FaceTimed; her water had broken a couple of hours earlier, but they were home, had just finished dinner, and were going to hang out and relax until things got more active; at 0613 a text “we’re headed to the hospital” – so OK, we can go back to snooze; at 0719 another text “we have a baby.” It appears the little girl was in a hurry.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Imagine that.
SC,
Stay safe.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: I think in addition to whatever senility and stupidity that may or may not be present, that his view is exceedingly narrow. He only sees if it feeds his ego, makes him money, seeds chaos and despair, creates fear or division, and if it gets him media attention and presents him as a powerful strong man bully. And, staying out of prison, avoiding all accountability or consequences.
Thise are the things he seemed to care about.
if he didn’t care about it he didn’t see it: non billionaire humans, world trade relationships, the economy, other countries, diplomacy, international relations and alliances, sovereignty, security, government function, the needs and rights of anyone outside his circle of donors and sycophants.
FA begins to stand for Fuck All of everything and everyone. Just waiting for the consequences to arrive. The narrow minded president, may he FO.
Where is the god of smiting when we need him? Not my usual line of worship, but I’d light a prayer candle on that altar.
narya
@oldgold: @Betty Cracker: I tried to remain agnostic, but the thing that shook me is a good friend who had occasion to meet w/ Joe in person a month or two BEFORE the debate, and my friend was shocked and concerned then. I still don’t know what the right path was, tbh, and I’m not convinced that any path was going to result in a victory for the Dems. One of the (MANY) things that impressed me about Harris & Walz is just how much campaigning they did, and I don’t think Biden could have done a fraction of that, even giving space for the fact that he still had to President.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
Completely caved
Because the Chinese didn’t pick up the phone to him
Xi gave him his azz to kiss
zhena gogolia
@Elizabelle: Someone on here said he wanted to speak out but Dems were telling him not to?
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I recently had to deal with this for SuzMom. Her last passport was issued in the 90s and it had expired. So I took her to renew her passport, and I brought her birth certificate, Social Security card, and state ID. They told her that she couldn’t get the passport because she didn’t have documentation of her name change from her marriage in the 70s and divorce in the 80s. Literally, she had retaken her maiden name, held multiple passports under that name before and after the marriage, and the passport office wouldn’t accept that.
So. I had to contact the state of New York and spend a bunch of time explaining all this to a clerk, pay for a bunch of copies of the court papers, wait like six more weeks for them to arrive, and take more time off work to take her back down to the passport office to get it all figured out. Cost me a not-insignificant amount of time, money, and stress.
lowtechcyclist
@frosty:
I read a little ways in, then decided I’d had enough. Because like you said:
But has the fat lady pulled up stakes?
Gloria DryGarden
@Gin & Tonic: congratulations. It’s wonderful to have such joy. And welcome to your little grandchild.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
Just hurt
He had more faith in America than it deserved
Also , the betrayal of those Democrats 😡😡
The Audacity of Krope
@zhena gogolia: He’s a big boy. He can do what he wants. My speculation on media willingness to speak to Biden doesn’t paint a pretty picture, though.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
Congratulations 🎉 🎉
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: OOOOOH CONGRATS!!!
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
👍 👍 👍
Congratulations, another kid to spoil with abandon!
Professor Bigfoot
DELETED, ‘cause somehow I done a double comment? <snicker>
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: But does that even matter anymore? We seem to be in “the Administration can ignore the courts” territory; there’s no reason for them to really care about opinion polls.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Tru dat, but most days it sounds like you aren’t sure what Dems stand for either. I mean, you keep saying you expect white Dems to abandon Blacks at the drop of a hat.
RaflW
@Matt McIrvin: Meanwhile, rich people are much more likely to have passports, which I should certainly think would suffice for proof of citizenship and most often would match the married name, right?
eta @Suzanne: Oh, geez. I see there are problems with passports, too.
Redshift
@Gin & Tonic: Congratulations!
tobie
@Steve LaBonne: @Betty Cracker: Wouldn’t you have to have the local election board enforcing the law? Or an outside group suing it for not doing so? I don’t see Democrats (or voting rights groups aligned with Democrats) taking counties to court for not vetting their voting roles. Let’s just hope this awful bill doesn’t pass the Senate.
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
Are you sure it’s only the average white person? What would you say are the answers to those two question? Anecdotal, I know, but I have friends of a variety of ethnicities who consistently vote Democratic, who have even volunteered on campaigns, but who have trouble coming up with coherent answers to those questions.
Republicans do not have that problem. They are corrupt, lying assholes, but their branding has everyone constantly calling them stronger on the economy, national security, and taxes even though they are terrible on all three.
But we should just insist that the way we have been doing it is the best & only way?
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Democrats used to stand for the *fundamental, human and civil rights of every American and humanity in general, FIRST.*
The GOP stand for white supremacy FIRST.
ETA: I cannot NOT see that distrust and dislike and outright hatred for Democrats has A been almost always just white people, but how it’s grown and metastasized as Black people have achieved and attained higher and more powerful positions within the Party.
Sure, that COULD be coincidence, but to once again return to the demograpic analysis, nearly 2/3 of white men voted for Trump and it seems a significant plurality of that remaining 1/3 are determined to shaft Democrats one way or another.
“There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
The Audacity of Krope
I wouldn’t personally go that far, but I sincerely expect opportunities for Democrats of color and most especially women to be seriously curtailed in the next few years.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Congrats, Grandpa!
tobie
@YY_Sima Qian: I know of one revocation of a student visa. The only reason given was that over a decade ago the person received a traffic citation, which she paid in full at the time. The admin is looking for any excuse to remove or deport immigrants.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Ohio Mom: yes. Making our civil service amenable to exceptional waste, fraud and abuse does appear to be the salient point.
Gloria DryGarden
@rikyrah: comrade scott is talking about Denver Colo
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: It’s axiomatic that we will spoil her shamelessly. But I’m excited to see how she handles a tri-lingual upbringing.
Professor Bigfoot
@Melancholy Jaques: The Democratic Party stands for the right of individual people to live their lives, in peace with their neighbors, and for every citizen to have “the blessings of liberty” as promised in the Constitution.
We stand for the Constitution. We stand for the rule of law. We stand for the rights of EVERY American, not just the white, moneyed, Christian, males.
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
More like the middle 6%, really. In Presidential years from 2000 to now, the smallest share of the popular vote by a Democrat was Hillary’s 48.02% in 2016, and the smallest share by a Republican was McCain’s 45.6% in 2008.
The off-year Congressional and state-level elections have had some pretty lopsided results during that time: 2006 and 2018 going our way, and 2010 going theirs. (We’re still paying for 2010 in places like North Carolina.)
Redshift
@Matt McIrvin:
I changed my name to be hyphenated when I got married, and I never did a legal name change. I changed my driver’s license the next time I renewed it, and same with my passport, without any special documentation. A few years later, I got a letter from Social Security saying “hey, this is a different name” and I just had to tell them, yes, that’s correct.
So if you encounter anyone taken in by the BS that this is no big deal, ask why the proof of identity to vote should be so much higher than everything else?
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Well, like I said, you doubt that they still do. So it isn’t just whites who aren’t clear about what Democrats stand for.
Not sure how the rest of your comment responds to that.
ETA: I see you @293, and I agree that that’s what Democrats stand for. I’m just having a hard time squaring that full-throated endorsement with other things you’ve said.
Spanky
@Suzanne:
New system working as intended.
Geminid
@zhena gogolia: That may be a scrambled version of another story, that VP Harris offered to campaign for the more liberal Wisconsin supreme court candidate and Wisconsin Democrats waved her off.
I don’t think that was neccesarily a matter of disrespecting Harris, just a decision that bringing her in for what was nominally a non-partisan election was not a good idea.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: I recognize that the weak link is and has been white men.
Has been ever since Grant’s war against the Klan failed.
I recognize this one, fundamental fact: “There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
As a demographic, “in general,” white men are absolutely loathe to have one of their “inferiors” over then.
That’s just how America has been run forever; and this is why I say that white people seriously need to examine how white supremacy affects their own beliefs and their own subconscious choices; just like any man needs to grapple with the role of patriarchy in his own life.
jonas
@YY_Sima Qian: There’s clearly a policy to cut off the pipeline of foreign students coming to study in the US — they know it’s a cash cow for a lot of universities. Unfortunately, it’s also a major source of talent for our STEM programs and med schools, so between this and canceling all the med research across the country we are well and truly fucked.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gin & Tonic: I’m trying to guess what is your third language.
When I visited my family’s exchange student in Sweden, her little nieces ages between 4 and 7, apparently understood I didn’t speak Estonian, their second language, and when I was around they spoke Swedish, to include me. They clearly knew which language was which.
i look forward to stories about how she does with 3 languages. What a gift!
Suzanne
@Spanky: I want to note that SuzMom is not in peak health and she depends on me for a lot of this kind of help. This is absolutely the kind of thing that she could not navigate on her own. If I wasn’t around to do this stuff, she would be effectively disenfranchised under this new bill, and not able to cross the border, which is a short drive away.
A side note about elder care and assistance: of course, the majority of this work is done by women and is probably unpaid.
jonas
@Gloria DryGarden: Once knew a couple with small kids — he was Italian, she was Spanish. One spoke only Italian to the kids, the other only Spanish, but to each other they spoke both French and English, and the kids were going to school here in the US. The 7 year-old was basically quadrilingual.
rikyrah
@YY_Sima Qian:
I believe this
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Absolutely done by women and is UNPAID
If only there had been a candidate,who wanted to help families on Medicare with this issue😒😒😒
RevRick
@Anyway: That’s why I put illegal in quotes.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: INORITE?!?!
Instead, white men decided that they had to work through their crushing resentment at the voting booth, when what they actually need is CBT.
Take your pick of CBTs; both are applicable.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@lowtechcyclist: …I mean, it’s not like there isn’t evidence suggesting the contrary.
2024, 2016, 2014, 2010, 2004, so on and so forth…
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Those DOT retirees come to work for our city. It was a running joke for awhile because of how many DOT retired engineers we were hiring. For them it’s a chance to get another pension.
RevRick
@Professor Bigfoot: I have to believe it does, because Congressional elections will still proceed in 2026, regardless of what Trump says. Democrats control enough power in blue and swing states that guarantee that.
The Audacity of Krope
@Suzanne: I’ve always said that kinky sex was a much better outlet to examine your authoritarian and/or submissive impulses than politics.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
Congratulations Grandpa.
Great news.
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: Your keyboard to God’s monitor, Rev.
N M
@jonas: I agree that’s at least possible but Hanlon’s razor has me thinking that ICE/CBP/DHS is just scrambling to make ‘numbers’ any way they can and deporting foreign students is a potentially ‘low hanging fruit.’ Still very malicious, but also very stupid. As well as being very sad, not what American should be :(.
Glidwrith
@tobie: At UCSD there are at least four revoked student visas, no warning, and four at SDSU. No outreach, no nothing.
Darkrose
@Gin & Tonic: Congratulations granddad!
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Did they play ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’?
Kayla Rudbek
@BellyCat: maybe, although the USPTO is fairly large (pre-COVID there were probably about 10K people working at the Alexandria office)
Kayla Rudbek
@Gloria DryGarden: Sekhmet Lion Goddess of Consequences, https://iseumsanctuary.com/2024/08/12/a-litany-honoring-sekhmet/
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Fuck.