Apparently, the charming “Dancing Pedophile Friends” statue is back on the Mall.
And, as I said before, "Remember, Donald Trump did everything that Jeffrey Epstein did. He just did it backwards and in lifts.”— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social) October 2, 2025 at 5:00 PM
With the Park Service on shutdown, there’s nobody to remove insults to Dear Leader. Per the Washington Post, “Trump-Epstein statue returns to National Mall”:
… During the removal, parts of the statue were broken and Trump and Epstein’s hands were no longer joined. But the statue, spray-painted bronze, appeared fully restored Thursday, with only minor damage still apparent and the hands once again clasped together.
The statue, titled “Best Friends Forever,” is the latest protest installations created by an anonymous group of artists critical of the administration. The artists, whose identities are not known to The Washington Post, said the statue was returned by the Park Service last Thursday. They provided email exchanges between the National Park Service and Carol Flaisher, a D.C.-based location manager who filed the permit application with the agency on behalf of the artists…
Efforts to reach the National Park Service for comment were unsuccessful. A Post email sent to an agency spokesperson on Wednesday seeking comment received an automatic reply noting that the person was out of the office on furlough because of the federal government shutdown.
The return of the statue was greeted with surprise and approval by some tourists and visitors who stopped to see it Thursday afternoon.
“I love it,” said Taunja Newby, 54, of Hyattsville, Maryland, who said she had lost her job as part of a reduction in force at the Department of Housing and Urban Development after 36 years. “We all got duped. So any laugh we get these days, I’m taking it.” Newby’s last day as a federal employee was earlier this week.
Melinda Winters, 82, of Knoxville, Tennessee, happened upon the statue as she was walking along the Mall with a friend.
“I more than love it,” she said. “If you can think of something higher than love, put that down.” An artist, Winters did have one criticism of the statue. “They didn’t make them look ugly enough,” she said….
On this day in 1967, Thurgood Marshall became the first Black Supreme Court Justice. His fight for justice, equality, and civil rights reshaped our nation and moved us closer to our highest ideals. We honor his legacy by continuing the work for a more just nation every day.
— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) October 2, 2025 at 8:48 PM
===
A bus of Bronx middle schoolers pulled up to the Capitol this morning for a long-planned field trip just a few hours after the government shut down.
All Capitol tours were cancelled as the guides can’t work in shutdown.
So I escorted them in myself and gave them a personal tour. They were great!— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc.bsky.social) October 1, 2025 at 1:15 PM
===
How out of touch can Donald Trump’s top economic adviser be?
A 60-year-old couple making $85k/year will have to pay over $22,000 more EVERY YEAR.
TWENTY TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS.— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) October 2, 2025 at 5:31 PM
===
Even during the federal government shutdown, my office will always be here for you. We’ve posted Government Shutdown Resources to help constituents navigate federal, health, VA services, and more. Check it out and reach out—I’m here fighting for you.
www.markey.senate.gov/shutdown— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) October 2, 2025 at 8:47 PM
===
Hours before the government shutdown, the FDA signed off on a second generic option for the abortion pill mifepristone.
The agency's decision has drawn conservative criticism.— Politico (@politico.com) October 2, 2025 at 5:52 PM
===
fun thing to do would be project 2029 and we just lay out a plan to raise top marginal tax rates back to 1950’s levels of around 91% and for the democratic nominee to say nope not me and for the press to say candidates disavows project 2029 and then do it
since the press is so fucking gullible— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) October 2, 2025 at 9:30 PM
On The Road – BigJimSlade – Alps 2025 – Milan, Saas-Fee, Chamonix and Courmayeur, part 8
p.a.
Most posts, emails, texts, responses etc I post wherever on this fustercluck gubmint begin with “Did you or anyone you know vote for THIS?!?!”
ETA most recent info I’ve seen is that upper level marginal income tax only becomes a disincentive to earn at about 70%.
Deputinize America
This seems really, really bad:
cbsnews.com/amp/news/white-house-nine-universities-compact-federal-funds/
This is going to end bloody.
zhena gogolia
I love Betty Bowers’s witticism and the Project 2029 idea.
prostratedragon
@Deputinize America: They must committ to not doing fantasy acts of which they are being accused, that they already were not even thinking of doing. Madness.
goodmatt
I think we’re going to have to build institutions that punish, belittle and destroy conservative ideas.
Suzanne
Nominated. And AGREED.
Princess
I see Trump posted a meme today calling Democrats the party of hate, evil and Satan, featuring Schumer front and centre, all in black. Meanwhile, AOC posted something very warm and thoughtful about the Manchester synagogue attack, and was flooded with anti-Semitic replies from the left.
prostratedragon
@Suzanne: Could have made 🤡 tubbier, accurately. And can’t make out the faces well, but the same guy, when younger, had one of the worst smirks I’ve ever seen. Would be good to capture that.
Princess
@prostratedragon: Both those guys are big smirkers. Well, I guess Epstein *was* a big smirker. Now he’s dead. Haha. Shouldn’t have blackmailed all those powerful people I guess.
MagdaInBlack
I have a very large helicopter going over, here in the Chi NW suburbs, headed sw, towards the city.
And another one. Somethings planned for today
Appear to be coming out of Chicago Executive Airport, in Wheeling
eta: and another. That’s 3….and another..4 now.
prostratedragon
DHS posted “a sizzle reel” about the South Shore raid Tuesday night.
Now it’s true that African-Americans are a visually diverse lot, and also that even in Chicago, black neighborhoods have some nonblack residents, but this looks as if they slipped in a few unfortunates that were grabbed elsewhere to pose as the results of this raid.
satby
@zhena gogolia: agree. Especially the project 2029 one. Though it will have to include plans to drop the cap on SS earnings and tax investment income and dividends that the truly wealthy escape getting taxed on.
prostratedragon
@MagdaInBlack: Thanks. All quiet here in Bronzeville so far but will bolo.
Kosh III
@Deputinize America: Vanderbilt is on this list and they will CAVE like they have done before.
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: crap, I said sw when I meant se, but yeah, coming your direction..its 6 now.
satby
@MagdaInBlack: could be Noem and her hangers on leaving after her show raid yesterday. Most of the ICE guys were supposed to be quartered at Great Lakes, I thought
Edit: ok, six is too many. I wonder where these jerks intend to rappel into next.
MagdaInBlack
@satby: Me too, but these are coming at regular intervals from pretty near me, so I’m guessing when I say Wheeling airport, which is maybe 7 miles from me.
satby
I know the reason Pritzker asked everyone to record what’s going on is that his office and the Attorney General will be trying to ID different agents using excessive force and otherwise breaking laws to prosecute in state court. I hope they can drop some indictments soon. It’s way overdue for consequences to land on these bullies.
Suzanne
@Princess: @prostratedragon: Mr. Suzanne says that The Smirk is the giveaway that someone is a Republican. It is the quintessential look of Young Republican assholes on college campuses. It clearly persists into adulthood.
Suzanne
@MagdaInBlack: Keep us posted. I saw that Apple has blocked ICEBlock in the App Store. My neighborhood group has a separate Discord.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
One silver lining of the shutdown is ICE can’t hire, or pay out signing bonuses, or pay the agents. I don’t think the National Guard troops are being paid either and they may not be able to pay for lodging for them so maybe they wind up camping out…but that makes them homeless and they’re rounding up homeless people so maybe that’s how the occupations end?
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: 6 seems to be the end of outbound giant helicopters.
. I’m off to work, so Ill watch the news with you all.
mrmoshpotato
And we also nuke everything created by the PATRIOT Act – especially the Department of
Fatherland(h/t Mr. Williams) Homeland Security.mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack: Oh boy…
Geminid
This morning’s Politico Playbook tells me that Senate Majority Leader John Thune has scheduled another vote on on the 45-day CR for this afternoon. Senate Democrats will attend a working lunch beforehand to discuss strategy.
Also:
The coming Sunday shows have some noteworthy guests. CBS’s Face the Nation will host Speaker Mike Johnson, and General (Ret.) Ben Hodges. Hodges commanded the U.S. Army in Europe from 2014 to 2018, and has closely monitored the war in Ukraine.
NBC’s Meet the Press will host Mike Johnson and House Minority Leaser Hakeem Jeffries; also, Senator Adam Schiff.
And Senator Ruben Gallego is the only guest listed for CNN’s State of the Union. That could be interesting. I like Senator Gallego.
lowtechcyclist
@p.a.:
I bet that only applies to ‘earned income,’ though. Or maybe risky investments. But it would take probably a 95% rate to discourage investment in index funds by rich people who can afford to hang onto their stocks through a prolonged downturn, because for them the only risk is if our economy craters and doesn’t come back.
With Trump in office, that’s a nontrivial risk, but obviously he’d be gone by the time we could institute a rate like that.
AM in NC
@Deputinize America: If universities stop using sex/gender as a factor in their admissions, expect to see even FEWER boys admitted to college. Right now, most universities are trying to balance their numbers somewhat by putting their thumbs on the scale for male applicants so we don’t end up with an entire nation of Smiths and 7 Sisters Schools.
BellyCat
This is deeply disheartening. In the vein of “first they came for X but I wasn’t X”, will Apple next remove GAY-CEOBlock and GAYBlock apps?
mappy!
@Suzanne: The smirk! I’ve encountered it often. I never made the connection though. Yes, it’s a trait… No, it’s a tell.
AM in NC
@goodmatt: Yep, they have a 60 year head start on us with the long-term coordination and planning of the rightwing billionaire cabal that grew out of the Bircher Koch father’s gatherings. This was a planned effort to takeover/create media, “think” tanks, university centers, advocacy groups that the center and the left just had no response to. They have been astoundingly successful.
BellyCat
@AM in NC: The long arc of justice was thought to be natural. The error was not realizing it could be so easily bent.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?
This federal worker has had a few interesting days. I had a PT appointment I had to go to but my part of the organization has three offices that used to be under an Associate Administrator, but he left almost two years ago to take a job with a trade association and they never filled his position. So the new leadership decided to reorg us into existing offices, but Congress hasn’t approved the reorganization plan yet. So we were told on Monday at a late afternoon meeting I couldn’t attend that because the office doesn’t have a budget but still technically exists we were all getting RIF notices, but they were trying really hard to keep that from happening because we’re crucial to carrying out their agenda of streamlining regulations.
Then on Wednesday morning all but two offices in the Agency were declared essential and we were told we were working without pay, even though the guidance as to who can work and what they can work on that they sent out says only safety critical functions – like someone might die, today, if this job isn’t done. Most of our work is…not that so it was a stretch to declare us essential but we stayed on the job, but it was quite the experience to be told both that we’re so essential we have to keep working and also that we’re being let go within 24 hours. Then yesterday we went in to work to find that they changed their minds and furloughed us after all and our associate administrator that runs the HR shop told one of my co-workers RIFs are out and furloughs are in, so hopefully that means we won’t be getting RIFed.
The thing is Vogt can try to lay people off but he needs HR to do that and HR is furloughed so they can’t. But also we’re down to skeleton crews so if they do mass firings their entire agenda falls apart. So my guess is they’ll inflict what pain they can on blue States, which sucks, but I doubt the mass firings will occur. Whoever they were going to fire they’ve probably fired already. In fact all signs say they’ve fired too many people and are trying to get some of them to come back. I guess I could be wrong about that but so far the signs seem to point to smoke and mirrors but nothing there. But it’s the most chaotic shutdown I’ve ever seen that’s for sure.
Matt McIrvin
No way would the “Project 2029” idea work: they are never that gullible about Democrats, only Republicans.
Betty Cracker
I went to a town hall yesterday with my crappy Repub House rep where attendees got 5 minutes to ask a question. I had SO MANY questions, lol, but decided to focus my remarks on the ACA subsidies since the Dems are emphasizing that during the shut down.
I noted that since the congressman’s constituents are being hammered with rising grocery prices, higher energy costs, the nation’s highest home insurance rates, etc., we can’t afford a spike in health insurance premiums.
I asked if he would pledge to work with Dems to extend the subsidies so we can keep our healthcare in this crappy economy. He said he would, but he’s a lying weasel, so I’ll believe it when I see it.
Unexpectedly, I left almost feeling sorry for the sumbitch! My question was framed in a manner that was a bit thorny and accusatory, but at least it was relevant to his job. The speakers before and after me were a parade of crackpots, lol!
They were ranting about stray cows and accusing the congressman of being generative AI, etc. Was sobering to realize I am relatively sane, by district standards. Had expected to BE the crackpot!
satby
@Matt McIrvin: oh, agree; but I assumed we were mostly being snarky.
BellyCat
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: Shocker. Sending warmth and light to you and your colleagues as the shutdown plays out.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It’s malpractice for Dems not to address those concerns.
Betty Cracker
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: Wow, what a rollercoaster. I’m sorry the evil pricks are fucking with your workplace like that. Hang in there.
Baud
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?:
Hoping for the best. They were trying to undo the damage that DOGE did before the shutdown, so hopefully that will limit the damage that they do now.
Emily B.
@lowtechcyclist: Also: let’s tax capital gains over $1 million as regular income (to curb private equity).
Raise estate tax to 90 percent for estates over $100 million.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
The press would attribute to the Dems if only Republicans said that’s what Dems want to do.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Professor Bigfoot
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: Flat out Kafkaesque.
It’s enough to drive one to drink.
All the best of luck to you and your coworkers- keep your head up!
New Deal democrat
To lighten the mood a skosh, here is a little gallows humor from Biden’s Chief economist, Jared Bernstein:
“Just so you know, if you hear a collective wail of pain, angst, and withdrawal from data nerds the world over at 8:30am ET this morning, here’s why.
“‘Suspension of Federal Government Services: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’”
_____
P.S. All of the alternative data sources I have looked at indicate there was essentially no job growth last month, and the unemployment rate likely held steady or increased slightly.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Unfortunately for all of us, they are idiots.
I don’t think they’re capable of exhibiting any competence in any area whatsoever.
(to the tune of the last line in “Green Acres” theem song, “Idiocracy, we are here!”)
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Right?!? These unsightly cows spend hours munching grass around light poles — there are pictures! Why didn’t Biden fix that?
rikyrah
Once again, the Democrats need to be running the ad of those premiums going up 75% ACROSS THE COUNTRY. And now, add that asshole’s response at the end of the AD.
STOP PHUCKING BELIEVING THAT THE MSM WILL HELP YOU GET THE MESSAGE OUT.
RUN THE ADS😠😠😠
Baud
Suzanne
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: Ugh. That sounds terribly stressful. I hope you and your colleagues are hanging in there okay.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I’m sure the crappy FL insurance lawyer Trump sleazed into office is on top of things. You know, the one who showed up in the wrong courtroom and claimed not to have seen a document she signed and misspelled “principle,” etc. THAT one.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I’m a little surprised people didn’t bring up the Epstein Files or the Kirk assassination. Or did they?
Anyway, I saw this Talerico news in the Texas Tribune:
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker:
Nominated!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: Wow. Florida has a high bar for being a crackpot
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
Only her? I’d argue that applies to the entire cabinet too.
Also, too, “sleazed into office” haha!
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: You guys keep using the word gullible, when the correct word is complicit.
lowtechcyclist
@Emily B.:
Yeppers to both.
Actually, I’m for taxing cap gains as regular income, period. With so much money at the top of our scale of income and wealth just looking for viable investments, it’s hard for me to see the point of needing a special tax break to encourage investment.
rikyrah
@Deputinize America:
😠😠😠😠😠😠😠 hope the alumni are contacting said institutions😒😒😒
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
She has never TRIED A CASE 😠😠
Completely unqualified
Another Scott
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: Vought is a monster, continues to be a monster, and has demonstrated his contempt for civil servants on multiple occasions. ProPublica.org (from October 2024):
We knew what they were going to try to do… Grr…
I’m sorry you’re going through all that.
:-(
Obeying in advance doesn’t work here with RIFs, either. OPM.gov – RIF Basics (4 page PDF) lists a short summary of all the complications of trying to do a RIF. There are all kinds of rules and procedures and processes. Vought can’t just say “fire everyone” and have it happen on his say-so.
But he’s going to keep trying.
Grr…
Folks in positions of authority need to obey the law, follow the rules and norms, and not be stampeded by the RWNJ cranks. If they can’t stop it, they can slow it down. Malicious compliance is an essential tool.
Thanks. Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Eyeroller
@rikyrah: Most of the alumni are probably oblivious or don’t care, and the rest are supportive. I don’t know why UA is on that list. UT Austin and UVA are the only other public institutions; the rest are private. I don’t know much about UA but the rest have a pretty wealthy alumni demographic overall.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Those topics came up too! I believe old classics like chem trails were also mentioned.
Thanks for the Talarico update! I don’t know if he can win, but I like his style, and I think the way he explains why he’s a Democrat could resonate. Would be something to see it tested in the harshest of political environments: Texas.
p.a.
When a whacko worldview crumbles, the natural reaction is to keep on digging. #MixMoreMetaphor
mappy!
I haven’t run across anything about Taco’s 180° on Ukraine. Now they’re talking about supplying long range targeting intel and maybe missiles? What prodded Taco to do the flip? I’m inclined to think it had something to do with the Generals and that was the point of the dressing down. Somebody/something kneecapped him and he’s furious. There are at least two things that drive him, acting out the Crime Boss, Don and grift. Diminish either of those and he spirals…
Soprano2
@Baud: If the next president is a Democrat, he/she will need to pretty much fire the whole executive branch, because there won’t be a decent person left to do any jobs – they’ll all be FFOTUS toadies
ETA – Man, has this been a depressing week. I had a pity party for myself yesterday. I don’t do that often, but it’s all getting to me this week for some reason. It doesn’t help that my therapist has been off for some kind of family emergency since the first of August!! If I don’t hear anything from her by the end of this month, I’m going to ask for someone new. I understand having family emergencies, but I also understand that I can’t go forever without talking to my therapist.
Honus
@p.a.: and I learned in tax class in law school that any preference for capital gains more than about four percent doesn’t significantly increase investment.
Kayla Rudbek
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: yeah, most of my work team and I are contractors. We are all supposed to be funded through the end of the calendar year, but the rest of my team was told to stop work despite being funded. Since I’m working for a different contractor; I have different job duties; and the Patent Office is still open and examining patent applications, I’m still working.
caphilldcne
I managed to see the statue on my morning walk. Love that it got put back up
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: When I’m elected Benevolent Despot, I am going to go further.
I’ve felt for a long time that the bottom 50% of households should not pay any federal income tax – Roughly $80k. Too much of the national income is concentrated in the top 5% and the bottom 50% continue to struggle.
We’ve had 45+ years of the meme that investment income is better than income from labor. Half of of the population or more has not seen the benefits of that argument. Too much money is sitting around doing nothing, or actually making things worse – funding empty luxury condos for oligarchs that bribe our elected officials, distorting the housing market, enabling monopolies, distorting high tech by playing stock market and accounting games with CUDA chips for magic beans that will destroy the labor market, the electricity market, air and water, and all the rest, letting the rich pay games so they never pay taxes yet can sway policy and elections, etc., etc.
Investment income should be taxed at higher rates than earned income. Sitting at home and watching dividends roll in every month is not more valuable to the economy or society than getting up and doing the work to keep a family together, doing the work on a stressful job, doing the work to take care of oldsters or the injured, etc. It just isn’t. People need to be able to get ahead and see a better future in spite of all the obstacles and aggravation and hazards, and that means making work pay.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Kayla Rudbek:
Going in to a mostly empty office, then? I still remember doing that in the 2018-19 shutdown.
Like most of the government, the Census Bureau hadn’t been funded, but I was working full-time on a survey funded by an agency under CDC, which had already been funded for the fiscal year. So I had to come in and work while everyone else was off. I may have been the only person on my entire floor during that shutdown. It felt very weird.
Kayla Rudbek
@goodmatt: co-signed on this! We will definitely need to run every single Federalist Society and Opus Dei member out of law and politics, and I am sorely tempted to try a philosophical/religious test to hold political office or practice law (although 1/ we would need a constitutional amendment if it’s explicitly religious 2/ in practice it wouldn’t get rid of the sociopaths and narcissists who would just commit perjury to get past the test)
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: You’ve got my vote!
iKropoclast
Pocket change for the billionaire and pedophile set. Why, I’d wager that’s not even the cost of one sex slave.
JML
@Soprano2: I’m assuming that’s all part of the plan: while yammering about the Deep State, they’re attempting to install their version by getting rid of all of the competent, normie federal workers who are there just to do a job and have them replaced at their whim by right-wing toadies…and then scream bloody murder at the democrats who try to get the idiots, grifters, toadies, and incompetents back out of the civil service again.
Every accusation is a confession. It really is the mantra with these fucks.
Kayla Rudbek
@lowtechcyclist: yes, there are a few people around at work (I’m not physically at work yet, taking CLE video courses works better on my home computer) but it’s strange to not have the rest of the team around. And I worry about them getting paid.
jlowe
The video of AOC leading a Capitol tour was heartwarming. She’s better than the Democrats deserve.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Part of the problem is what George W. Bush called “The Ownership Society”: today, investment income is what we have instead of a proper system of retirement pensions. That’s intentional and overtly so–it was a program to force people to buy into a capitalistic vision of retirement (and to make it difficult or impossible for them to retire at all if they haven’t accumulated the means for sufficient investment income).
So the average person sees the returns from capital not as parasitic income in the vein of old socialist/communist rhetoric, but as how they’ll support themselves when they get old.
Social Security and Medicare are still there. But they’re less than they could or should be, and I’m sure you’ve noticed how the people pushing every 401(k) program will sow fear about them going away.
Deputinize America
My wish list would include taxing lobbying expenses and political (including PAC) donations as dividends to shareholders, on the theory that it is a direct benefit to only their interests.
narya
In grim satisfaction: the phrase “Kavanaugh stops” has gained serious traction (describing the detention of anyone who “looks” wrong).
@AM in NC: I thought exactly the same thing.
iKropoclast
That would be most books, videos, all measuring equipment, the entire philosophy department (logic and ethics? Woke), all students who can’t trace their lineage back to the Mayflower, the notion of a primary source, the law library, all religious texts that aren’t the Bible, and ::rechecks notes:: the Bible.
jlowe
@lowtechcyclist: Did they leave the A/C on for you? Office building air gets pretty stale after a few hours even if noone is inside (experienced this for myself).
Emily B.
@jlowe: That AOC video cheered me up, too. I thought of what Mr. Rogers said: “Look for the helpers.”
What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?
@Another Scott: Yeah I’m aware of all that stuff Vogt has said. Honestly I think fear of legal blowback is why we go furloughed – my guess is the political appointees asked lawyers (actually two of them ARE lawyers so they don’t have to ask anyone) about the law and their personal liability should keeping us on the job without pay even if we’re not safety critical be declared illegal. The answer they got from themselves or others was probably enough to scare them out of making us work without pay. It’s not like Trump won’t throw anyone and everyone under the bus whether they did what he wants or not and they don’t want to take that risk. They have families, and like their freedom and having money and aren’t going to risk that for a guy who is likely to do nothing to protect them if the worst happens.
I’m actually in a more enviable position than my co-workers since I’ve been around long enough that I think I’d qualify for an immediate annuity or if not my severance package is a year’s salary so I would not have to worry about where my next meal is coming from for quite some time. Still stressful but worse for my younger co-workers or those who haven’t been around as long. But I’d rather keep working because my annuity isn’t as much as my salary by any means.
Honestly if this administration had shown some restraint instead of going bonkers Trump would probably above 50% approval right now. Or if the conservatives on SCOTUS were smart enough they would have reined a lot of this in with decisions that said no the POTUS can’t unilaterally impose tariffs, fire federal workers, cut random programs out of the budget, etc. nor can they just sweep anyone they want off the streets at random. They’re actively screwing their supporters along with everyone else, and tanking the economy. They could have just made mouth noises that their supporters want to hear and let the economy keep rolling and everything would be looking good for Trump. He’s actively tanking his own approval rating and can’t seem to stop, and the only force that could stop him is SCOTUS and they’re apparently too stupid to save him from himself.
Belafon
@Princess: The additional 300lbs to make it more accurate might have made it too hard to move.
iKropoclast
A radical thought…
Kristine
@lowtechcyclist: I read something decades ago that one benefit of high capital gains taxes was that it encouraged the wealthy to reinvest in companies they owned rather than selling out and moving into hedge funds or other investments. In the long run, the higher rate was better for businesses.
Belafon
Just remember folks, about 75% of American adults don’t understand marginal tax rates. OK, the percentage is made up, but I had to explain them once to my dentist, and she was pretty smart.
bluefoot
@AM in NC: If universities stopped using race-based and gender-based preferences and capped the number of international students, schools would be a huge percentage of women of all races, then Asian-American men….but we all know it’s just doublespeak. It’s all about preferences for white men.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
No argument from me on either one of those! Originally AIUI the income tax was set to just tax higher-income people, but the tax brackets wound up including most people when they weren’t adjusted for inflation back in the first half of the 20th century. And like you say, people in the lower half of the income distribution are struggling; their taxes should be limited to Social Security and Medicare.
And for a brief while, we did have a higher top rate on unearned income, during the Carter years I think. They lowered the top rate on earned income to 50% but left the unearned income top rate at 70%. Made sense to me then (though I think both top rates should be higher!) and still does.
The big thing I want to see is confiscatory tax rates on large estates, and a plugging of all the loopholes like family trusts and things like that. I have no problem with the heirs of billionaires having a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle without having to work for it, but that should be about as much as they get. The heirs should NOT have any place at the so-called commanding heights of the economy, unless they go out and earn it for themselves.
narya
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: This YOLO court isn’t done–queer folks can still get married. I place about 85% of the blame for this mess on the court. Maybe more.
Belafon
@Kristine: Capitalism works best when the poor and middle class have money to spend.
Belafon
@Suzanne: Someone should set up a service where you can send a text message to a phone number and they display that information online.
Belafon
@Emily B.: And disallow stocks to be used as collateral.
lowtechcyclist
@jlowe:
Yes, they did, they had to have the entrances manned by security guards, and janitorial/maintenance staff was still on hand. And there were things like the office of the Census Federal Credit Union in the building as well. So they couldn’t just turn the building off. Unfortunately, because if they could have done that, they’d have had to send me home too.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?
@Kristine: I think that’s high marginal income tax rates. It used to be, back in the day, that the owners of companies’ income was from firm profits which were taxed as normal income, or from regular salaries, which were also taxed as normal income. But now much of the compensation corporate leadership gets comes in stock options. Honestly, just make that illegal. Tell the Musks and Bezoses of the world that their company can pay them from direct profits or a straight salary but stock options are no longer an allowed form of executive compensation. So they have to sell off to stay on the job. Which for them may work out OK as they have billions in stock so will still have billions, but for the new guy getting rich off low capital gains tax assets rather than income won’t be possible anymore.
So they way it used to work, to go back to my first point, was that the CEO’s salary over say $1 million was taxed at 90% meaning he only took home 10 cents for every dollar paid over a million dollars. In that scenario what a lot of those guys did was just give the extra back as employee bonuses or firm capital improvements. Because if your compensation is a couple mill you’re only taking in about $100k on that second million, which isn’t that much to you so why not forgo it to keep the proles happy?
Paul in KY
@MagdaInBlack: Oh crap.
Belafon
@Geminid: Allred hurt himself even among us less than average racists here in Texas by running such a boring, middle of the road campaign against Cruz.
iKropoclast
Shouldn’t even be a thing, not even for the original fortune makers. Decisions in our republic are meant to happen democratically. There is nothing democratic about one person amassing a fortune and swinging as much weight as a city, a state, another nation…
David Collier-Brown
@zhena gogolia: An interesting supporting project would be to take a copy of project 2025 and figure out how to turn it on its head. That might make a cheerful publication for a progressive think-tank.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Bell of the Ranch talking about how a group of Republican senators are working on the ACA tax credit the shut down is over. The TLDR version the hole shut down is just BS from the GOP. Bell is also noting the Senate is treating Trump like lame duck president.
satby
@Another Scott: I love all of those suggestions and want to subscribe to your newsletter 😉
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: I think some of those are people who make themselves pretend not to understand marginal tax rates.
WaterGirl
@Princess:
These days, with all the bots, i have to ask… how do we know the anti-Semitic replies are from the left?
piratedan
@Belafon: yeah, I was truly hopeful that he would be able to do outreach to folks who felt disenfranchised in Texas and have them get involved and I think in a way, being approachable and reasonable hurt him (strangely enough) and made folks believe it would simply be more of the same and just continued to stay tuned out.
JML
I have small dreams right now. But one I want to see is for union dues to be deducted pre-tax. Lot easier to do membership drives and organize against corporate when the cost to join goes down by 20-30% without starving the union of the resources and staffing it needs to organize. Would not be a complicated change, but it would be a substantial one, and it would also have the result of immediately putting money back in the pockets of union households.
WaterGirl
@MagdaInBlack: In these times, that is distressing.
SiubhanDuinne
News from Blighty (via MSNBC) and very OT: A woman bishop has just been named as the first female Archbishop of Canterbury in history. I’m no longer a practicing Anglican, but this is truly historic.
zhena gogolia
@Emily B.: She is not “better than what the Democrats deserve.” Who are “the Democrats”? As far as I’m concerned, we are the Democrats.
piratedan
@WaterGirl: yeah, I think that’s a valid observation, I think that there’s a bunch of folks using the Greenwald Gambit of posing a supposedly left leaning street cred that are nothing more than political grifters or just more bot-ops from the well monied confines. They take the “position” of being labelled The Left by the folks on the other side of the political spectrum.
One of these days, we’re going to find a political ivermectin for our purity pony problem
What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?
@iKropoclast: At least some of the OG gilded age kleptocrats understood propriety and giving back. My wife went to high school with a Rockefeller. She said her classmate worked really hard and was planning on going into some form of service in the public interest. One of the Rockefeller heirs basically bought Grand Teton National Park and donated the entirety to the National Park Service so everyone could enjoy it. I think Acadia National Park was largely stitched together that way too. Carnegie funded libraries across the nation. JP Morgan put his own fortune at risk to save the US financial system from collapse and try to stave off recessions on more than one occasion. Can’t see any of the current crew doing that. Their ex wives and widows are in some cases trying, but not them. Well except maybe Bill Gates. But one is an exception to the rule rather than the rule.
zhena gogolia
@David Collier-Brown: Use the policies of the Biden-Harris administration. Done.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Ours would be good! So let em report on Project 2029.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Normal retirees would still have their first $80k of annual income – from whatever sources – be exempt from federal taxes when I’m Benevolent Despot.
It’s the “carried interest” monsters and the “I only make $1 a year so I don’t pay federal income or FICA taxes” MotUs who would pay substantially more.
Thanks.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Well, I had to correct her because she was explaining it to her dental techs wrong.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Is AI that good now that the ‘person’ up there in front of you might not be real?!
WaterGirl
@goodmatt: Thanks again for adding to your nym to help distinguish matt from Matt.
iKropoclast
In Republican fever dreams, anything is possible and probably the result of some conspiracy.
RevRick
@Emily B.: The problem is that those at stratospheric levels of wealth do not live off income. They use their assets to leverage debt, and then acquire more debt to pay off the first loans. And debt is not taxable. The only way to tackle that is Sen. Warren’s wealth tax which taxes assets.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Yep. Just like the supposedly innocent/gullible T 2.0 voters.
zhena gogolia
Someone told me yesterday that one of her clients said Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Lisa Marie Presley, JFK Jr., Carolyn Bessette and her sister, and Princess Diana are still alive and “walking among us with different faces.” She said a chill went down her spine.
Somebody’s walking among us, all right, but it ain’t Lady Di.
Professor Bigfoot
@zhena gogolia: “Those who can get you to believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Matt McIrvin
@piratedan: Maybe it’s naive but I think at least some of the people we assume are bots or paid trolls are sincerely doing it for free. Often there are professional trolls egging them on.
Leftists often complain that the Democrats are too beholden to the educated professional class, but I think a lot of these people ARE educated professional class, maybe they’re feeling guilty about it, and it’s all about abstract ideological posturing and drama to them, not how they’re going to survive another day. It’s exciting to get way out on the fringe, thrilling to announce that everything needs to burn down and you’re the vanguard in a civil war.
Maybe I’m just projecting, because I sure feel it sometimes. You don’t see the worst thoughts that I don’t post here. It’s just that I can regard this kind of thinking with a skeptical filter. Sometimes. It’s always dramatic and grandiose, making the thinker a main character.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: Agree completely that we need to be running ads saying just that!
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: I would settle for investment income being taxed at the same rate as wage income. I don’t think it needs to be more. Maybe that’s because the only person I do know who manages a small income stream from investment has already put in a boatload of work for the wage economy. And people “sitting around at home”, as you put it, are also buying groceries, paying for utilties and insurance, and gosh darn it, maybe even supporting a family. Point being, not everyone living on investments are fat cats – my friend’s investments return him maybe 15 – 20 grand per year. That’s what he lives on. Not exactly loads o’ money.
AWOL
@Princess: Did you know the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary?
Kayla Rudbek
@zhena gogolia: if you go read Ars Technica, The Futurist, and The Register (UK-based computer industry reporting for the last one), you will see some truly scary stuff about AI, namely the AI-induced psychosis, people getting religious/spiritual advice from AI, AI presenting as Jesus, etc.
It makes me understand the old legends about the men trying to get involved with the Fae Folk a whole lot better than when I was a kid. (Women of course chase after the Fae Folk in the hope that they will be treated better than by human men, see the entire paranormal romance genre and the man vs. bear meme)
And I think that we are going to see a huge economic collapse because AI can’t get money and energy at the rate that its backers are demanding, and the bubble will burst and take down the economy with it. It’s going to make the dot-com bust look small. wheresyoured.at/how-to-argue-with-an-ai-booster/#but-ed-the-government
Although the one thing I do note about AI and religion is that no one has dared to try to use the Quran as training data or present AI as giving Islamic spiritual guidance, at least as far as I’ve seen in the media. It seems to be either Christian or in the Chinese cultural context. But in my darker moments, I wonder if spreading the idea that “AI is corrupting the Quran” would bring down the AI companies even faster and harder than the copyright lawsuits in progress…
piratedan
So…. if we did a Project 2029… what would it look like? I’m going to start and you guys just pile on like you usually do…
Project 2029
Offer Statehood to the District of Columbia
Offer Plebescites to other US Territories to initiate steps to Statehood
Expansion of Federal Court Districts to 13
Expansion of SCOTUS to one seat for each district
Expansion of House of Reps , with the minimum being a current Equivalent of the State of Wyoming population (or therabouts)
Restoration of 1956 Tax Brackets
Legalized abortion
legalization of Human Rights (for disabled, Gay, Queer, Bi, Trans and non-binary) for all citizens and non-citizens alike
legalization of and restoration of ERA and VRA
Full fledged support financiallly and militarily of Ukraine
recognition and support of a Palestinian State
recognition and support of an Independent Kurdistan
Mutual Aid Treaty with Taiwan
Implementation of Green New Deal projects and national broadband projects
Taxing churches as political organizations when they endorse candidates for political office
removal of all semi-automatic rifles/military grade weapons equipment from the public marketplace
removal of all trade tariff policy implemented by 47
reform immigration policy, green card for two years, then pathway to citizenship if no breaking of public laws
fairness doctrine restoration….
you know, stuff…..
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez attracts a lot of attention across the board, so at least some of those anti-Semitic comments were likely from the Right. I’ve been running into plenty of anti-Semitic comments from both ideological groups.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Batshit McChimpy’s ‘Ownership Society’ meant the proles ‘owning’ more of the tax burden. Sort of like the Bolshevik’s ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’, which meant they would be dictators over the proletariat.
Paul in KY
@iKropoclast: They are the most whiny & petty mofos ever.
Miss Bianca
@piratedan: I like it!
Paul in KY
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: Good point for Project 2029!
Geminid
@SiubhanDuinne: That is historic. Also, the British government named its first female head of M.I.6 earlier this year.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: It’s certainly not rocket science!
Iron City
@Soprano2: The therapist relationship is really important. People I know are having a hard time getting and keeping therapists.
My therapist is a cocolate lab named Jackson with a laid back attitude and is a great listener. Meet at least 4 times/day. It really helps.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: Typical comment “I am definitely left-wing super-Bolshevik and I condemn your most anti-semitic agitprop, Kulak lover!!!”
Professor Bigfoot
@Kayla Rudbek: Crimony.
This takes me directly to William Gibson’s “Sprawl” trilogy; only the AI presented there as loa from the voudoun tradition… but was able to “make deals” with humans as such.
Yeesh.
iKropoclast
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?: Noblesse oblige can mitigate the worst effects of an economy that has thoroughly prioritized the needs of owners over workers. But it should be obvious at this point we can’t count on it and people arguably shouldn’t be in the position as unelected individuals to sway the course of the entire nation at their whim.
Paul in KY
@iKropoclast: When we get to that point, and that might be after I’m dead, I hope you can at least put your hand through them so you know they’re a hologram.
Kayla Rudbek
@piratedan: All federal, state, tribal, local, and administrative judges, especially the Supreme Court justices, must meet ethics standards or be removed from hearing cases (put on inactive status). No member of the Federalist Society shall practice law or be allowed to serve in elected office. Any case where the party involved lies about the facts of the case or the current status of the law shall be automatically decided in favor of the opposition (we’re going back to “false in one thing, false in all things” like the Patent Office has been doing since the 19th century). Any court filing using AI to do anything but spelling and grammar checks shall be thrown out by the court it’s filed in. One filing using AI gets automatic remedial CLE on ethics, two filings gets a reprimand in the bar record of the attorney, three filings gets suspension or disbarment.
Emily68
I bet they’ll find somebody.
Salty Sam
I spoke to my 92 year old mom yesterday. She has steadily descended into Fox/MAGA territory for the last decade, and really put the pedal to the metal in the last year.
She told me “You probably don’t agree with me, but I feel like things are turning around, and are much better than a year ago.”
I just thought I’d relay that info in an effort to cheer you up!
Paul in KY
@Salty Sam: Probably best to just agree with her. She won’t be around too long. Best wishes, as being a caregiver is soooo hard.
iKropoclast
@Paul in KY: Actually the hologram could be done now. Just…you’d know, there would be tells.
lowtechcyclist
@Belafon:
Calvert County, MD is getting a crash course in marginal rates: the county is charging for water and sewer* with marginal rates. A fairly large flat fee just for having service, but after that, water rates are $2.19 per 1000 gallons for the first 4500 gallons, $2.74 per 1000 gallons for the next 13,500 gallons, $3.30 per 1000 gallons for the next 90,000 gallons, and $3.84 per 1000 gallons after that. Sewer similarly (but with bigger numbers).
*Sewer where applicable: most of the county is still on septic systems.
piratedan
@Kayla Rudbek: I like that as well Kayla, there have to be standards within the reforms and means to implement consequences for failures
iKropoclast
As long as things get better for us, what does it matter who gets hurt in the meantime? Just close your eyes and let the benefits of white supremacism roll over you…
hueyplong
@Geminid: How long until Trump demands that the new female head of MI6 be fired, lest ruinous tariffs be imposed?
suzanne
LMAO. We were just talking yesterday about the word “globalist”, and its original and evolved meanings. So, just this morning, I see Americans criticizing the “globalist pope” on Xhitter.
OF COURSE THE POPE IS A GLOBALIST, DUMBASS! It’s the Catholic church!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
For most of my life, the left and the left leaning have felt we need to federalize more and more things: laws, services, etc. I now believe that was a mistake. I think we need more regional alliances providing services. I think we need a weaker federal government. I don’t mean militarily weaker. I mean less federal government involvement in research, higher ed, the arts, etc. It gives the president much, much too much power. I know it is less efficient and more expensive. I also know that people in red regions, like mine, will have a harder time. However, Trump would not be able to do half of what he is doing in a more federalized system.
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: there is something very inhuman about the tech dudebros running Silicon Valley (Thiel, Musk, etc) which reminds me of the Spider Robinson story where the aliens were deliberately interfering with human history/development to make us fit only to be the aliens’ prey/food “you Broodless humans, do you really think that God died of natural causes?” That was the line that stuck with me to this day. Also like Charlie Stross’ Laundry Files series. It’s not autism, it’s something else entirely.
Some of the Incel/red-pill stuff and the AI as romantic or sexual partners reminds me of the short story The Screwfly Solution, where the aliens deliberately put something into the atmosphere to make human men very aggressive towards human women so that humans kill each other off and die out so the aliens can come in and take over the planet; we seem to be doing the same thing using the internet instead of chemical weapons. Although in the case of incels, I’m not sure if they are redeemable.
iKropoclast
@suzanne: There is a much better word for a rootless, nationless, amoral entity which describes a conspiracy of people that perverts incentives and corrupts everything around it for the benefit of that conspiracy.
A corporation.
Kayla Rudbek
@piratedan: half of the problem with the conservative movement is that the conservative men have never received proper consequences for their actions and behaviors, and most of the conservative women keep on making excuses for their deplorable husbands and sons.
iKropoclast
YEEEEESSSSSSS!!!!! Someone else sees it.
hueyplong
@Kayla Rudbek: I really hate when plotlines like that seem to be the most logical explanation for what we’re witnessing.
lowtechcyclist
@AWOL:
Good try! 😁
Kayla Rudbek
@iKropoclast: Charlie Stross would totally agree with you.
iKropoclast
Here’s another explanation, a little more terrestrial.
We have spent so long coddling selfish idiots as a society that selfish idiots have managed to grift their way into most of the money and the most powerful elected positions. Selfish idiots have no internal mechanism for recognizing any actions they take as mistakes and will always choose to protect themselves first.
Kayla Rudbek
@suzanne: I always thought it was ironic how catholic with a small C meant universal, and Catholic with a large C could be very much the opposite in practice
Geminid
@hueyplong: Trump’s own Director of National Intelligence is a woman. But this lady looks like she could chew Tulsi Gabbard up and spit her out, and then go have tea with the Archbishop.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: That’s crazy talk
Holy cow, do these people hold down jobs?
WaterGirl
@suzanne: At this point, I don’t even understand what “globalist” is supposed to mean.
iKropoclast
It’s on dictionary.com
Resources are just so much more trustworthy in the age of the Internet…
iKropoclast
It means “rootless cosmopolitans.”
And no, I don’t mean a cocktail in an un-stemmed glass.
Paul in KY
@iKropoclast: She has dementia. Is a sad condition, as your loved one just sorta fades away. You also know each day will generally be worse than the prior day.
suzanne
@Kayla Rudbek: Like…. do these people think the Vatican is in Florida?!
iKropoclast
@Paul in KY: I’m sorry to hear. I’m seeing the beginnings of some mental decline in a relative of my own. He’s been a Foxbot since before Fox, an early Limbaugh adopter.
I often wonder if these obsessions and the isolation it encourages aren’t exacerbating the mental decline.
moonbat
@piratedan: Sounds good to me, bud.
Belafon
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: He would just be able to get away with more in places like the South.
suzanne
@WaterGirl: Started off as a slur against Jewish people, has now expanded to basically anyone who thinks the U.S. should have engagement with the rest of the world, welcome immigrants, give aid, etc. Like that’s bad.
Belafon
@Belafon: Actually, I should say that local leaders would be able to get away with far worse stuff than they are getting away with now.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: A successful local small businesswoman.
iKropoclast
First I’m hearing of him. Definitely some interesting sounding titles he wrote. Might have to check some of these out.
no body no name
@iKropoclast:
Our entire society tells people that being a selfish idiot is good. And while even the good side thinks it’s bad they are only willing to correct it as long as they don’t have to give up anything. Which is why we are now the six figure party ranting about billionaires and screaming racism the moment the classes below us are brought up. And our issue is we are a minority due to our income and people have seen we are full of shit.
stinger
@Geminid: LOL
Jackie
@lowtechcyclist:
I have to remember this for my oh, so gullible sister and daughter! I’ll have wait until I see them face to face, so I can watch them grab their phones… 😂
stinger
@iKropoclast:
I think you might have missed the joke. The punchline would be, “Made you look!”
Anyway, I’m going to use this one on a few people I know!
iKropoclast
The enabling behavior our side has engaged in has been a major problem, but it still needs to be held as distinct from direct exploitation encouraged and legally empowered by the Rs.
There’s an accountability mechanism for most all of them scheduled next year.
And six figures? Maybe that’s why I register as unaffiliated.
iKropoclast
@stinger: I’m well aware. I was playing a cynical game to entertain myself.
stinger
@iKropoclast:
Coolio!
satby
@Miss Bianca: That’s not the kind of investment income Scott is talking about. He’s certainly talking about large fortune types, the kind that currently have a third generation of heirs living large off of work done by a grandfather or great grandfather 100 years ago. We can’t even imagine the kinds of checks for expenses their private investment firms cut to fund their lifestyle. Yes, we can; John McCain gave the game away a bit when he lost track of how many houses he and his heiress wife owned.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@piratedan: I’d add real ethics requirements for SCOTUS that require removal when violated. Honestly at present that would get you Thomas and Alito removed and if a Democrat were POTUS which would have to be the case the SCOTUS flips 5-4 liberal. Could be worse for the GOP because I’m not convinced justice “I like beer” and Goresuch are completely clean, or Roberts for that matter.
iKropoclast
I didn’t know piratedan was on the Supreme Court.
…Kagan?
Nettoyeur
@AM in NC: Authoritarians are epically bad at envisioning unintended consequences like this. I look forward to seeing an avalanche in the number of high end women professionals doctors, lawyers, engineers, industrial execs. ….
hueyplong
@Geminid: You could argue that’s why he’d want her fired.
JML
It’s so true. When they were adding a 4th tier to the progress tax rate in my state, I literally had people claiming that they would lose money if they didn’t stop working after 9 months. They were convinced that the new tier was like a barrier where once you crossed it all of your income was taxed at the higher rate.
The worst part was after I tried very hard to explain how it actually worked, the response was “Well, I don’t believe that’s true.”
It’s staggering to me how many people don’t understand marginal tax rates (you’ve been paying them for years!) and refuse to learn. Guess it’s just easier for them to go “taxes bad! I pay too much! I earn what I make! everyone else is lazy! nyahh!”
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: well, I sure like your plan, Benevolent Despot!
Jackie
I see FFOTUS is threatening Shock & Awe to Hamas…
Surely, THIS will get him that coveted Nobel…
iKropoclast
We’ve all gotten together and agreed you should give us everything we want and let us build hotels on it.
Captain C
@Betty Cracker:
We can get a song out of this:
“Cracker the Crackpot went down to the townhall/
She was startled to find out she was sanest of all…”
(Maybe to the tune of Minnie the Moocher.)
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne: It also gets some power from both populist and progressive complaints about “globalization” meaning labor offshoring, factories relocating to cheap-labor countries, etc.
Which is just a specific example of the general way that progressive complaints about the domination of the world by greedy corporations and zillionaires can shade into classic antisemitic tropes like the “International Jewish Banking Conspiracy” if you’re not careful. There was a LOT of that going around during the Great Recession: progressives lending credence to anyone who complained about the “banksters”, some fraction of whom were actually antisemitic/fashy crackpots. And it fed into Trumpism’s cred as an anti-establishment movement too, even though in practice it amounts to total social capture by real-world greedheads.
Captain C
@Baud: “Can my honorable colleague from Dumbfuckistan prove that they are in fact real and not a hologram powered by a janky AI? I think not, and therefore they should leave the chambers immediately…”
Matt McIrvin
@JML: They’ve been actively propagandized to believe this lie for decades. It’s such powerful folklore that people believed it even when most people did their own taxes with a paper 1040 and could see with their own eyes from the math they did their own selves that it was not true.
I’ve heard of small-business bosses using it to dissuade their young and naive minions from asking for raises. “Here’s a tip: You don’t want that raise, because it’ll put you in a higher tax bracket and Uncle Sam will take all your money!”
jonas
Correct. All reporters will do is pick a quote from your presser, then get a GOP spokesperson to say it’s all a lie and then be all like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Belafon: No. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to blackmail and control everyone with federal dollars because regional alliances wouldn’t be supported by federal dollars. THAT is what I mean. Fewer tax dollars flowing to the federal government for services. The states would handle it and band together to do big things they can’t do on their own. Yes, red states would be screwed, but they would also have the power to fix it if they wanted to
Included in that is getting rid of those block grants the GOP loves so much.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: Yeah… in the next election cycles the traditional news media will be running harder against our candidates even than we’re usually accustomed to seeing, because they’ll just be overtly captured by the mad dictator’s regime through threats and blandishments. Most people don’t like Trump or his minions, but I expect them to go the classic Russian route, mostly dirtying our side so that people just have the “everyone is bad” response and tune out.
So we need alternate channels.
Captain C
@rikyrah:
For MAGAts, this might be her most important qualification.
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: The joke
(==)
It’s actually a pretty old joke.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: There’s a guy who used to run a (for a time) successful chain of mortgage brokers in my area, who put LED signs in front of all the locations that would scroll absolutely batshit conspiracy accusations 24/7, often attacking not just the government but other local business people.
One of the locations was in the next town over, right over the New Hampshire state line–you’d see the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign and right behind it was this mortgage broker with the wacky conspiracy sign yelling nonsense at you. It was, in a way, the most perfect Welcome to New Hampshire tableau, except that I think some of his locations were in Massachusetts too.
I assume he got his business from people for whom this behavior was actually an attractant. I think he eventually lost control of the company though.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: 😂
Eyeroller
@iKropoclast: Keep in mind we can’t hear sarcasm in a text-based communication.
Professor Bigfoot
@Belafon: Granted in fits and starts, but the federal government has been the only defender of Black civil rights since the end of the Civil War.
I’ve always believed that’s why conservatives rail on so much about “small government.”
It’s always been about ”states rights” to curtail the human rights of the American citizens living in that state.
iKropoclast
@Eyeroller: That’s understandable. I thought the conclusion sufficiently absurd to invite skepticism.
I also tend to use an ellipsis (…) to indicate my words should be sat and thought on, not necessarily taken at face value for one reason or another.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Professor Bigfoot: Until now. Now they are all in on an overbearing federal government that is unconstrained.
Mel
@Captain C:
piratedan
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: no arguments from me, the idea that bribes are simply gratuities for services rendered is a lovely legalese for, I am taking bribes and make decisions for a price innit?
Mel
@Captain C: Definitely works to the tune of “Frosty the Snowman”!
Perhaps there’s a “Ballon Juice Does Holidays” album to be compiled?
jlowe
@iKropoclast:
He’s got a blog. This is one of my favorite posts. antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2018/01/dude-you-broke-the-future.html
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: That does jibe with my view of New Hampshire though…
Geminid
@piratedan: There’s a lot going on with the Kurds these days. The peace process PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan announced last December is on track, with a special committee of Turkiye’s National Assembly drafting legislation and constitutional amendments so as to accomodate Kurdish interests.
And in northern Iraq, the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has finally worked out an oil export agreement with the Baghdad government, and oil is now flowing again through the pipeline leading to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. That will yield some badly needed revenue for the Regional Government.*
Things are tense in Northeast Syria though. The Damascus government and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have not reached agreement over the integration of the territory controlled by the SDF into the Syrian state. That’s a complex situation that bears watching
* Iraqi Kurdistan is the closest Kurdish people have come to independence in the modern era. It’s a fascinting place. Erbil-based Rudaw English is a good source of reporting on Kurdish Iraq as well as Kurdidh news from Syria, Turkiye and Iran.
iKropoclast
@jlowe: Ahh, most appreciated.
iKropoclast
@Geminid: The Kurds seem a formidable people and they often remind those of us paying attention of our own better angels. I truly hope they build themselves a sustainable existence and find a place of respect among the nations of the world.
Aziz, light!
This idea is an insult to 95% of the federal workforce, who are just people who took public-sector jobs to carry out the nation’s business and do the same work year after year, as decreed by whatever enabling legislation they are directed to follow, no matter who occupies the Oval Office. There will need to be housecleaning of the incompetent stooges who have been installed at the top, but please understand that most federal workers are entirely apolitical. They are people making a living.
My former co-workers, now furloughed, are wondering if they will still have jobs, which are to conduct and communicate environmental science. For people in lower-paying support roles, not getting paid can be a huge hardship that can wreck their lives. I learned after that last Trump shutdown to keep some savings in reserve to get through the next one, but many workers do not have that option.
Captain C
@piratedan:
Project 2029
Complete legalization of cannabis (including allowing cannabis business to use the banking system) and all possession charges/convictions expunged.
Decriminalization of all other drugs, with massive funding for rehabs, and setups of a system of dispensaries so users can get their supply without having to worry about fentanyl lacing or dealing with shady people in general (and so non-users don’t have to worry about drug users any more than they have to worry about drinkers).
Restoration of all Federal science (and other knowledge) grants and institutions, with a new law saying anyone trying to mess with this system is guilty of undermining the national security of the USA and can go to jail for 20 to life (looking at you Elon and Vought) and be used as a rotten vegetable target for worthy fundraisers (OK, I’m flexible on the last one).
Geminid
@iKropoclast: The Kurds in Iran have it the roughest. That’s a bit ironic since the Kurdish and Persian languages are in the same language group and familiy.
Captain C
@Kayla Rudbek: I like these.
Betty Cracker
@Captain C: LMAO!
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: Yes, and why you’re seeing that whole dynamic turn upside down right now, with conservatives suddenly deciding they like heavy-handed federal power over states, cities and private business after all. They can mandate racism instead of fighting it.
Captain C
@Geminid: Archbishop: How has your day been, Madame Director?
MD: Well, it’s better now. Earlier I had to meet with that awful Tulsi Gabbard from America. What a wretched, incompetent woman! By the way, do you have a toothpick or some floss? I still have a little of her between my teeth. Let me tell you, she tastes as awful as she is stupid…
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: He’s not there any more but it’s just as iconic today, because now that location is a tobacco shop, and there’s a big cannabis dispensary across the street just on the Massachusetts side. So it’s a state line with a bricks and mortar demonstration of the smokes of our peoples.
iKropoclast
That’s the dirty little secret though, it has always been that way. Republicans like intrusive government and only complain about the federal government being too big in situations where it is stopping some intrusive thing they are doing with a smaller government.
It’s not small government, it’s whichever level of government can give me what I want.
Geminid
@iKropoclast: You might like RudawEnglish. The people running Iraqi Kurdistan seem to have done an exemplery job of creating a tolerant and forward looking polity. They have political problems of their own and with Iraqi state, but they’ve made stable and peaceful place. Their greatest need is for economic development. Kurds live in the more mountainous regions of the Middle East, and these areas tend to be dirt poor.
iKropoclast
@Geminid: Opened a couple stories and then saved the home page as a reminder. Thank you.
Matt McIrvin
@iKropoclast: Those chin-stroking think pieces we sometimes see about the philosophical pros and cons of American federalism and big government vs. small government are always either dishonest or missing the point, which is that.
Ishiyama
This! 1000% this! The War on Drugs is what Eternal Prohibition looks like – Police, Prisons, and Prosecutors. You ask why the Democrats lost the White Boy vote? Look no further.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Ha! Go Mass!
Paul in KY
@Ishiyama: I’m not for decriminalizing Meth.
iKropoclast
So, honest question; would you consider meth addiction a health problem or a crime problem? Or something else entirely?
JML
@Aziz, light!: yeah, it’s important tor realize that the grifters and scumbags are really only moving into the top positions; federal employees don’t get paid well enough for them otherwise, and it’s actually pretty hard to blatantly steal from the federal government unless you’re already rich.
They will need to get rid of a lot more senior positions than they usually do, however, and should do more to ensure that more senior positions are civil service and not political positions to a) make the civil service a more attractive career where talented people can rise to positions with more policy-making authority, b) prevent the grifter/nazi axis from pulling this kind of crap again, and c) having more professional leadership in place at the agency director levels for the next time the GOP steers the government into a ditch without a helmet.
Harrison Wesley
@WaterGirl: Sounds like it’s time to rewatch Bubba Hotep.
Ruckus
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for US?:
It’s political stupidity. The concept many seem to have is “We are this side and we know and deserve everything.”
shitforbrains is exactly that, which is why I call him that and why, as he’s aging out, he will get nothing done, let alone anything remotely good done. We haven’t been doing democracy all that well over the last few years. Many seem to look for the answer in a segment of the human race that ONLY DOES ANYTHING FOR THEM AND THEM ALONE. That’s not the concept of a democracy. The concept of all for one and one for himself is not the basis of this country. It does seem to be at least close to what we see in the current form. To me currently it looks to be a few on the “One for me and all for my bank accounts!” That ain’t a democracy either. As the population has grown so has the monetary segment, those that worship their bank and stock accounts over everything else. They used to be highly taxed, which helped all of us. Now it’s not as much taxed or places to “hide” it so that it isn’t taxed. Which affects all of us. So between growth and places to hide the results, the rich get richer (and their numbers grow) and then there is the rest of us.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
It’s all a hot mess. So much has changed over the last 2-3 decades which can make it harder for the majority, at the behest of the wealthy, and we are seeing the results. It doesn’t take much to make the change happen. A lot of money can change how things work and how they get seen. Or not. And a part of that is that as a population grows in our style of democracy we pay a price for that growth. And it used to be that a lot of money made that cost a bit higher and made that uber wealthy segment just a tad less wealthy. Some of that has changed. And while it is slightly changed, when talking MONEY a small change can end up being significant. And it has, for a relative few. And while it hasn’t really changed for most of us, that relatively few have, could have benefited from the change. I believe it was an intentional change, but that might just be me…..
Chris T.
@AWOL:
It’s not in mine. In fact, all the pages from “friendly” to “happenstance” have gone missing!