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You are here: Home / Archives for Breathtaking Criminality and Lawlessness

Breathtaking Criminality and Lawlessness

Open Thread: Good for Rep. Jeffries

by Anne Laurie|  July 9, 20251:49 pm| 227 Comments

This post is in: Dems Fighting Back, Immigration, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat

Unmask ICE.

[image or embed]

— Hakeem Jeffries (@hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social) July 9, 2025 at 9:03 AM

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"The masks frequently worn by agents make ICE seem like the type of secret police that operates in authoritarian regimes. But they are apparently meant to keep the police secret."

[image or embed]

— Katelyn Burns (@katelynburns.com) July 9, 2025 at 9:22 AM

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It is a telling thing imho that these agents so fear being associated with what they're doing that this where we are.

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— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 9, 2025 at 10:41 AM

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this is a great look at the nuts and bolts of actually trying to hire the number of people they say they want to hire.

[image or embed]

— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) July 9, 2025 at 11:24 AM

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This is getting lost. When Stephen Miller shrieks orders for 3000 daily arrests, they HAVE TO go after noncriminals. It's the only way to juice the numbers. So Miller is shifting resources away from serious crimes toward that.
@vermontgmg.bsky.social and me on this:
newrepublic.com/article/1976…

[image or embed]

— Greg Sargent (@gregsargent.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 8:29 AM

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Jeffries calls for Hegseth's resignation and says, "when you limit Ukraine's ability to be successful in the war of aggression that Russia has launched against a sovereign country, you undermine America's national security interests. And that's highly problematic."

[image or embed]

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) July 9, 2025 at 10:48 AM

Open Thread: Good for Rep. JeffriesPost + Comments (227)

Independence Day

by WaterGirl|  July 4, 20259:42 am| 90 Comments

This post is in: Breathtaking Criminality and Lawlessness, Grieving for Our Country, Open Threads

Posted with great sadness

h/t Jackie

The dog in the sidebar has his eyes covered.  We can’t cover ours.

Independence DayPost + Comments (90)

Open Thread: The Deluge Begins

by Anne Laurie|  July 3, 20254:05 pm| 113 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Grieving for Our Country, Open Threads, Show Us on the Doll Where the Invisible Hand Touched You

I mean this has nothing to do with a bill that's not even passed yet, but now every organization has a ready made excuse to shutter any rural health center.

[image or embed]

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 10:05 AM


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Yeah man that sucks. https://t.co/UqPMQ99urB pic.twitter.com/8UxCFPqod8

— NickFrank40 (@NickyFrank30) July 3, 2025


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The reason why I don't quite get what the GOP is doing is that people receiving Medicaid are a very slightly GOP leaning (R +2 or so) group.
If one assumes lower participation amongst medicaid users, you're still probably looking at 5-7m of your own voters you're fucking.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:04 PM


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I keep getting some combination of this post despite multiple explanations about it. So again:
Hospitals operationalize Medicaid finances far into the future. Budget cuts, layoffs, project cancellations, closures, etc. will begin -immediately.-

[image or embed]

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:29 PM


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It takes around 2 years to secure requisite permits, etc. to build new facilities. Depending on the expected cut of the expected budget that came from Medicaid, these new facilities will likely just cancel, regardless of where they are in the process.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:31 PM


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The other thing is basically every industry group has indicated that this is going to put on the edge hospitals over the edge, and now they have a ready made excuse to shutter facilities.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:32 PM

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I'm pretty sure that the GOP is just smoking Malthus and has decided that the way to solve the deficit is grinding the poors into food cubes.
Also, no more rural areas.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Open Thread: The Deluge BeginsPost + Comments (113)

So Much Truth That I Teared Up Watching It

by WaterGirl|  July 1, 202510:24 pm| 178 Comments

This post is in: Grieving for Our Country, Open Threads

Southern Men and the Politics of Freedom

Do yourself a favor and watch this video.

EVEN IF YOU FUCKING HATE WATCHING VIDEOS.

The video won’t embed, so the image below is just a screen capture, and the link to the video is below that.

Southern Men and the Politics of Freedom

This might be the best thing I’ve seen all year.

As you can see by the stats on the right in the image above, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Southern Men and the Politics of Freedom

Click the link and watch it, and tell us what you think?

*big thanks to the person who sent it to me.   I would thank them by name but I don’t have a nym, only a name.  So please out yourself in the comments so I can give you the hat tip you deserve!

h/t Craig

So Much Truth That I Teared Up Watching ItPost + Comments (178)

The End of Innocence

by WaterGirl|  June 27, 20259:30 am| 142 Comments

This post is in: Breathtaking Criminality and Lawlessness, Grieving for Our Country, Open Threads

Not the usual morning fare, but nothing else is happening in the back room, and this has kind of been haunting me for a couple of days.

Thanks to the heads up from Scout211 a week or two ago, I set my Tivo to record all the episodes of Cold Case that TNT is running this summer.  One of the episodes was The End of Innocence, and they played this song.

The words of the song reverberated with me (for me?  in me?) on so many levels.

The one I’ll share with you guys is that the age of innocence for many of us in America ended with the election in November.  So many things that seemed like they would always be part of America – or would or never be part of America – it seems they went up in a puff of smoke.

Lyrics

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn’t have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standin’ by
But “happily ever after” fails
And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly

But I know a place where we can go
That’s still untouched by men
We’ll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass waves in the wind
You can lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

O’ beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening
They’re beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
Armchair warriors often fail
And we’ve been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers clean up all details
Since daddy had to lie

But I know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin
We’ll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass waves in the wind
Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair spill all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

Who knows how long this will last
Now we’ve come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us
I need to remember this
So baby give me just one kiss
And let me take a long last look
Before we say goodbye

Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

 

The End of InnocencePost + Comments (142)

How Democrats Win

by WaterGirl|  June 26, 202510:10 am| 175 Comments

This post is in: Dark Days Before the Dawn, Dems Fighting Back, Open Threads, We're Not Dead Yet

Even if you are a “I can read it faster than I can watch it or listen to it person”, I hope you’ll make an exception and watch this video.

It’s less than 3 minutes long.

Then maybe we can talk about what we agree with, anything we might not agree with, and maybe use this as a jumping off point to talk about other ideas we might have about how we win.

While I wait 3 minutes for you all to finishing watching the video :-) can I just say that Betty Cracker has had some seriously kick-ass posts here in the morning lately.

Open thread.

How Democrats WinPost + Comments (175)

OBBB Open Thread: Money Money Money Money

by Anne Laurie|  June 24, 20259:08 am| 171 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Dems Fighting Back, Open Threads, Republican Venality

The fifth set of Byrd droppings is out
Dems win on the sale of public lands: Rs may not sell of our public lands!
Other huge victories in this area around making oil and gas leasing, mining, pay-to-play for oil and gas exports, and NEPA compliance
ENR and Senate Budget Dem staff crushed it

[image or embed]

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 11:49 PM


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Wow. Fourth batch of Byrd droppings is out – Dem staff absolutely dominated the HSGAC fight
We won on reorg & bonuses for cost cutters ofc, but also on at-will, filing fees, and USPS green vehicles & infrastructure sales
Seriously, major praise to the D staff
www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-memb…
[image or embed]

— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 11:14 PM


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New @msnbc.com op-ed from me: despite protestations from the right, the “big beautiful bill” really would add trillions to the deficit and would harm, not help, the economy.
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— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 9:30 AM


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Damn—the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that a LOT of the reconciliation bill requires 60 votes to pass, including a massive assault on federal regulations and several heinous attacks on civil service protections. This effectively guts a big chunk of the bill. www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-memb…

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:10 AM


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show full post on front page

Morning. ☕️
ICYMI: The provision in the Senate GOP’s tax bill aimed at letting Trump rule like a king — it makes it too expensive for groups to sue the Trump admin for lawlessness — is likely getting axed after the Senate parliamentarian said it violates rules. www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-ta…
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— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:49 AM


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Chuck Grassley got very agitated when I asked him why he put language in this bill that prices out public interest groups from being able to sue the Trump admin for lawlessness.
He offered this word salad before walking away in a huff:

[image or embed]

— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 11:23 AM

OBBB Open Thread: Money Money Money MoneyPost + Comments (171)

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