Another Day, Another Cybertruck Explosion - US Politics January 2025

New thread

One person was dead and at least seven people were injured after a Tesla Cybertruck exploded and caught fire outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning, according to the authorities.

Saw this story and immediately logged into ILE to see if someone had created the Most 2025 Images thread yet.

Are they investigating this as a terrorist attack by ISIS?

excellent title tyvm

https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/52f8e50/2147483647/strip/true/crop/680x383+0+22/resize/1280x720!/quality/90/

dammit

https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/t_focal-758x379,f_auto,q_auto:best/mpx/2704722219/2025_01/1735763888212_nbc_spec_cybertruck_fire_250101_1920x1080-904tol.jpg

https://ewscripps.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/52f8e50/2147483647/strip/true/crop/680x383+0+22/resize/1280x720!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fewscripps-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6f%2F2c%2F8c82244e4ebcab737c9c8ea6a8f9%2Fggo1fbmwcaai10u.jpeg

which Back to the Future is that from

"If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you're gonna see some serious shit."

Doc was a Nazi

cybertruck...welcome to the resistance

the cybertruck and the truck driven in New Orleans were both rented through Turo. Turo is also, I believe, where Luigi Mangioni worked before he stopped working. Have fun conspiracists!

Well!

I think Mangione was at TrueCar? xp

That's what they want you to think

The truth Hertz

We’re off to a fantastic start, aren’t we? Happy New Year, ILE!

Even if the political year had started splendidly, Raymond, this isn't a place where people giggle happily in political threads.

Oh, I’m aware, Alfred! My post was intended as deeply and profoundly (and darkly) sarcastic - which is the only way I know how to deal with American politics at present.

I saw a Tesla on the road yesterday with a minimalist bumper sticker (plain white text on black background) that read: MAKE THIS CAR NOT EMBARRASSING AGAIN

Kind of a hard one to parse, but I'm guessing it's someone who doesn't like Musk and worries a lot about what strangers think of them.

Not as easy to sing but yeah it gets to the heart of our modern era

damn if only that person didn't buy that car

Eh I kinda feel bad for people who bought Teslas in like 2018 or whatever

30 years from now, the old timers watching a cybertruck roll by in the parade of classic cars, oh the memories

Probably won't be any left without bullet holes by then

I saw a reporter praising the cyber truck and its sturdy design for not blowing up part of that Trump hotel. I’m sure some dorks ordered a bunch based on that.

We need more head-to-head comparisons where different models of SUVs and pickups crammed with miscellaneous fireworks and gas cylinders explode in front of an assortment of Trump-owned or branded buildings, so we can see if the cybertruck really is any sturdier.

My neighbor down the street had a Tesla Roadster parked outside until recently. It's only...what...16 years old and it looked terrible. All of the finish was peeling.

I think Cybertrucks will end up in similar shape: Rusted, dented, miscolored. Tesla is not famous for build quality.

this situation is weird, btw. active duty green beret Trump voter?

xp the cybertrucks i've seen looked remarkably shabby.

in the voice of Lady Bracknell

yeah these things look like shit, I see them several times a day

It is like people voluntarily getting an STD

rich people buying dumb shit and blowing (only) themselves up with it doesn’t seem like a net bad to me

Trump fans trying to kill him reminds me of chickens coming him to roost

otm

https://media1.tenor.com/m/dEqG1C3zcvYAAAAd/zelda-chicken-attack-maxou-kid-poulet.gif

Still haven't seen a motive - he reportedly loved the cybertruck he rented and loved trump. His wife left him and took their kid because she suspected him of cheating & he called some ex girlfriends out of the blue on his trip to Vegas, but gave them no sign of what he was up to. As a green beret who disarmed IEDs, he would've known how to create a more damaging explosion if he had wanted to, so it was probably just a guilt-ridden suicide with the cybertruck packed with fireworks exploding at trump's hotel to grab media attention, but why go for all that if you have nothing more to say about it?

You expect a guy who loves Trump and cybertrucks to suicide coherently?

Maybe if he'd also choked on a Trump Steak...

My god his family is so lucky he didn't self-destruct slightly differently.

Everything in his story seems like a family annihilation indicator.

So anyway the first Speaker vote is going on right now

lol he’s not going to go through on the first vote

Olivia Beavers
@Olivia_Beavers

Rep. Chip ROY does not say anything when his was called in the roll call

He stood in the middle aisle while his fingers danced on what looks like an IPad

probably more opportunities to add to this facial expression

Mike Johnson has the left the floor pic.twitter.com/z1ZgI0wZlV

— Acyn (@Acyn) January 3, 2025

the cybertruck guy tried to contact Shawn Ryan with his manifesto/email, it's about secret gravity propulsion stuff, the current drone flap is a dick measuring contest between China and the US, the only two nations who have this technology currently, etc etc, proper conspiracy theory stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xglaXVtQcis

(followup, his reported location of the gravity propulsion center is at Area 51

This is the location referenced in the email. pic.twitter.com/GL7ngrBBdl

— Shawn Ryan (@ShawnRyan762) January 3, 2025

he says he's on a "USAP" = unacknowledged special access program, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_access_program

weird, standard media just reporting that he said the US was on a slide toward collapse (who can argue with that?). he sounds schizo.

2 of the 3 republican No voters against Johnson, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, and Keith Self of Texas— subsequently flipped their votes after calls to them from Trump, so Johnson got selected. Several extreme right Republicans sent a letter that they were only voting for Johnson so as to make sure they can certify Trump's election next week. They are ranting that Johnson hasn't done enough to address the deficit. They all probably voted for Trump's huge tax cuts for the rich last time, and probably will support them again this time.

nothing compared to what McCarthy went through

Aww they just wanted a call from Daddy to tell them it will all be ok. xp

the cybertruck guy tried to contact Shawn Ryan with his manifesto/email

Seems he also wanted to publicize a 2019 war crime in Afghanistan he was involved in.

yes, that was actually the main point he made and I missed it because I focused on the wrong thing (why was that gravity stuff even in there?)

yes, that was actually the main point he made and I missed it because I focused on the wrong thing (why was that gravity stuff even in there?)

i ran across this interview from a year ago with a former vicar of england, stephen sizer.

https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/qanda-for-every-1-jewish-zionist-there-are-30-christian-zionists-and-netanyahu-exploits-this-15656249

i think, looking back over my life, i've been completely ineffective in communicating what it dangerous about white evangelicals. although, to be kind to myself, i don't know if anyone, anywhere, has been "effective". no one talks about this stuff, even though we are immersed in it in the u.s., perhaps because we are so immersed in it

Q: These references are also being repeated with aplomb by Christian evangelist pastors in the United States, especially since the last month, they have upped the ante. It is also significant since Donald Trump claims that he fulfilled their agenda of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv and US President Joe Biden identified himself as a zionist. How influential is this group in shaping the US Foreign Policy in the Middle East?

A: It actually goes back to the 1960s, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan with the Six-Day War. The propaganda that went with the Six-Day War in 1967 was that Israel was attacked when actually Israel was being preemptive in attacking Egypt and so on. It was kind of a wake-up call for evangelical Bible-believing Christians, particularly in America. And it was exploited as the fulfilment of Bible prophecy. The Jews regained Jerusalem for the first time in 2000 years. So you had people like Billy Graham, Jimmy Carter and others saying, this is the Bible coming true. So the evangelical movement in America really woke up at that point and they began to read the Bible as if it was a Bible prophecy coming true.

We would call that chronological snobbery. It’s the idea that our generation is the most important one and that the Bible is coming true in our generation. The reality is it’s happened all the time. In the Reformation, this is going back 4 or 500 years. The Roman Catholic Church was seen as the Antichrist, as the enemy. During the early settlement in North America, a little bit later, it was the British seen as the Antichrist. In the early 19th century, it was the French. Napoleon was seen as the Antichrist figure. Then clearly Hitler will fill that role. But then Osama bin Laden was portrayed as the Antichrist. Then it was Saddam Hussein. And we changed the demon figure we have, depending on who we want to destroy or who we want to deem as our enemies.

So you’ll find books coming out in every generation attempting to say the Bible is coming true today. The reality is people forget when Bible prophecy doesn’t come true and they have this expectation. It’s like a drug. It becomes an addictive drug. They must have more. They must have more. And so you have the television evangelists, the popular Christian preachers know that if they can present their teaching and their interpretation of the Bible as something that’s dogmatic and about to happen, then they’ve got people’s attention.

And more importantly, they’ve got people’s money because a lot of it has to do with money. And exploiting, sadly, what’s happening in the Middle East. I think Trump and Netanyahu are quite cynical in their exploitation of the Bible because they know it furthers their own agenda. It keeps them in power. And Netanyahu knows that world attention, the global south, Turkey, Russia and other countries are highly critical of Israel’s policies and they’re desperate to hang on to the US administration and Europe to cover their backs.

So, for example, they’re talking about America funding or paying off Egypt’s debt if they take the two million people from Gaza. They’re now talking about asking the US and the UK to police Gaza after the war. Israel doesn’t want to do it, but it will bring others in. So it’ll be like Iraq, like Afghanistan. They’re subcontracting the colonisation, if you like, or mopping up.

What I’ve tried to do over the years is show that the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian scriptures actually teach the opposite of what they claim. God’s people in the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian Scriptures were always inclusive, not exclusive. It was always on the basis of faith, not race. You know, it’s absurd to suggest that Muslims are Arabs, so all Arabs are Muslims. That’s not true. You know, many non-Arabs are Muslim and many Arabs are not Muslims, they are Christians or Zoroastrians or whatever.

So this simplistic idea that the Bible promises an ethnic group that traces its ancestry back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, excluding Ishmael, Hagar, excluding the other nations that happen to be living in the Middle East at the time, is not consistent with what the Bible teaches.

So there is absolutely no justification for the killing of civilians, a genocide for the kind of saturation bombing we’re seeing in Gaza at the moment. And Netanyahu knows that. And so he’s pulling out of scripture a verse here, a verse there to try and placate his main constituency, which is the Christian Zionist movement.

Just watched the clip of Harris certifying the election results, i.e. doing what she's supposed to. Really did feel sickening.

I wish it had snowed like this in DC four years ago.

Sometimes it snows on A-holes

former vicar of england, stephen sizer otm

love how the media is hammering home how this is a 'normal' vote certification, throwing mad shade at 2021

Random Thought: Anybody heard from Vance's dog?

Vance lives distressingly close to me (before he moves into the VP mansion). Haven’t heard any scuttlbutt, but I’d put $5 on him personally abandoning the dog in the snow somewhere near n the mountains of western Virginia.

he has a dog?

i was just rereading the 2021 january politics thread. what a headfuck, the last...many years

B-Post

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a62501111/jd-vance-dog/

x-post, even

the dog's shrugging when you ask whether he lives with JD

Is the dog allowed on the couch?

Sorry if this was already shared.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/05/opinion/jan-6-pardons.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nE4.KVh4.OlH6zE7kr4ua&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwY2xjawHpaPRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHekK9XeinKTdX8VwFt6J-F9vA5kboqC70_Eh8zZyGwsfIq6UQV2TtuDZhw_aem_VsKCcok7NLlMktxkf_z-Qg

Is the dog allowed on the couch?

he sits in a crate atop the couch

The dog sits in the cuck chair

Challengers II: Dog/ Couch/ Veep

Creep morelike

i think, looking back over my life, i've been completely ineffective in communicating what it dangerous about white evangelicals. although, to be kind to myself, i don't know if anyone, anywhere, has been "effective". no one talks about this stuff, even though we are immersed in it in the u.s., perhaps because we are so immersed in it

I think part of why this is under-discussed and wildly misunderstood has to do with how popular discourse happens in the US, and who makes up the legacy media that sets discourse patterns.

Upper-middle-class professionalized cosmopolitan liberal(ish) Manhattanites(and those who are desperately striving to be them) don’t tend to be religiously observant since secularization happened after American church-going started declining in 1960 alter its post-war Cold War-fueled boom. And because media consolidation is such that only a few outlets dominate, the cultural limits of Acceptable Serious Discourse are constrained.

Sincere religious belief and spiritual expression tends to looked upon as irrelevant if bemusing superstition not worth serious consideration, or way too associated with Dubya-like bigoted yahoos to be in polite discussion.

So how the particularities of American Evangelicalism function isn’t really handled. There’s also the bit that there’s more than a little overlap with liberal internationalism, only in slightly different clothing, so the uncomfortable similarities in drives for Empire aren’t highlighted, shall we say.

Also David Hollinger’s book on American evangelism in the 20th century is an actual serious examination of the history, and a very worthwhile read

Which one? Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World but Changed America?

Ugh, how Republicans are proposing "paying " for the massive rich people and corporate tax cuts they want (and some they want to continue) -Advisers to President-elect Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have begun floating proposals to boost federal revenue and slash spending so their plans for major tax cuts and new security spending won’t further explode the $36.2 trillion national debt. The Wash Post article linked does address the downsides to these items

Impose new tariffs: $2.7 trillion
Repeal clean energy programs: $700 billion
Cut ‘unauthorized’ programs: $516 billion
Cancel student loan forgiveness: $275 billion
Eliminate the Education Department: $200 billion
Cut food stamp benefits: $180 billion
Impose Medicaid work requirements: $109 billion
Withhold anti-obesity drugs: $40 billion
End child tax credit for noncitizens: $20 billion
Cut IRS funding: -$65.8 billion

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/01/02/trump-budget-cuts-national-debt/

Which one? Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World but Changed America?

Close, but it’s _Christianity's American Fate: How Religion Became More Conservative and Society More Secular_.

It’s kind of a follow up that builds on that earlier release.

their plans for major tax cuts and new security spending won’t further explode the $36.2 trillion national debt

last i heard, tax cuts generate more revenue because they trickle down all over our faces of small businesses and innovative small business owners to be

xp Talia Levin was interviewed on the QAA podcast about her new book on far right evangelical Christianity. I haven't picked up the book yet but it was a good listen.

So glad we got the $$$ for my wife's student loan forgiveness. Mine, on the other hand? My rotting corpse will be reanimated monthly to continue making payments.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5m49DNl6aJbllyZBkoLAqS?si=4LWgesjfRGifDuuyK-PLRQ

thank you for the head's up, i will give it a listen, hope others do too

so uh..... "The Gulf of America," huh?

_their plans for major tax cuts and new security spending won’t further explode the $36.2 trillion national debt_

last i heard, tax cuts generate more revenue because they trickle down all over our faces of small businesses and innovative small business owners to be

ha, the Trump administration plans to gut the IRS as expected

The Washington Post article I linked spelled out that the funding for the IRS was intended to get the rich to pay their share of taxes and would thus reduce the debt and deficit. It was proving successful but Republicans have been clawing back the money that was to go to the IRS to pay for employees

so uh..... "The Gulf of America," huh?

― Doctor Casino, Tuesday, January 7, 2025 12:42 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

just what we needed, a third george w. bush term

The Washington Post article I linked spelled out that the funding for the IRS was intended to get the rich to pay their share of taxes and would thus reduce the debt and deficit. It was proving successful but Republicans have been clawing back the money that was to go to the IRS to pay for employees

Trump press conference this morning seemed to have few follow up questions from reporters, and Trump didn’t seem to get challenged on his lies and bluster.

Trump: "If those hostages aren't back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. And it will not be good for Hamas. And it will not be good frankly for anyone."

Trump says he plans to use "economic force" to make Canada a state

Q: Can you assure the world that as you try to get control of areas like Greenland or Panama you are not gonna use military or economic coercion?

TRUMP: No. I can't assure you. I'm not going to commit to that. It might be that you'll have to do something

Now I understand why my listening diet right now is so heavy on Wolf Eyes. I’m steeling myself.

"And it will not be good frankly for anyone."

And, in a single phrase, Trump sums up his entire legacy

Invading Greenland sounds like some 1960s comedy with Peter Sellers and Alan Arkin

It might be that you'll have to do something

OTM

One of the lessons of Trump's "political career" is that he'll say outrageous things at least five times a day, and no matter how crazy his random thoughts are he genuinely thinks they are reflections of his genius, either for their own sake or as crafty negotiating ploys to secure something he wants.

The flip side of his incessant craziness is that for the most part he's perfectly happy just to have the world's attention constantly focused on his genius. The part where he makes all these genius ideas into reality holds almost no interest for him. He always leaves that part to his flunkies. While it's worrisome that he now has countless federal departments and a few million federal employees to act as his flunkies, his track record of accomplishing any of his genius ideas is abysmal.

Invading Greenland sounds like some 1960s comedy with Peter Sellers and Alan Arkin

countless federal departments and a few million federal employees

Aka 'The Deep State' who manage to keep the train on the tracks despite his best efforts to derail

Not Pitchbot headline: An Emboldened Trump Suggests U.S. Territorial Expansion

Going to war with NATO should be interesting

I guess Don Jr went to Greenland today, pure coincidence, mostly there to survey possible golf course locations

Maybe he'll fall through a snow bridge

Trump: "If those hostages aren't back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East. And it will not be good for Hamas. And it will not be good frankly for anyone."

does anyone seriously believe there are any hostages left alive after what Israel has done to Gaza?

Purely coincidental, his dealer said he'd meet him at Sweetgreen and Junior fucked up.

i haven't given Greenland any serious thought since I was like 7 years old and liked to look at maps.

Greenland is icy. Iceland is green.

If he starts talking about invading Iceland I’m volunteering for the Bjork Defence League.

Unless they haze recruits by making them eat fermented shark.

I keep trying to hold my tongue about the obvious joke, but I keep suspecting what everyone has been saying is true:

Trump and some near him don't understand how projection maps work and they think Greenland is gigantic

(It is pretty large, but not nearly as large as projection maps indicate. And it's mostly uninhabitable)

If he starts talking about invading Iceland I’m volunteering for the Bjork Defence League.

― papal hotwife (milo z), Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Pretty sure Bjork can open her mouth and blast them like Alanis in Dogma.

I don't know that this Greenland/Panama thing is about other than just run-of-the-mill trolling... we can assume he'll next move on to whatever strange thought is floating in the ether. I don't think the Greenlanders need to sharpen their harpoons just yet

That said, the King of Denmark did just update their coat of arms to emphasize a snarling polar bear

Greenland should be pretty nice in a couple more decades without all that pesky ice

i know this often applies and we all know it, but...they're definitely doing the greenland thing just to get people worked up and talking about greenland. it keeps trump in the news for reasons other than his upcoming attempt to end the united states, which starts in 13 days

however, it is very stupid and funny, and mh's speculation about trump thinking greenland is way bigger than it is actually is because he doesn't understand has got to be 100% true

I'm saying this in my best Michael-Corleone-in-GF-II voice: "You won't take my country...you won't take my country!"

the irony is that the U.S. has had military bases on Greenland since like WWII... we pay them rent

The only part of it that I don't understand is the binary nature of it. When he was promising "the most beautiful health plan ever, we'll tell you about it in about two weeks," or "We're going to roll out a major infrastructure plan next month," that was fine because he could just say "We're working on it" until the end of his term. But this is a binary thing; it's impossible to play it off by saying, I don't know, "We made some progress toward strengthening trade ties with Denmark which give us a bigger footprint in Greenland." Either you dispatch US troops and seize Greenland, or you don't.

But I guess since no Democrat is actually going to attack him on anything, and certainly not by saying, "He promised to invade Greenland and then he didn't! What a loser!" it'll all be fine and he'll emerge politically unscathed as always.

Peter Baker asked Trump about Greenland in 2021:

“I said, ‘Why don’t we have that?’” he recalled in an interview last year for the book. “You take a look at a map. I’m a real estate developer. I look at a corner, I say, ‘I’ve got to get that store for the building that I’m building,’ etc. It’s not that different.”

He added: “I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’”

I can imagine a nice pied-à-terre for Ivanya on the Nuuk coastline.

I'd rather concentrate on stopping the stuff that means something, like when words start being put into actions.

He already has us trying to figure out his game. Another Trump victory.

yeah, this is just a preemptive shitstorm, just flood the airwaves with shit so Stephen Miller can quietly concentrate on building detention camps for democrats

Let’s just hope he doesn’t push through the thing he wanted to be able to do last time: the ability to send a message to all Americans via their smartphones.

I know, I know - small potatoes.

speaking of, my gen z co-workers didn't know about "freedom fries"

I'm listening to Carter's funeral on NPR - there really won't be another like him, they're all sneaky phonies now

Carter’s service to country after his presidency as a volunteer; and as a spokesperson for peace is memorable .

Meanwhile , we’re stuck with criminal felon Trump’s service to himself, his Supreme Court justices, his tax breaks for the rich and everything else he may try to shove through in next 4 years

Watched a chunk of the funeral on PBS and of course I actually wept while the plebes sang for the old submariner

From VP Harris speech: From 1977 to 1981, Carter appointed more Black Americans to the federal bench than all his predecessors combined, and he appointed five times as many women.

The guy helped crush student uprisings in South Korea and supported the Suharto regime, among others. Spare your tears for someone who actually deserves them, I say.

that's all true but there was a reason that Reagan and his post-Nixon cohorts pulled out all the stops to sabotage his re-election campaign, up to and including sabotaging the Iran rescue helicopters. also, the guy was open to new ideas:

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/jimmy-carter-solar-panels

Spare your tears for someone who actually deserves them

Carter had some virtues that are unusual among US Presidents. He also agreed to policies and actions that no leftist would ever find praiseworthy. Saying he had some good points is very far from deifying him, but imo it's always OK to praise anything about a politician worth praising. It might encourage the others to do something similar. They like praise.

Due to an unforced error by Democrats, we lost the National Labor Relations Board majority two years earlier than expected. This is a huge setback for the hundreds of thousands of workers across this country organizing for a better contract. Let me explain. 🧵

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) January 7, 2025

The AP New story on the NLRB issue in December said that "Dems" Manchin and Sinema voted against, but didn't get into the time frame regarding when Schumer put this up for vote and when there was a delay and when VP Harris could be there

https://apnews.com/article/nlrb-labor-board-manchin-sinema-5e6dea85b147b4f53da000cef813b996

what happened?

Saying he had some good points is very far from deifying him,

The problem is that few seem to want to ponder his bad points, which were inarguably very, very bad! People have let Trump Derangement Syndrome take over their brains and they refuse to consider that *every US president is bad*.

brett ratner is directing a melania trump documentary for amazon and they are paying the trumps 40 million dollars for the rights?

any time you guys want to join my lifelong amazon boycott...

He is dead and no longer president so pondering his bad points might be less instinctive? … And I’m saying this as someone who generally agrees that people who seek the Presidency are highly flawed to begin with.

Meanwhile, and maybe this is better suited to the dystopia thread… Oakland Housing Authority is now taking applications for the Section 8 waitlist … the waitlist… for the first time in over a decade … you can get on the waitlist. … in a city where the media loves photos of our homeless encampments because they are really grim.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

Are really using this phrase unironically?

He is dead and no longer president so pondering his bad points might be less instinctive?

I think it’s helpful to know what the Carter Admin actually started and continued, as shit that got blamed on Reagan(like say certain political-economic changes or Cold War escalations) actually happened earlier.

I only mention this because we’re in a culture where political discourse is heavily determined by élites who operate on the team sports mentality

Trump Derangement Syndrome

Are really using this phrase unironically?

Any weapon at hand when fighting the real enemy (ilxors with whom one agrees on 90-95% of issues).

xpost Yeah, Carter appointing Volker to the Fed paved the way for the bipartisan consensus on neoliberalism, probably as important as Trickle Down Economics.

Humphrey-Hawkins rip

Carter did some good and some bad, and it's worth knowing both--

Turns out Carter not only deregulated trucking, but also skiing, ushering in a glorious era of neoliberalism (and the associated indignities like $300+ lift tickets). pic.twitter.com/nrdNqRFniv

— Hal Singer (@HalSinger) January 6, 2025

In other news the DOJ filed a brief with the 11th Circuit in opposition to the Trump-appointed District Court Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling that would block the release of the Special Counsel's report on Trump's actions. Never-Trump republican George Conway noted that " Interestingly, the brief that DOJ filed in the Eleventh Circuit says that Trump’s lawyers have been allowed to review the Special Counsel’s draft final report in its entirety."

It must be so helpful to be able to appoint your own judge to make sure none of your pesky crimes come back to bite you in the ass.

Merrick Garland announced the DOJ would not be releasing the report on the documents case

The documents case is all tangled up with stuff that requires the highest level of security clearance. They'd probably redact it so heavily that they may as well shred it instead.

they could share what they found at Mar-a-Lago, how documents were kept, they clearance level of the documents, what Trump did to prevent collection of the documents, without sharing the actual contents of them

Hey, those documents were just on vacation. Going back to the White House now!

unperson, i actually don’t think that i share 90-95% of the same beliefs as many of you. i don’t want a country with better presidents, i want the end of this rotten colonial death cult. before you or anyone else call me naive or an idealist or unreasonable, i beg you to imagine what a better and more just society would look like, and whether that includes our current electoral processes and general body politic. i would say it doesn’t, and i honestly believe that starting over from scratch is the best option we have.

that is exactly what I would call a naive or idealist mindset

(hears the faint voice of Lennon's "Imagine" wafting through the thread)

more to the point, for a society as populous and complex as ours there is no such thing as "starting over from scratch", unless you also imagine almost all 335 million of us dying and the near-complete destruction of our present economy -- which sounds even more like a death cult to me than what we have right now.

put a few thousand people down in silos and poison the rest

starting over from scratch would actually look more like a new constitutional convention, which is an explicit goal of the u.s. right wing

Yeahhhh I'm not sure a 'clean start' would necessarily work in our favor - see The Handmaid's Tale

I would suggest that a complete reboot might be good or bad, but either way falls outside of US politics

you can't get rid of the past. it formed everyone and bestowed on us nearly the entirety of our ideas, folkways, and social environment. to get rid of what and who we are today would require purges on an impossible scale, all in the name of purification of past ills. iow, Pol Pot Revisited.

I agree we need a...great...reset.

I would suggest that any energies that anyone anywhere near our strata could collect to try to do anything at the American federal level would be wasted due to the immense structural problems.

It would seem far better to start with something much closer to where people actually live and try to do something that increases housing and allows people any sort of more democratic control where they work.

https://heatmap.news/plus/the-fight/spotlight/renewable-energy-ban-oklahoma

on the movement to ban renewable energy in Oklahoma

Seems like the owners of renewable energy companies could sue Oklahoma for tortuous interference with their business.

just tell them the sun is actually a big, distant nuclear reactor

yeah a comprehensive ban might not work, but there is a lot they could do to effectively bring one about anyway: eliminate subsidies, denying construction licenses, using environmental laws against wind turbines, etc

Or just leave them behind

So meanwhile Olaf Scholz and Bruno Retailleau are calling for the EU to give a strong response to Musk's interference and Trump's threats, some Danish experts are noting that:
- US has had exclusive military control in Greenland for over 80 years, and it has not been meaningfully challenged recently by China or Russia
- US companies already have access to exploit Greenland's resources
- The Greenlanders do not feel close to Denmark, and are free to ask independence at any time since a law passed in 2009
- Although the US already has everything it wants, they note that Denmark is paying 1BN a year in subsidies to Greenland and maybe someone can offer them a better deal
Which I suppose is some refined form of Scandinavian humor: calling the bluff, pointing out the proper way to do it.

x-post -

Biden Has Presidential Immunity. He Should Use It.
Merrick Garland still doesn't know what time it is.
Jonathan V. Last in the Bulwark substack

Smith’s report should be public. As a matter of tradition (all previous special counsel reports were published) and also as a matter of morality. The country should have a permanent record of Trump’s once-allegedly-criminal actions.

But also as a matter of politics. Remember: 2025 is the year of maximum peril. Every day that can be chewed up forcing the administration to fight on a topic they fear is a day they lose in pursuit of their authoritarian agenda. You would not know it from their current posture, but the Democrats are actually the opposition party. They have a duty to oppose Trump, on all fronts, and inflict political pain wherever they can.

It is not clear that the Democratic party, as an organism, understands this reality. And so the final reason for making Smith’s report public by any means necessary is to force Democrats to come to terms with the new rules of American government.

Government officials are now bound by the law—and only the law. The Republican party has worked hard to create this new order and has spent the last eight years exploiting this dynamic while Democrats have operated under the political arrangements that existed from, roughly speaking, 1974 to 2015.

The law says that Aileen Cannon’s injunction can, at least temporarily, halt the transmission of Jack Smith’s report.

But the law also says that any action a president takes as part of his official duties is, prima facie, legal. This was not formerly the case, but it is now. So if President Biden were to publish the report this afternoon in violation of Judge Cannon’s order, he would do so with total immunity.

Or, if the attorney general were to publish the report, putting himself at risk of being held in contempt of court, he could be pardoned by President Biden. That would all be perfectly above-board.

Yet, amazingly, Biden and Garland seem to still be in 2015 mode...

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/biden-has-presidential-immunity-he

As with Schumer's NLRB ooopsie, how do you keep pretending they're "in 2015 mode" rather than... this is what they want to do?

On a different point, why is AG Garland pretending that the prosecution of Trump's co-defendants in Florida will extend beyond Jan 20? Why is the public interest not better served by dismissing the Nauta prosecution in order to release Smith's report on Trump?

— DonnishBookworm (@BookwormDonnish) January 8, 2025

yes - fucking release everything to do as much damage as possible, those are the new 'norms'

The damage from releasing a report on classified documents is going be the equivalent of throwing a grain of rice at a M1 Abrams though so really this falls under "who cares."

As with Schumer's NLRB ooopsie, how do you keep pretending they're "in 2015 mode" rather than... this is what they want to do?

klippenstein do your thing

As with Schumer's NLRB ooopsie, how do you keep pretending they're "in 2015 mode" rather than... this is what they want to do?

The Democrats had an NLRB majority on the board, and so while it is possible that Schumer affirmatively decided he no longer wanted to have a Dem NLRB majority, and that he therefore deliberately concocted a strategy where he waited for Manchin and Sinema to arrive and vote no (and he secretly knew they vote no); I think he was just incompetent, blase, and lazy on this in not determining how Manchin and Sinema might vote, and thus Dems lost the majority they had held.

You're welcome to think that Garland wants to suppress the documents case report so as help Trump hide information and get away with crimes, but why did Garland appoint a special counsel at all then? Do you think Garland deliberately waited 2 years knowing that Trump would delay and fight everything to the Supreme Court, and therefore succeed in hiding everything? I think that centrist nice guy 2015 norms and politics Garland both wants the law to be fair to both sides, and the public good to be achieved, but he also naively like Schumer is just willing to let things play out while others play hard ball.

The damage from releasing a report on classified documents is going be the equivalent of throwing a grain of rice at a M1 Abrams

Trump is determined to not have the report released

You're welcome to think that Garland wants to suppress the documents case report so as help Trump hide information

I'd be welcome to think that? Thanks! It wasn't what I said though but I appreciate the permission.

The reality in both situations is much baser and it is about 'norms' in a way but not just some kind of ideological appeal to them - the Democrats aren't "in 2015 mode," no matter what happens they're always going to want to treat the Washington ecosystem as one big collegial family. Don't rock the boat too much. All the politicians and aides want the lobbying/consultant/think tank gigs and all the perks that come with access to power.

The Democratic party machine doesn't care about throwing you or your future under the bus as long as they get to stay in the game.

It's embarrassing to Trump to have a report released, just like it's embarrassing to be a convicted felon even though it didn't matter and he's not going to be punished - Trump is a giant blob of insecurity and shame but that doesn't mean the things he's ashamed of will matter to anyone else.

Aimless, go fuck yourself

sorry for having ideals instead of being anworthless simp for empire

I would suggest, table, that a poster who's made clear how his family depends on the broken system is not the same as an empire apologist.

and, Aimless, can you please reread your posts before you hit send? I don't think you realize how condescending you often sound.

Hi, Table. You asked me to imagine your ideal "starting over from scratch" as being realistic before calling you unrealistic. So, I tried. It is one of those ideals I found impossible to imagine happening without having at least one fingertip still touching reality, at which touch the entire enterprise of imagining it fell apart into a heap of intractable difficulties.

Hi, Alfred. I know why Table hates the present system and wants to do away with it. He's clear-eyed about that and I have no quarrel with his understanding of what's wrong and the intensity of his disdain for it. But as I said above, he asked us to consider his solution, viz. starting over from scratch, as something that should not be called unrealistic. I did consider it. It's incredibly unrealistic. I stand by that.

how jeff bezos' newspaper covers elon musk in a country that knowingly voted for a fascist oligarchy

https://i.imgur.com/Uf2IbUG.png

uh that actually seems pretty good

yeah, it's really good

https://i.imgur.com/V5JLhrp.png

just came here to post a photo that had Twitter and Bluesky trolls speculating

would've been a great image to watch Trump flanked by two scowling attendees

Also: https://bsky.app/profile/chelsisright.bsky.social/post/3lfd2qjxjn22b

melania has to count as at least one scowling attendee

That's who I meant.

oh, gotcha. as for the racist implications in posting that pic, i am sorry, i should have thought about that. my mind was on the oligarchy and how people who make it to the top are going to be just fine, either way, as the country crumbles.

still don't think he and Michelle should go to the inauguration, but one of the wonders of post-Nov. 5 is that I don't give a shit anymore

“It’s a big club — and you ain’t in it!” — George Carlin

xp it's just dismaying. and yeah, not giving a shit is understandable.

but it's hard not to note the differences between jan 2017 and jan 2025. in 2017, the day after his inauguration, there were massive protests against trump - everyone already knew what was coming, including hundreds of thousands of people in DC and millions across the country for the women's march. i remember the muslim ban order coming down and so many people just _activated_ and got out to protest.

i understand why it's different now. in 2017, there was still the sense that lots of people who watch tv and like to be entertained had been duped trump, not really understanding him. i remember trying to explain to my parents why trump was so bad, thinking it would make a difference. in 2025, that feeling doesn't exist. people voted for him because they prefer white christian fascism. rich people are fine with it because they will be fine. much like the guy whose soon to be burning mansion in LA is all over the news right now, they will buy new mansions. photos like that show the difference, to me. i am not on bsky much at all and definitely not on twitter, and not really "on" anything else where photos like that are shared and people talk about it, except for ilx. so i missed all the important discourse about why it's actually a horrible trolling photo and not a photo depicting the reality of having to cater to the obvious fascist for cameras. to me it looks like the end of something

It can be both.

btw by not giving a shit I meant giving a shit about MSNBC 'optics.' I still give very much a shit.

:) i figured you still gave a shit, and that makes me happy to hear

but i do think it's good to completely drop the msnbc optics, although at this point, the last 3-4 years, i'm not even sure what that means

I watched that this morning...I'll get ridiculed for this, but: I don't see that photo as Obama and Trump having some privileged bond. Obama knows Trump is a child; I don't know if he hates him--probably not, even though he should--so much as feels a kind of pity for him. And with the other ex-presidents conspicuously side-stepping Trump, I think there's a part of him that's just incapable of being part of some kind of group shunning. I honestly believe that. I think there's a decency about him that says, okay, it won't kill me to be civil for a couple of minutes. And when Trump dies, my guess is Obama will be the only one there at the funeral. (Wouldn't even surprise me if four years from now, Obama and Bush are all that's left.)

^^^^^^^

seriously what is obama supposed to do in the national cathedral at a state funeral for jimmy carter. give trump the cold shoulder?

Obama should have given him the frowning of his life. That’ll show em.

i don't know if you all are responding to me or to the horrible troll discourse

i guess if there isn't any discrepancy that says it all

the discourse

the idea that everything must be evaluated for optics. you're fine z_tbd

(to avoid confusion, i mean that in a bad way, for me - if there is no discrepancy between what i do and random internet trolls, that's bad for me - not as an insult to others)

sorry i posted the picture. i agree, if i were at a funeral i would stay cordial. the obamas have always represented that kind of stuff (you go low, we go high) and i think on balance it was a good thing that they tried

My post was just my own feelings about the photo, z_tbd, not directed at anything you posted.

I regret to say that I feel Trump's funeral will be well-attended

xpost oh gotcha waterface. sorry, i am very paranoid about being misunderstood, in general, and often feel like people are completely misunderstanding me. i'm also just a confusing person to be around. but ok! but yes i do regret posting the picture anyway. none of this helps

Can't wait for Obama's Carter Funeral Spotify Playlist to drop

I get why people would have a negative reaction to that photo, but I feel like it's like a paparazzi photo where people online scrutinize the expressions of a celebrity couple to conclude whether they are on the rocks.

Or this 2013 photo of Obama and Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt at Nelson Mandela's memorial service, which people had a lot to say about:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vk6pLlRx2Sc/maxresdefault.jpg

Maybe a podcast series where Obama and Trump talk about their dads.

jaymc otm about photos

Looking at the thread on bsky, and opining about this one way or the other is p bizarre to me; so much weird fan fiction. I don't think we've ever, as a species, really figured out what power (and fame) is / what it means / what it does to our consciousness

It'd be funny if Obama and Trump were just smilingly calling each a piece of shit tho.

Obama asking Trump to play a gas station attendant in his new Netflix film about how division leads to the end of the world

clemenza otm

"I'm not laughing AT you, I'm laughing NEAR you."

I hate that this is a national day of mourning i got checks in the mail

wait there's no mail service today?

The replies on that Bluesky post are horrifying.

And when Trump dies,

such magical words

Did the Postal Service get a day off for GHWB?

yes: https://about.usps.com/newsroom/statements/120318-usps-operating-status-national-day-of-mourning.htm

today is also Nixon's 111th birthday!

Correct, no mail today. When the heads of empire die, us mere peasants must withhold our need for money and medicine. Just another reminder that we are meaningless scum to be ignored and allowed to flounder.

NB I am extra bitter because I too am waiting for a sizable check and my mom is waiting for medication.

I am expecting a delivery of peanuts.

today is also Nixon's 111th birthday!

excuse me, 112th

Danish news outlet DR claims that President-elect Donald Trump’s aides “bribed” homeless and poor people with dinners in return for acting as Trump supporters during Donald Trump Jr’s visit to Greenland this week.

that sounds like 19th Century American politics, nothing new

But it's very telling that we're still a week+ out from inauguration and his aides are already tasked with furthering really weird, quixotic pursuits... I think this sets the tone for the next four years

Forgot about Nixon's birthday. Such weird timing--Nixon more than anyone put Carter in the White House.

One last thought on that photo: Melania looks mortified to even be in the same state with him.

she looks lobotomized

when does she start pouring Raid in his diet coke

I think explaining obama's reaction in that photo away in the manner that bsky poster did is offensive, and simply shows that some people cannot bear criticism of their sainted leaders.

really funny to see people losing their shit about That Photo today on Facebook, which just abandoned fact checking

eh, I read through other posts of hers, and I don't see sycophancy. I'm sick of the Obamas and have posted here that I'd be disgusted when they eventually appear at the inauguration, but arguing about the meaning of the photo is no less irritating than when the internet went ablaze on Tuesday over OMIGOD DID YOU SEE WHAT TRUMP SAID ABOUT THE GULF OF MEXICO. It's distraction.

all this shit about Greenland and the Gulf of Mexico is just him nibbling at a bread roll before the main course arrives.. soon he'll be doing the deportations, threatening California, private meetings with Putin, tariffs on EVERYBODY, i.e. the main course

well I don't think people need to lose their shit about it, but I also don't tink bending over backward to justify it makes any sense either. It's just another illustration that there is a strata of society and power that most people are not connected to. I have a hard time imagining AOC doing this, for example.

Junior went to Greenland because he heard snow was cheap and plentiful waka waka

Took me half a minute to realize the old dude to Al Gore's left is J. Danforth Quayle.

i.e. Savior of Our Democracy.

Quayle is only 77!

imdo the weirdest reactions to the Obama-Trump photo are the people saying "no surprise from Barack, but Michelle would never do this!"

I've come round to thinking that the Panama/Canada/Greenland stuff isn't a distraction so much as it's reflective of a combination imperialist-and-shit-stirring impulse that is genuinely alarming, even if this impulse doesn't get acted upon in these exact ways, if that makes any sense

yeah I disagree that those things are distractions. they are expressions of a desire to resurrect manifest destiny.

have a hard time imagining AOC doing this, for example.

Give it 15 years! In 2018 could you imagine her running cover for the Biden-Harris pro-genocide regime?

well luckily Trump will be dead in 15 years so we'll see

they are expressions of a desire to resurrect manifest destiny

ofc they are, but does he really think he'll annex Canada or Greenland? nope. unless he acts on them their main purpose is to act as doggie treats fed to a certain group of his loyal followers. he's just validating their stupid ultra-nationalist world view, which is largely based in white supremacy, even if most of them don't care to admit it to themselves. he's just giving them some love.

Personally, I'm a little torn on it because, yes, "let's invade Greenland" is a distraction and a treat tossed to the slathering idiots. That said, I also don't really like the handwaving dismissal of, "well of course he doesn't actually MEAN that", because that's exactly what gives the media cover to say just that when he talks of deportations by the millions.

I don't really care about a photo. A lot of the time you just have to be nice to people in public. Idk maybe it IS normalizing being civil to evil actors but is a state funeral the place where it matters the most if someone snubs Trump? Would it do any good? Would it be part of a change process that progresses toward anything we want? Someday AOC might do something equivalent (might already have, by some measures) and it also won't mean that she's bad or that she has no strategic value and can never do anything good or useful for progressive priorities. That's just not how I understand the value of elected officials.

yeah, I don't care about it either... it's a polite chuckle to some dumb 'joke'.. it's not like he's guffawing and slapping his knee

With Trump's wrestling background, maybe it's a shared laugh about the fake feud they concocted over the birth certificate.

“You idiots, Trump will leave office peacefully he’s just distracting us from the REAL issues”, etc…

I think Greenland-Panama is neither trolling, exactly, or
is it exactly serious in Trumpland. Put charitably as I can stand to put it, it's a signal to open your Overton windows as wide as they can go, so that the deal maker in chief can do his thing.

Hate to regurgitate Scott Adams-y persuader shit, but. Certainly to the right wingers I hate-read, this is hailed as him playing his cards close to his vest so as to keep the other guy off balance.

Foreign policy to these guys is a Bondian poker table fantasy where the opponent needs to think you're a maniac who might do some insane shit at any point, yadda yadda, not ruling anything out including nuking San Marino.

The photo - who cares

Opening the Overton window is about right, I think with the acquisition fantasies of Greenland, Canada, and Panama that he has broadcast to the world, he's signaling to Russia and China that they can do their own invasions of Ukraine and Taiwan and he won't mind

I'm going to have to tune out the next four years. I'm old so it won't affect me too much, but all of the shit that is going to going to happen is going to be bad.

You think with his belligerence to China he’d let Taiwan go?

You’re probably right.

Trump Derangement Syndrome might be an applicable term when you're talking about Ol Donnie Trump kowtowing to the RED CHINESE.

I guess that's a joke? hard to read a lot of the posts here

xp he will definitely let Taiwan go

sentencing is happening tomorrow, SCOTUS predictably opted not to hear the appeal

No, no joke. "Going to war with China is good actually and that traitor Donald Trump would never" is insane.

If China invades Taiwan fuck yes we should "let Taiwan go." Do you think it's a good thing for nuclear states to go to war? Talk about a death drive...

The sentencing will be mostly symbolic because whatever the nominal terms are I predict it will be a suspended sentence. If not that, then the equivalent.

Merchan should sentence him to working 12 hours at a community food bank

I say hang em

milo your "quote" isn't anything I said or implied. I'm not arguing with you about whether or not we should go to war, I'm saying he's encouraging Russia to take over Ukraine and China to take over Taiwan, and I don't that's good for the world

don't think

And I’m saying that if you think the guy whose primary first term accomplishment was kicking Cold War II into gear and starting a trade war with China is now encouraging an invasion Taiwan, you’re delusional.

We’ll see I guess

I say hang em

short of that, forcing him to wear a hairnet while serving at a soup kitchen would be my choice

I would like to see him hanged and his flesh stripped by carrion birds and then his bones ground into a fine dust and sold to Don Jr. as Bolivian Marching Powder

Also, the Obama-Trump photo is shameful but I would expect nothing less.

Yeah, Trump palling around with terrorist now

genuinely curious if the right is having the same reaction to that photo as we are

I would say probably less hand-wringing and more seen as power play, although with everything being about personalities and characters good guys bad guys who can say.

I think the Panama/Greenland/Canada stuff isn't really a clear case of distraction vs intention, but something else. Kind of an Overton window push, playing around with different things, but really its difficult to know.

With the tariffs, they'll either be implemented or they won't and the limbo will he won't he only lasts so long. This Greenland type stuff could live in this kind of limbo land for much longer though I think

Right, it's like nominating Matt Gaetz. So bizarre that it makes the horrible shit he is _actually_ gonna do seem tame in comparison.

I think it's sort of that but also kind of exploratory, things are floated as trial balloons, maybe we mean them maybe we don't. Maybe we mean them today but not tomorrow. Maybe don't mean them today but will tomorrow

The underlying thing to convey is there are no rules, there are rules but you can't see them, those who can see the rules they might change at the drop of a hat.

But this stuff is at its height right now while he isn't in power yet. The will he won't he shuffle over the tariffs has a limited shelf life once he gets in. If he's going to do them he has to do them within a certain timeframe or the threat loses credibility

Trump is dumb enough to believe he can bluster his way into annexing Canada and Greenland because Barron showed him a Youtube video once - it's not a planned effort to disguise his real intentions or a trial balloon, he's just saying whatever pops into his increasingly smooth brain.

He capacity is every bit as diminished as Biden's has been for the last 3-4 years but his morning Sudafed smoothie keeps him yapping and disguises it.

The only response anyone should have to this shit is ‘sundowning again?’

I saw the video of the Trump-Obama funeral conversion and the best part is when Kamala turns around and glares at them.

apparently Bush walked past Trump's extended hand

there is video of them shaking hands 3:10 here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0morziOEU9s

ok so what is "unconditional discharge"?

xpost but yeah Trump must be used to being snubbed. The Coup even had a song back in 1994 where other billionaires are trying to snub Trump.

xp to myself ah ok it means "no consequences whatsoever, yet again"

"Unconditional Discharge" noun

meaning: Wriggle

On X , the right are crowing that Obama yucking it up with Trump proves that Dems know Trump is not Hitler and not a horrible dictator.

And we're off, again: DOJ has appealed Judge Cannon's order that would delay the release of Jack Smith's report for at least three more days. Notice comes after 11th Circuit said it wouldn't block release but wouldn't consider lifting Cannon's injunction until DOJ asked… pic.twitter.com/NjDVY6zqgn

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) January 10, 2025

Speaking for myself, I think the Laken Riley Act is very dangerous. We should not be rolling back basic due process rights for longtime U.S. residents, or empowering Republican attorney generals to bar legal Indian and Chinese immigrants from the country https://t.co/YxXXqqZbaP https://t.co/UMt0s14vzS

— Eric Levitz (@EricLevitz) January 10, 2025

I’d see a doctor for unconditional discharge

I still don’t think Obama went lower than those pictures of him shooting skeet after Sandy Hook to reassure people that guns will always be more important than kids

i don't even get the point of calling that the laken riley act...wasn't she murdered? then why is her name attached to a bill that would deport people for non-violent crimes? or is the point that the person who killed her had been arrested for non violent crimes and allowed to stay?

Meta has ended all DEI practices effective immediately, including for hiring, citing the "shifting legal and policy landscape"

All these fuckers just so excited to stop pretending they ever cared about any kind of diversity.

Meta's Zuckerberg went on Joe Rogan and whined today I read.

In 2012, Obama's FTC allowed Zuck to buy Instagram without any conditions and any antitrust action to block it. While Lina Khan has admirably brought antitrust actions under Biden and blocked grocery monopoly mergers, the Biden Justice department and FTC have not brought actions to break up Meta

We wanted diversity until we politically didn't need it anymore

Bezos doing his best to suck up as well:

Now, we learn of the latest relationship-repair steps: a $40m licensing fee from Amazon for the great honor of producing a documentary on Melania Trump. The behemoth company stated that it is “excited to share this truly unique story”.

A few workers get uppity about unions and the moguls remember their love of Ayn Rand.

Don't understand why Merchan didn't at least issue a fine, that would not encumber 'the highest office in the land' barf

After Trump won it was a no-win situation for Merchan. The best thing to come of it all is the unanimous jury verdict stating Trump was guilty on 38 felony counts. That part happened and can't be undone.

All these fuckers just so excited to stop pretending they ever cared about any kind of diversity.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Friday, January 10, 2025 1:34 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM

Not really mask off, more like “we were never wearing masks”

Aimless also OTM. That stain is permanent. (Not that it matters to as many people as it should.)

Fetterman and some other right-leaning and centrist Dems have caved and supported that Laken Riley act. Here's a lib Dem take-

Immigration Q&A: Rep. Pramila Jayapal
Nico: Tell me a little about the Laken Riley Act. Where are you at with this bill?

Rep. Jayapal: So, I think what’s really important to know about this is that the bill does absolutely nothing to change in any way the existing law, which says that if you commit a heinous crime like that, and you are convicted of that, if you commit that crime, you are put in mandatory detention. And you can be deported actually, for that crime.

But similarly, for shoplifting, if you’re convicted of shoplifting or theft, you also get mandatorily detained. So, this bill doesn’t actually change anything that would make a difference to that case, but it’s named Laken Riley, and what it does do is it takes away all due process for any undocumented immigrants.

So, in other words, on the criminal justice side, we believe that there should be a fair day in court, you should actually be able to go through a process where it’s determined whether or not you committed the crime that you’re arrested with or arrested for or charged with.

Laken Riley Bill says you don’t get due process at all if you are arrested for or charged with but not convicted that you would be mandatorily detained. And that makes no sense at all because you haven’t even gone through the process, and I gave several examples of a person who was wrongly charged and spent 10 days in jail. Under this bill, that guy would be mandatorily detained, perpetually.

If you’re a TPS or DACA student and you just happen to like take a little bag of chips off the shelf, you are put into the same category as somebody who was convicted of murder. So, it’s a complete red herring because it’s not making Laken Riley’s family…it’s not doing anything different for Laken Riley, and it’s sweeping up all these people in this new process and entirely eliminates due process.

Nico: A lot of your Democrat colleagues had similar reservations about this aspect of the bill…

Rep. Jayapal: And then there’s another part of it that’s unconstitutional, which is giving State Attorney Generals the ability to sue on Federal Immigration law, and so that is also a problem that has already been defined by 8 of 9 Supreme Court Justices as unconstitutional, so that the other part of this, which is that it’s likely unconstitutional in that sense as well.

If I'm reading it correctly, even her hypothetical of taking some chips softens it quite a bit. It seems like you wouldn't have to have done anything at all, it opens the door to completely fabricated accusations. Or am I missing something?

Isn't the point of the bill that people will be detained for small offenses, and that because they are undocumented they don't deserve rights? It does sound like a recipe for abuse.

The bill which has passed the House and now goes to the Senate does just say one has to be charged with shoplifting and not convicted; and Republicans and some Dems say that this is ok because they say that anyone who is not a citizen is in the country already illegally (even if they're a "Dreamer" or applied for asylum). The bill also gives states too much power regarding immigration. Dems in Senate could filibuster and block it , but would have to be ready for lots of misleading attacks by the supporters of the bill (and this coming after recent years of silence from the Biden administration regarding defending immigration and making clear that not all immigrants are murderous criminals)

x-post - there's an FTC lawsuit against Zuckerberg and Meta that is scheduled to go to trial in spring 2025, but it's now that Trump's Justice Department will stop it, thanks to Zuck's recent actions

It's possible now that Trump's Justice Department will stop Meta suit, I mean

Guiliani held in contempt for the second time this week, are they ever going to like, give him a few days in jail or what?

They should take more and more from him until he's committing quality-of-life offenses (drunk and disorderly, pissing on the subway) just so they'll put him in jail and he'll have someplace to sleep that night.

If I'm reading it correctly, even her hypothetical of taking some chips softens it quite a bit. It seems like you wouldn't have to have done anything at all, it opens the door to completely fabricated accusations. Or am I missing something?

Gotta fill those slave labor camps somehow!

exactly

Forcing already-incarcerated people to be slaves and risk their lives while putting out wildfires isn’t good enough?

They want to take a workforce that is already severely underpaid and force them to work for free.

ok so what is "unconditional discharge"?

― sleeve, Saturday, January 11, 2025 2:27 AM (eleven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Unreleased stormy daniels sextape

I realize that I'm basically the most 'establishment' Dem on this board, but god damnit, seeing Obama and Trump in a photo, and said photo does not feature Barack pinning him to the ground, alternating haymakers while screaming 'RAPIST FUCKS CAN EAT SHIT!' until he's physically removed from the mud-mask-donning (ahem) fuckstick, makes me rationally angry. Barack: you are a former Prez, meaning, untouchable - therefore, the only other person on earth allowed to offer such action - and you are NOT doing so? Really, B.O.? What the fuck?

Obama was always a hyper-capitalist piece of shit. I can’t believe people ever thought there was any real substance to his lip service bullshit. I’ve had some really bad arguments with my partner about him, as she continues to idolize the image he projected of himself

That sound you heard was DJP in a time machine going back to donate another $20 to Obama's campaign.

My congressional rep is Ilhan Omar, and when the candidates I manage meet with her later this month (since the congressional representative serves as the leader of the local party), I'm gonna ask her if she can get the other Dems (215 House Reps and 47 senators) to start a relentless, constant "RA-PIST! RA-PIST!" chant at Rapist in a Mud Mask's state of the union

Are you an AI trained on old episodes of The West Wing and Pod Save America?

xp As satisfying as that fantasy might be if it happened, the real measure of its effectiveness isn't whatever the Congressional Dems chose to shout in unison, but the bare fact that they were in unanimous agreement to shout it. That implies a much greater degree of organization and unanimity of direction than the democrats in Congress usually achieve and might promise a relatively effective response to Trump's policies might emerge within the party.

“WE SURRENDER! WE SURRENDER!”

Isn't the point of the bill that people will be detained for small offenses, and that because they are undocumented they don't deserve rights? It does sound like a recipe for abuse.

Fwiw this already happens. It will be much worse if/when this bill passes, but I wrote an article a few years ago about a guy who was in a car accident — the other driver's fault! — but he was driving without a license and was taken in to be booked for that. Even though the charge was eventually dismissed, by then he'd already been placed into deportation proceedings. Spent months in a detention center, and is still afaik awaiting his deportation hearing.

https://compassknox.com/2021/04/01/blurred-borders/

Peter Thiel's kooky oped in the Financial Times is notable mostly for confirming that the entire current right-wing power structure is just nothing but idiots from top to bottom. This guy's an alleged evil genius, but like Musk (and Ginni Thomas, and all the rest) he's just reciting the same dumb conspiracy theories about everything from JFK to COVID. They're all positive that they know these things and these things are true, because they saw them on what Thiel helpfully identifies as "the internet."

https://www.ft.com/content/a46cb128-1f74-4621-ab0b-242a76583105

Uh, I’d suggest that, given that 2 out of 3 Dem presidents of the last 40 years have had some real bad allegations against them that didn’t exactly get their full day in court, maybe chanting about sexual assault ain’t exact the most effective thing.

Also, a thing always needing to be remembered is the amount of continuity between presidential administrations and how the focusing on the particulars of national figures obscures that. The amount of Trump Admin policies that got normalized(and worsened) by the Biden Admin, and the amount of Obama Admin shit that the Trumpers made worse, is far more than gets airing in American media discourse.

Instead of handwringing about dem presidents not having their day in court let’s give them a day in court instead of backing down from insulting these dipshits every chance we get

Uh, I’d suggest that, given that 2 out of 3 Dem presidents of the last 40 years have had some real bad allegations against them that didn’t exactly get their full day in court, maybe chanting about sexual assault ain’t exact the most effective thing.

Biden and Obama are the two? What allegations? Obama's drone bombing of American citizens strikes me as the most plausible.

Biden and Clinton surely given the SA context

The Tara Reade thing? That wasn't at all credible.

tara reade was very obviously paid by russia as part of some disinfo campaign.

lol

tbh I don’t remember any details, just guessing that’s what kingfish meant

I heard Obama smoked crack with gay prositiutes

FALSE. It was meth, and they were bi.

So much misinformation online.

I thought that was Andrew Gillum.

That was definitely a RW rumor about Obama at the time though.

Yes, and Michelle is trans and said kill whitey on tape

Honestly, that would make me like her.

I’ll take trans and radical Michelle over “They go low, we stay high” nonsense and executive producing garbage

Well, yeah.

My reference was the Clinton shit. Obama’s failures were in other areas.

Also the amount of public shock expressed in many avenues over Trump and Obama appearing to get on so well at the widely broadcast state functions like the Carter funeral is kinda disappointing, but no way surprising.

Like JFC, people, class solidarity is a real thing. This is not a statement calling for more cynicism, so much as for guarded clarity.

otm

I don't recall, but did Obama ever call Trump a fascist or compare him to Hitler?

I feel like saying these things is fine, and talking to him in public and not shunning him is also fine. But you can't really do both without undermining credibility and trust

Which is why you have to be careful with terms like this, because this is how they lose their value. I mean it today, but not tomorrow. He's a fascist, but also joking around with fascists is fine, and actually they're all fascists anyway, whats the big deal

I'm not saying you should or shouldn't call anyone anything, its more about the excessive flexibility of terms and conditional application

Hitler being nice to his dog or telling a funny joke is just not a thing.

class solidarity is a real thing

so is the club of ex-presidents. there's only four of them now, gotta stick together!

Jack Smith has retired. He has seen enough

I don't recall, but did Obama ever call Trump a fascist or compare him to Hitler?

I feel like saying these things is fine, and talking to him in public and not shunning him is also fine. But you can't really do both without undermining credibility and trust

I don't personally have an issue with it, and I don't think Obama ever made any such statements about Trump so there is no inconsistency. I think the issue is more with figures calling Trump a fascist one day, and then palling around at Mar-A-Lago the next, is going to reduce credibility.

I agree that there's something of a tendency to treat actors almost as people we know, as people rather than holders of positions that have requirements. Anyone acting in a professional capacity with Trump needs to be interacting with the office not the person, ie someone in say Zelensky's position needs to be glazing Trump right now

Y’all have never had to go to funerals or weddings and had to be civil to people you found loathsome? Really?

Not me! Been a bit 'lucky' on this perhaps but also haven't been to that many of either though, relatively.

Having only seen photos I'm a bit curious on whether Obama thought 'I'll sit next to him so no-one else has to deal with it', or to what extent Trump thought "I don't want to sit on the end as Melania won't talk to me' to name but two of several possibilities. That's more than enough deliberation on it though.

BRENNAN: Do you expect though that Republicans will still help Californians in need even if they don't like their local politics and the party?

SEN. BARRASSO: I expect there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved ...

Republican senator who was certainly fine with aid to Florida, appears on CBS Face the Nation saying this

Trump appointee Aileen Cannon injunction on release of J6 portion of Special Counsel report could theoretically expire Sunday night at 7 eastern time, and then the US Just Department could release it. But she may respond to 11th Circuit ruling and who knows what else with something else tonight to further block it. US Attorney General Garland has not yet taken any steps to get the documents case portion of the report released to the public (as he is naively hoping the case against 2 Trump aides who helped hide the docs can still go forward. )

US Justice Department

I thought drama with Aileen Cannon injunction was to end last night but it’s not till tonight or tomorrow regarding releasing either part of special counsel report. Garland is so wimpy about this. The public should see both the J6 and the documents reports. Under Biden’s new presidencial immunity he can release both , but naive Garland is letting Trump appointee Cannon play out the clock . He could drop the lawsuit against the 2 Trump underlings in the docs case and release both reports as Trump will be sure to end the cases against the 2 and kill both reports

Good morning!

Well, Garland's wimpiness won't be a problem in a few days.

is he wimpy or is he getting the outcome that he wanted?

Sometimes that's all a wimp can do.

Diary of a Wimpy AG

Garland will have the lamest memoir of all time

Weenie: From AG to Quisling

There’s a little wimp in all of us

Wimpy: I'll Gladly Indict You Tuesday For a Crime You Committed in 2021

Maybe tomorrow, tee hee: the garland story

Said, woman, take it slow
It'll work itself out fine
All we need is just a little patience

i might pick up the future garland memoir, but i don't know, i have a feeling that every single day for 4 years straight i'm going to have to wait for a more compelling reason before acting

i'm beginning to think that the mcconnell/garland supreme court thing is connected to the mcconnell/30 seconds with satan thing

McConnell turned Garland into a resistance hero when he was really just a wimp

mcconnell saw satan, who said "don't worry, you don't have to do anything, now or later. because garland isn't going to do anything, now or later." in his brain, mcconnell said "what?", and satan was like "exactly. just stand there dumbfounded for a few more seconds. no one has to do anything. we're good here. okay, your handler is going to take you away from the microphone now. you did a great job, mitch, you did pretty much everything we asked you to do for the last 50 years, thank you"

"Devil, come on back if you ever wanna try again.
I done told you once, my name is Mitch, I'm the best there's ever been."

Biden should just release everything and then mumble something like "Shunshine is the besht dishinfecshunt"

my federal agency has decided to get out on front of DOGE, who's sole intent is to make federal worker's lives miserable, by making all non-union represented management return to the office 4 to 5 days a week. love to have leaders that fight for you

In my workplace ONLY the non-union represented management gets to work at home one day a week.

from what Steve Bannon is saying about Musk, I wonder if this DOGE thing even gets off the ground... Musk might well move on to the next shiny object

The Bannon nativists don’t seem to have much power anymore. See: MAGA Civil War over visas that lasted 24 hours. Every time they’ve tried to set up MAGA shit without Trump over his nationalist betrayals they quickly discover the CHUDs don’t really care.

“Steve Bannon calls Musk a racist” is more likely to get Steve Bannon a speaking slot at the 2028 DNC than it is to impact Musk.

well, Bannon thinks he's some kind of chief of staff or something, kicking ass and taking names on Day 1

X-post- So Trump judge Cannon is supposedly now allowing the Special Counsel J6 Report to be be released, but Cannon is, however, claiming to maintain jurisdiction as to Volume Two, which relates the to classified documents case, setting a hearing for Friday Jan. 17.

hahaha, protesters at the Hegseth hearing are doing great work

I think Bannon starting a little war with Musk is more likely to keep this stupid DOGE shit going. Let's be real, Trump loves when his underlings are constantly battling each other and jockeying for attention

Seen this? Jennifer Rubin and Norman Eisen's new anti-Trump platform: https://contrarian.substack.com/

I know there are reasons to be cynical/skeptical about Rubin in particular, but whatever. They're putting their energy and resources into it, fine by me.

That former Romney shill sure has traveled a distance.

She's been on journey, but at least in a better direction than a lot of people in her cohort.

the contributors' list is filled with nightmares (Andy Borowitz? lmao) but w/e substacks are eminently easy to ignore

it's nice of them to pull all of the people I don't need to hear from in one place that's easily avoidable

lol yeah it's not exactly an "Avengers assemble!" moment.

lol mh so true

it's nice of them to pull all of the people I don't need to hear from in one place that's easily avoidable

How I felt when Jonathan Chait joined the Atlantic.

Definitely one thing I have thought about since the election is, what if there had just been more Borowitz. Or if he had Borowitzed harder.

drumpf harder

that contributors list is a mix of "ok, sure, whatever" for a handful of commentators and lawyers mixed with "George Conway and Andy Borowitz, what a dream team"

how's Project Lincoln going

there's got to be a way. a third way, exactly down the middle of all disagreements among political actors who are definitely prioritizing the public interest above all

there's gotta be a way to make money and save money at the same time. to do a good thing and also to make a ton of money doing it. it takes money to make money, and you can't win if you don't play. take the third way. because being a quarter correct on one side and a quarter correct on the other side adds up to being half correct, which can be rounded up to full victory

we need a crack team of well-funded consultants to point out that Trump's got some overpaid consultants

the strongest endorsements that were notable enough to be quoted on wikipedia are from Jennifer Rubin and James Carville. they definitely have the juice

Not sure how that platform can be seen as anything but slop erupting from a circle jerk of minor members of the ruling class commentariat.

they're going to be erupting slop no matter where they are, though?

Might as well keep all the slop in one handy bucket rather than splattered in multiple places, imo

Wicker shuts down Reed's request to make the Pete Hegseth FBI report available to all members pic.twitter.com/r9YiGQSyoF

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 14, 2025

However, one source told Mayer that they witnessed Hegseth drinking excessively within the last two years, as the Trump DoD pick allegedly ordered three gin and tonics during a breakfast the two had at a bar back in 2023.

"I don’t know how he could pass a security clearance," the source confided to Mayer. "But they’re trying to create a culture where whistle-blowers are uncomfortable coming forward."

As an accelerationist*, I congratulate Pete Hegseth on his new job and look forward to his total destruction of the US military machine from within.

*I am not an accelerationist

xp maybe he has malaria and needs the quinine

It's like a lot of the stuff you hear from the right these days — they're against Big Pharma, they're against "endless wars," but their solutions to those things is to put the absolute worst and dumbest people in charge of them.

We’re only going fight drunk wars now

I don't see how you can start the day without three gin and tonics tbh

hear hear

Hegseth enjoyed a brief respite when it was Sen. Markwayne Mullin's (R-Okla.) turn to ask questions.

Defending Hegseth against allegations of infidelity, Mullin decided to tell the committee about his own struggles: “I've made mistakes. And Jennifer (Hegseth, the nominee's third wife) thank you for loving him through that mistake, because the only reason why I'm here and not in prison is because my wife loved me, too.”

It's not clear what the senator thinks he might have been in prison for.

Drinking three gin and tonics and trying to seduce his wife.

We’re only going fight drunk wars now

worked for churchill (sorta)

"I've made mistakes"

So did your parents when they named you 'Markwayne'

worked for churchill (sorta)

the real 'london blitz' amIrite?

Barroom Blitz

Markwayne sounds like a forgotten Rawkus signee

My new senator really covering himself in glory... from AV Club writer Will Harris, on Bluesky:

Eating lunch and watching a few minutes of the Hegseth hearing. Sen. Tim Sheehy instantly comes off as a prick by asking Hegseth a question about the number of genders and then adding that he knew the answer because of his last name (pronounced "she-he").

The first time I saw Sheehy post-swearing in, he was standing next to Tommy Tuberville on Fox. Now this. What a piece of shit that guy is.

Revenge addiction is not a moral defect and has no political boundaries. It is a disorder or disease like type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and asthma. People need help, not more punishment. The phenomenon of Donald Trump has become a national laboratory and experiment for revenge addiction.

needed to put that somewhere. from an edsall column in the times -- he is quoting a psychologist he exchanged emails with.

"Donald Trump is out for revenge and he needs our help" should be included in the 'multivalent and ambiguous language' thread.

NEWS: Pete Hegseth’s FBI background check does not include interviews with Hegseth’s ex-wives or with the woman who accused Hegseth of sexual assault in a Monterrey hotel room in 2017, three sources tell @ryanobles @S_Fitzpatrick @ckubeNBC & me @NBCNews.

Story tk...

— Julie Tsirkin (@news_jul) January 13, 2025

"My background is totally clear and you'll find nothing bad at all, provided you don't talk to her... or her... or them... oh, or her."

I don't think it's fair to hold Hegseth responsible for anything he was too drunk to remember

I don't think it's fair to hold Hegseth responsible for anything he was too drunk to remember

I think we should all stop a moment, step back, and remember another man who, for a period in his life, was widely known as a ne'er do well and an alcoholic, but later, in middle years of life, he forswore alcohol and within a few years he was accorded the highest honor our nation can bestow, his election to be our President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. The man I am speaking of was none other than George W. Bush. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Rest of the Story. /PaulHarvey

Drunkard, philandering Fox News Host vows to bring a 'Warrior Culture' back to the Armed Services lol

Sen. Tim Sheehy instantly comes off as a prick by asking Hegseth a question about the number of genders and then adding that he knew the answer because of his last name (pronounced "she-he").

ugh, blowticious

Republicans quickly came to Hegseth’s defense. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a close Trump ally, flipped the attack on Democrats and accused them of hypocrisy.

“How many senators have shown up drunk to vote at night?” Mullin asked.

"I am Spartacus!" one yelled. "I am Spartacus!" yelled another.

Sexual assault and drinking on the job with impunity, these guys really are trying to resurrect some golden era of male supremacy.

He also insisted at his hearing today that he did a great job at the two small veterans organizations he led; in contrast to the New Yorker magazine allegations that:

CNN
—
Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, was pushed out as the head of two veterans’ advocacy organizations amid internal allegations of mismanagement and personal misconduct, The New Yorker reported

Color me utterly unsurprised that they wanna shut down the Dept of Education and get the Feds out of the schools ('States Rights!'), but then go ahead and pass something Federal like this:

House Republicans pushed through sweeping legislation on Tuesday to block transgender women and girls from school sports, escalating a fierce culture-war battle that puts federal education dollars on the line...

{note it says nothing about transgender boys, I guess they're not a threat)

{note it says nothing about transgender boys, I guess they're not a threat)

No such thing. In the Republican universe, "trans" means "boys dressing up like girls for pervert reasons." Period.

Another day, another slimy nominee hearing - Pam Bondi for attorney general who in Florida declined to get involved in a suit against Trump University after a Trump entity donated $25,000 to her PAC. She was involved more recently in Trump’s efforts circa 2020 to get fake electors and overturn the election.

Plus some housing scams spelled out here -

https://prospect.org/justice/2025-01-14-pam-bondi-pay-to-play-justice-system/

The Pam Bondi confirmation hearing is becoming an exercise in defaming DOJ as weaponized and politicized because it charged Donald Trump with crimes. They can’t possibly believe this garbage, but the risk is that viewers will.

— Barb McQuade (@BarbMcQuade) January 15, 2025

Trump AG nominee Pam Bondi says “there will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice,” and praises FBI director nominee Kash Patel, who has such a list of people perceived to be Trump critics. pic.twitter.com/JfA7DL1GsR

— The Recount (@therecount) January 15, 2025

It will be an Enemies Spreadsheet

Pam Bondi REFUSES to admit that Donald Trump LOST the 2020 election.

"I think that question deserved a yes or no, and I think the length of your answer is an indication that you weren't prepared to answer yes." pic.twitter.com/VlL0NWoBza

— American Bridge 21st Century (@American_Bridge) January 15, 2025

Senate votes on Laken Riley act tomorrow I think.

Senate Dems, including Fetterman (w/ Ossoff and Gallego as likely), lining behind an anti-immigrant bill that while named after a murder victim, targets nonviolent immigrant offenders for detention

Once more, we have no pro-immigrant parties in this country https://t.co/rhLmlkZPDT

— Ramón Garibaldo Valdéz (@GaribaldoValdez) January 7, 2025

Huh, turns out Biden was lying about trying to stop the genocide the entire time.

"A diplomat briefed on the ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas credited progress in the talks in part to the influence of President-elect Donald Trump, saying it was 'the first time there has been real pressure on the Israeli side to accept a deal.'"… pic.twitter.com/urPXb5f48f

— Evan Hill (@evanhill) January 15, 2025

I’m dubious about giving the credit to Trump

I don’t think career Foreign Service people are going on background to lie about a lack of pressure on Israel from Biden.

xp biden obviously is extremely pro-israel and he and harris hold a lot of responsibility for the genocide.

but that washpo snippet via twitter doesn't mean anything.

which diplomat said it? might they have any reason to paint trump in a positive light?

Fair or no, I'll just assume that anything positive said about Trump in the WaPo is Bezos campaigning to keep Amazon's glut of Chinese goods tariff-free

^^^^This

Nice overview of things and the history of changes after the Dubya Admin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsHV5aFkxyc

three peas in a pod at the inauguration.. oligarchs to the front row please, no need to hide in the shadows any longer

Musk, the world’s richest person and a top adviser to Trump; Amazon’s Bezos; and Mark Zuckerberg of Meta will be prominently placed together near members of Trump’s cabinet, according to an NBC News report on Wednesday, continuing their rapid public swing to the right as they cozy up to Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) power base.

Capitol flags will fly at full-staff during inauguration Monday. This comes after Trump complained about President Biden's directive that they remain at half-staff to honor Jimmy Carter's death. (Axios)
Plus: Tech bigwigs Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerburg and Jeff Bezos will all attend the event, where they'll be seated together on the platform. (NBC)
Former first lady Michelle Obama will skip. (Axios)

Awesome!

Imagine what one big bomb could achieve on that day.

It's supposed to be in the 20s in DC on Monday. Given the incoming president's love of long, long speeches, I'm hoping this sets the stage for a rerun (a speedrun, even, since the fucker already had COVID at least once) of the William Henry Harrison administration.

Imagine what one big bomb could achieve on that day.

My mind went this direction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4XSwqNCDnc

While imagining what that would achieve, factor in what 9/11 achieved for freedom and justice in the good old USA and the rest of the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqhZiDux9y8

on MLK Jr. day no less... ugh

Almost 20 Democrats have voted yes so far on Cornyn’s amendment expanding list of offenses to the Laken Riley Act

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 15, 2025

oh god the nyt has another "let's talk to 12 (hardened ideologue and/or baffling extraterrestrial) men who voted for trump and pretend it's insightful" if you feel like boiling with rage

Thanks, I love a nice boil!

it is p cold here in Montreal lol

Like I obviously understand the whys of Zuck and Bezos cozying up to Trump, since he's going to make sure they both continue to get richer. But I guess I'm kind of surprised just how blatantly and completely they are doing it, what makes them so confident the tides aren't going to change again? Like billionaires like this usually quietly support one side so they can cozy up to the other when the votes shift, rarely so egregiously as this. Are they just both short-sighted? Or just saying "fuck it all", lemme grab as much money as I can in four years and who cares what comes next?

(obviously not including Musk in this because that guy makes no sense on so many levels)

I think part of it is fear of Trump's retribution, they want to make it perfectly clear to Trump that they are friendly to him lest he punish them in some way.

They know Dems will never retaliate and the contracts will keep flowing if the Dems are allowed to take power again. Norms!

I have no idea what's going on with Zuckerberg or Bezos personally, other than new wardrobes and an affinity for testosterone supplements, but business leaders meeting with an incoming president and acting like they're willing to play ball is just business. Trump's blustery garbage is a different playbook and it looks like direct support because they're meeting on his turf and donating to the inauguration festivities or whatever, but it's just a variation on the same old crap.

I'm a little more cynical about all of Meta's announcements. I think leadership tipped their hand too far and the rank and file employees are voicing a lot of frustration because they're realizing the company they thought they worked for isn't the reality. The entire "we're shifting to community notes" garbage mysteriously also aligns with their decision not to renew a contract with their content moderation subcontractor.

I mean, Tim Cook met with Trump and donated some of his own money, but he also got an audience and any tariffs have a penciled-in exception for Apple's supply chain. The government's just another entity they have to negotiate with.

sorry, forgot to call him Tim Apple
that man is the most amazing cipher, he may as well be Tim Applebusiness

but business leaders meeting with an incoming president and acting like they're willing to play ball is just business. Trump's blustery garbage is a different playbook and it looks like direct support because they're meeting on his turf and donating to the inauguration festivities or whatever, but it's just a variation on the same old crap.

Well, sure, it is business to them and bottom line is the increase in net worth they'll see under Trump. I don't think this is "the same old crap" though, I don't recall any of these guys sitting on the stage with Biden for his inauguration. Meeting with and donating to, yeah, of course, this looks like something more though.

It's out: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/us/elections/2024-election-map-precinct-results.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Why are Zuckerberg, Bezos, and the others cuddling up to Trump in a way they didn't in 2016/17?

It could be all the capital/financial reasons outlined above, but then why not last time around? Perhaps a belief the pendulum has swung this time in a way they didn't think had before

A darker reason might be that they're scared of retribution or punishments that they didn't consider to be on the table before. If one possible future is Hungary, or 2010s Russia, that may have been a consideration. Whether they genuinely believe thats an aim or not, or to what level, who knows, but the actions of 2025 aren't quite the same as 2017

xxp I was going to joke it was because Biden had object permanence, but I'm not going to get into that sidebar

Zuckerberg's Meta is facing an FTC lawsuit so he wants that dropped. Musk is also facing legal action by Biden administration and he wants that dropped .

Good send-off for Blinken

@samhusseini holding Blinken and this administration accountable as always. “Why aren’t you in The Hague?!” #gaza #palestine pic.twitter.com/f9DkotVLbS

— Nader Abed (@naderabed) January 16, 2025

But I guess I'm kind of surprised just how blatantly and completely they are doing it, what makes them so confident the tides aren't going to change again?

no one needs super negative thoughts, and i am not saying this _IS_ going to happen, but there is a pretty good chance that we already had the last "real" election we're ever going to have in this country. the tides might change again, but we might be in the full-on oligarchy era now. maybe they, being the embodiment of know-it-all-corrupt-CEO energy, believe they see the future and realize they don't need to worry about what "people" say about them now.

or, you know, trump is very old and dumb and he doesn't know what he's doing; americans, demonstrably, have collectible amnesia; all the problems with the courts and the collapse of democratic institutions will be either corrected or turned out to be overblown; 2026 and 2028 will be a huge midterm surprise as america temporarily wakes up again, etc

Why are Zuckerberg, Bezos, and the others cuddling up to Trump in a way they didn't in 2016/17?

Because their workers have spent the last 8 years for better treatment and more say in their companies and Democrats became more pro-union, more eager to use the power of the FTC, more amenable to anti-trust actions.

on the positive side - what about an olive garden oligarchy

Just saw this headline and had a long and bitter laugh: Trump will be inaugurated on Martin Luther King Day. Will that inspire him?

God, I hate this timeline so much

LOL

The inspiration: “I should have a day named after me.”

I hope it inspires someone (I will say no more)...

Just realized that James Earl Ray, James Earl Jones, and James Earl (Jimmy) Carter are now all dead.

We'll never see their like again.

Now we’re out of ray, jones, and carter

Republicans don’t care about the cost of the Laken Riley act or due process issues. They just want the headline that they will pass this bill re immigrants. The bill passed the House but the Republican Senate has to vote on amendments first and determine if they have enough Democratic votes to block a filibuster. 5 Dems are supporting it and the Republicans need 2 more to prevent a filibuster

The Laken Riley Act would cost up to $83 billion in the first 3 years to implement—more than DHS's entire annual budget.

That’s a lot of money to spend on a bill that'll cause chaos, punish legal immigrants, & undermine due process—while drawing resources away from true threats. pic.twitter.com/wRAwCvyAeV

— Senator Patty Murray (@PattyMurray) January 16, 2025

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/politics/stephen-miller-trump.html

Mr. Zuckerberg was amenable. He signaled to Mr. Miller and his colleagues, including other senior Trump advisers, that he would do nothing to obstruct the Trump agenda, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private conversation. Mr. Zuckerberg said he would instead focus solely on building tech products.

Mr. Zuckerberg blamed his former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, for an inclusivity initiative at Facebook that encouraged employees’ self-expression in the workplace, according to one of the people with knowledge of the meeting. He said new guidelines and a series of layoffs amounted to a reset and that more changes were coming.

Earlier this month, Mr. Zuckerberg’s political lieutenants previewed the changes to Mr. Miller in a private briefing. And on Jan. 10, Mr. Zuckerberg made them official: Meta would abolish its D.E.I. policy.

^That article is mostly about Stephen Miller, but the lede really makes Zuck out to be a sniveling worm

remember when we were like three inches from Trump's head turning into a pink mist

considering facebook to be an uprising of workers hungry for a union is a little right, but really, the portion who aren’t subcontractors have a large segment of middle management who think of themselves as future VPs.

if you think I ever seem leaning a bit too far toward “that’s how it is” pragmatism, you have no idea how these mf’ers post. “happy to introduce reactions to facebook payments!”

The New Yorker has a long article about Lauren Boebert which (rather like Boebert) I do not need on my life, but it does contain the word "angertainment." Somehow this is the first time I have seen this coinage.

Beyond the tech-bros' obvious self-interests, I think the other difference this time is that they really now feel and believe that they are right about how the world works and should work, which is that they are geniuses and they should rule everything.

If the 20th Century taught us anything (and it hasn't) it's that the kind of power and wealth the tech bros are gliding into will, swiftly or slowly, destroy them and everything they touch and make them miserable. It remains to be seen if anything else will remain after their demise.

jesus christ

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly443wxl78o

Promo shots from a CW series about a youth pastor and Satan living together.

The only thing more pathetic than these portraits is anyone who doesn't see them as pathetic.

The Trump-Vance transition said in a press release that the portraits "go hard".

Trump is edgy, he's "in your face." You've heard the expression, "let's get busy"? Well, this is a president who gets "biz-zay!" Consistently and thoroughly.

The spokesman concluded “Thank you Based God.”

ACLU will be busy challenging these executive orders Miller is drawing up that are mentioned in The NY Times article

People briefed on the executive orders that his team is drafting say they include an attempt to end birthright citizenship; a designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations; and a reinstatement of Title 42, which allows the United States to seal the border with Mexico if there is a public health threat. (Mr. Trump’s advisers have spent months trying to identify a disease that will help them build a case for Title 42, since there is no such emergency at the moment.)

Birthright citizenship is in the 14th amendment to the Constitution. Plus much of the above is just designed to show his base he is doing things as alas, Biden already restricted immigration somewhat. Obviously the Trump plans to deport, and the talk of bombing drug dealers in Mexico is more extreme.

The NY Times article that Jaymc shared above

The Supreme Court UPHOLDS the TikTok ban with no noted dissents, turning away a First Amendment challenge

The Supreme Court holds that strict scrutiny does NOT apply to the TikTok ban, applying intermediate scrutiny instead. And the court relies SOLELY on Congress' argument that TikTok gives the Chinese govt access to private data

That’s from legal news journalist Mark Joseph Stern on Bluesky

President Biden on Friday declared that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution is "the law of the land," a surprising declaration that does not have any formal force of effect, but that is being celebrated by its backers, who plan to rally today in front of the National Archives.

Hmm. Okay.

The national archivist said that she does not have the ability to put it into effect a month ago, based on judicial opinion. It'd take a legislative and/or judicial change to put it into effect, is what I am reading, not an executive endorsement. Which falls short of an actual executive order telling her to do so.

That's So Biden!

https://bsky.app/profile/nytpitchbot.bsky.social/post/3lfvsy4ytbc2a

lmao

Birthright citizenship is in the 14th amendment to the Constitution

They're already working on a 'that's not what they meant' argument, the details of which escape me at the moment

I can't wait for this case because the textual history is actually pretty strong; the amendment writers may not have foreseen what we'd do with it in the future, but they damn sure knew they meant birthright citizenship.

I think they'd like to use an argument that the amendments passed after the Civil War are illegitimate because the Founding Fathers were dead at that point

And the major Supreme Court decision on it, Wong v. Kim, dates from just 30 years after the 14th amendment passed, when the court had ready access to its legal background and intent. I gather that the exception that they want to carve out is especially for children of “illegal” immigrants, but it is just totally at odds with the legal history of the country. The court would have to effectively find that generations of Americans were granted citizenship in properly. It’s hard to imagine that it would be imposed retroactively, but it still seems like the legal knot you would have to tie to make that case might be hard to get a SCOTUS majority for.

lol remembered the cite wrong, it’s U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark.

The Trump-Vance transition said in a press release that the portraits "go hard"

pssshhh, beta cucks aren't even wearing AR-15 lapel pins

I do not give one single fuck about Tik Tok but it's amazing how fucking hard the dems got played on this. Trump was the one pushing to get it shut down. Now he's getting credit from Tik Tok for advocating to save it, leaving Biden to get the blame from young (stupid) future voters.

XP Well, Trump can't own an AR-15 anyway...

i'm gonna have to look at that portrait every fucking day now that i've been forced back into the office

Biden executive orders as noted in Washington Post—He’s designated national monuments in California and removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. He’s blocked a Japanese company’s takeover of U.S. Steel and extended temporary protected status to nearly 1 million immigrants. He’s commuted the sentences of nearly everyone who was on federal death row, and he’s granted to his son Hunter a sweeping pardon.

Wish he had done some of those orders much sooner .

Biden executive orders as noted in Washington Post

he could close the prison in Guantamo Bay with the flourish of a pen... I have no idea why he doesn't, throw the actual 'terrorists' if there are any in the Colorado Supermax and send everyone else to Qatar or somewhere, just do it already

So, Elon is going to buy TikTok so it's American-owned and also so yet another popular social network can push right-wing political views on everyone, right?

a place to sing and dance and lipsync and own the libtards

https://media3.giphy.com/media/ThpMkGy7mFr12th14M/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952pyep1562dnhtwb8ufb5r02c8smu4ank8rhvzpiox&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g

If belligerent posturing toward China by forcing the sale of TikTok is the current version of belligerent posturing toward the USSR by conducting an insane nuclear arms race, then I'll take TikTok over hydrogen bombs and Trident submarines any day.

it's amazing how fucking hard the dems got played on this.

Democrats didn’t get played, Cold War II is a bipartisan boondoggle.

i'm gonna have to look at that portrait every fucking day now that i've been forced back into the office

Alas, US federal government does do that in its government buildings. When I was in the office it used to hang out near the elevators.

Have we discussed the Stallone/Gibson/Voight triumvirate?

What the hell is that all about?

hot men in their prime

men who look like optimus prime

Not even Megatron would stoop so low, waterface.

Well that questionable Laken Riley Act that allows those immigrants just accused of crimes looks like it will pass the Senate next week. 10 Dems voted to invoke cloture and let the bill go to a vote without it including the proposed amendments introduced Thursday by Sen. Mazie Hinoro of Hawaii that sought to shield victims of domestic violence and human trafficking.

https://19thnews.org/2025/01/laken-riley-act-protections-domestic-violence-victims/

accused of crimes to be deported

FETTERMAN did not vote.
Dem Senators Voting YEA on Invoking Cloture for "Laken Riley Act"
Gallego, Kelly. AZ
Cortez Masto, Rosen. NV
Peters, Slotkin. MI
Hassan, Shaheen. NH
Ossoff GA
Warner. VA

They're already working on a 'that's not what they meant' argument, the details of which escape me at the moment

The 14th Amendment has two criteria: 1. born in the US (or naturalized), and 2. subject to its jurisdiction.

Normally people take the second part as excluding children of diplomats, or excluding members of tribes that have separate treaties with the US.

However, cryptkeeper conservatives luv 2 make that "jurisdiction thereof" thing do a lot of work. It's exactly like the conversation over "well-regulated militia" in the 2nd.

They've been trotting out the words Sen. Jacob Howard, who introduced the amendment's language, as indicated the authors' intent:

"This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons."

They hang their case on the ambiguous phrasing, plus what is presumed to be a contemporary interpretative statement giving credence to the view they prefer.

That's how we get to the Obama-era "natural born citizen" stuff. If your parents are foreigners, they have allegiance to the country of which they are a citizen. So they are therefore not completely subject to U.S. jurisdiction. So their kids are not, themselves, natural born citizens.

wait till they find out how little allegiance i have to any country, let alone the US

Thanks a lot Judge Cannon and Merrick Garland

Judge Aileen Cannon suggested Friday she was not inclined to allow the Justice Department to share special counsel Jack Smith’s report on the classified documents case with Congress – at least for now.

“At the end of the day, what’s the urgency of doing this right now?” Cannon asked Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Shapiro at a hearing in her Ft. Pierce, Florida, courtroom.

Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this week released the part of Smith’s report focusing on January 6 and Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. The Justice Department is seeking to show the classified documents report to a handful of members of Congress, but not yet make it public.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/17/politics/aileen-cannon-classified-documents-special-counsel-donald-trump/index.html

“At the end of the day, what’s the urgency of doing this right now?” Cannon asked Justice Department attorney Elizabeth Shapiro at a hearing in her Ft. Pierce, Florida, courtroom.

"...Cannon then let forth a stupendous cackle which lasted over 10 seconds, then stepped close to attorney Shapiro and made dozens of poking gestures which stopped just short of Shapiro's body, yelling "I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!"

i'm not a huge "starve people to death for their crimes" guy but perhaps cannon and garland should be locked in a cell and told that their food is coming any moment now, forever

Have we discussed the Stallone/Gibson/Voight triumvirate?

What the hell is that all about?

There's some solid reasoning behind it, but this will be executed in the dumbest way possible.

The 'It' is the departure of domestic productions to foreign soil (for instance, it's cheaper rn to film Hollywood projects in Great Britain using their technicians and flying actors/directors over). A big part of why this is so is because Red States like Texas and Georgia are both fucking around with sunsetting their filming incentive programs, plus the continuing fallout from abortion/women's rights laws & restrictions.

What we're gonna get is an attempt to corral "Woke" content within Hollywood itself... whatever the fuck that is.

Alec Baldwin should really be up in there

...with a gun.

posting this here instead of one of the israel/palestine threads because i think almost all the people there understand that it is a genocide and that biden/harris knew it and let it happen, and in fact supported it by providing the weapons. i think _MOST_ people understand that on this thread, but my feeling is that there are more heads in the sand here.

here is a very long interview with joe biden on msnbc, from yesterday. maybe you already saw it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEBmJ-aAmBo

start at 39:37. or, there is an instagram clip about all this: https://www.instagram.com/p/DE7bq7eO5fP/ you could just read that and skip the rest of my post, which doesn't say anything you don't already know and haven't already rationalized.

here's the dumb youtube transcript, which is riddled with tiny errors:

39:37
I'M JUST SAYING. WHEN I WENT TO ISRAEL.
39:44
IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEIR ATTACK ON THAT BY HAMAS, 8 DAYS LATER,
39:49
WHATEVER IT WAS. AND UH I TOLD HIM WE WERE GONNA HELP.
39:54
AND I SAID, BUT BB, I SAID, YOU CAN'T BE CARPET BOMBING THESE COMMUNITIES.
40:00
AND HE SAID TO ME, WELL YOU DID IT. YOU CAR BOMB,
40:05
NOT HIS EXACT WORDS, "BUT YOU CARPET BOMB BERLIN. YOU DROPPED A NUCLEAR WEAPON.
40:11
YOU KILLED THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT PEOPLE. BECAUSE YOU HAD TO IN ORDER TO WIN A WAR".
40:17
I SAID BUT THAT'S WHY WE CAME UP WITH THE UN. NEW, NEW DEALS BY WHICH HOW WHAT WE,
40:22
HOW WHAT WE DO RELATIVE TO CIVILIANS AND MILITARY. SO HE WAS COMPARING 21ST CENTURY WAR TACTICS,
40:30
BATTLE TACTICS WITH WORLD WAR II. WELL, WHAT HE WAS REALLY DOING WAS HE WAS GOING AFTER ME FOR SAYING YOU CAN'T
40:38
INDISCRIMINATELY BOMB CIVILIAN AREAS, EVEN IF THE BAD GUYS ARE THERE.
40:44
EVEN THE BAD GUYS THERE, YOU CAN'T TAKE OUT 2, 10, 12, 1500 PEOPLE, INNOCENT PEOPLE,
40:50
IN ORDER TO GET THE ONE BAD GUY. AND HE MADE A LEGITIMATE ARGUMENT, HIS PERSPECTIVE, LOOK,
40:56
THESE ARE THE GUYS THAT KILLED MY PEOPLE. THESE ARE THE GUYS THAT ARE ALL OVER IN THESE TUNNELS. NOBODY HAD ANY IDEA THAT THE MILES OF TUNNELS ARE DOWN THERE.
41:04
IT'S AMAZING WHAT THEY BUILT. AND THEY'RE SOMETIMES 200 FT UNDER THE GROUND.
41:10
ON THE WAY TO GET TO THEM IS TAKE OUT THE PLACES WHERE THEY WERE UNDER WHICH, UNDER WHICH THEY
41:16
GOT TO THE TUNNELS. AND SO THAT'S THE FIRST TIME I HAD,
41:21
FIRST TIME I HAD THE DISCUSSION ABOUT BOMBING CIVILIAN AREAS UH WAS
41:27
UH WHEN I WENT OVER AFTER THE 9/11, AFTER THE, UH, UH, THE, THE MASSACRE THAT OCCURRED.
41:33
SO ON THAT FIRST TRIP, 10, 11 DAYS AFTER OCTOBER 7TH, YOU ALREADY RAISED THE ISSUES OF HOW TO GET TO A CEASEFIRE.
41:41
WELL, NOT A CEASEFIRE. HOW TO PREVENT INNOCENT DEATHS. AND THEN I PUSHED REALLY,
41:47
REALLY HARD FOR MORE HUMANITARIAN AID TO GO IN AND WAYS TO GET IN IT,
41:53
AND, UH. B, UH. LOOK,
41:59
IN FAIRNESS TO BB, HE'S GOT A TOUGH COALITION TOO, MAN. HE'S NOT THE MOST CONSERVATIVE.

also, sorry, it's already been dealt with and rationalized, but imagine if biden was the candidate and he won. he can barely speak

tl;dr netanyahu let biden know that he was going to indiscriminately kill palestinians. before the war. biden said "uh, don't do it that's number 1, number 2 is, uh....uh...lookit", to which netanyahu argued that the united states had carpet bombed berlin, dresden, atomic bombed japan, etc. biden mentioned the whole post-1945 United Nations thing, which, by his account, doesn't seem to have changed anything.

then the genocide happened while biden and congress sent numerous weapons packages to murder children

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/opinion/piketty-sandel-liberals-open-borders.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qE4.6eyL.dXSt7ubEufAP&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

This is actually worth reading as opposed to most of the NYT regulars

For example, when companies seek tax havens rather than pay taxes in the countries where they sell their goods and make their profits, couldn’t this be described as a failure of economic patriotism? Don’t companies have a patriotic duty to pay taxes and contribute to the common good in the country that makes their success possible?

In 2017 I attended the women’s march in DC with a million others. This year it’s rebranded as the Peoples March. Estimates in advance were that 50,000 would attend. Wife and I decided not to go this year but we attended a special MLK freedom and justice event last night.

Transcribed thoughts from AOC's Instagram on the TikTok ban (not my transcript):

OK, I want to talk a little bit about this TikTok ban, which I voted against by the way, since this is coming up soon. Last year, when they brought this ban up for a vote, number 1, they said it’s a national security issue, it’s a national security issue. I said, “OK, that’s serious, let’s see the case, let’s see the intelligence.” I can tell you that what was presented to all of the members voting on this thing was not very compelling. There was no real information that was given that was a smoking gun, that was anything specific, that was very convincing. And, frankly, it was not convincing to many other members as well.

In fact, very high-ranking members on the House Foreign Affairs Committee came to me after the briefing, and they were very shocked and pretty surprised at the lack of substantive information in the briefing. They were genuinely expecting there to be some real or compelling intelligence shared that would substantiate the argument. And there just..wasn’t, and they were surprised at the lack of information presented […]

This bill, which was very large and substantive in terms of its impact, came to the Energy and Commerce Committee, it was marked up, it was brought to the floor in a matter of a few weeks, which is very, very fast. The degree to which corporations surveil the American people without genuine consent and genuine opt out should be illegal, point blank, period. So many of us naturally said the answer isn’t playing endless whack-a-mole with apps, the answer is that we should have real privacy legislation in the United States, and we should help people own their information and have greater agency over their information so they’re not being spied on all the time whether it’s a domestic company or a foreign company. We need privacy laws in the US, which of course big tech is going to fight against, and their lobbyists are going to fight against. So they just targeted an app rather than targeting the problem.

And then, lastly, when this thing was passed, all these legislators who supported it were [saying] “Oh it’s not a ban, it’s just a forced sale”, which, to be fair, forced sales happen. Grindr was a forced sale. […]. First of all, they provided very little time for that to happen, for an app that big. Who’s going to buy TikTok, hello, it’s very large. But besides that, after leaving no time for a forced sale, now, here we are. I would say that the lack of forethought and the rushed nature of this bill is evidenced by both the Biden and Trump administrations are now looking to see if there’s any way to reverse or stall it. If they’re looking at that now, why didn’t they look at it then?

Yea, AOC is usually pretty good (will forgive her flawed speech at the Dem convention).

So I looked at Aaron Rupar's video clips from the Sunday morning network interview shows and they're always so painful. Reporters who don't ask follow-up questions and just invite the same ol Republicans on to voice their cliches without really calling them out. Who cares what Lindsey Graham thinks. And no one should let House Speaker Johnson get away with his bs-- WELKER: Can you commit that California disaster relief won't have strings attached?

MIKE JOHNSON: No, I won't commit to that ... when state and local officials make foolish policy decisions that make the disaster exponentially worse, we need to factor that in.

Representative from Louisiana who has supported bills for his home state, North Carolina, and Florida without strings, decides to lecture California .

I read someone say that even though the audience size for these shows has shrunk immensely, political and journalistic elites and centrist mass media types all watch these programs and get confirmation of the both siding norms they like to follow

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/biden-preemptively-pardons-anthony-fauci-mark-milley-and-jan-6-committee-members/ar-AA1xw3V7?cvid=c7711cd10efb492c8d3373ef2d57056c&ei=13

I'm curious how that works exactly

Legally/constitutionally flimsy but probably enough of a deterrent to avert frivolous prosecution.

Classically pardons are issued to those charged with a specific crime, not preemptive "get out of jail free" cards, but it's all Chinatown now.

In practice, it'd be like *side
A waves potential prosecution* *side B waves pardon paper* *side A waves court challenge of the validity of the pardon* *side B says neener-neener and calls it a witch hunt*

It would need to travel up through courts and it becomes a test of whether anybody really has the energy for it.

I am sure the crazies want Fauci's head. But Trump is lazy and stupid; he may get bored and/or distracted.

It'd be the flipside, perhaps, of all those times we said "we got him!" And he went *wriggle*. At some point things just fizzle.

Also there aren't any actual crimes they can charge any of those people with, although I'm sure that by itself won't be a deterrent. But even an actual politicized weaponized DOJ won't be able to just wave a magic wand and produce indictments.

You just know Trump's now going to pre-emptively pardon himself.

Taylor Budowich, Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel, said that Biden’s pardons “will go down as the greatest attack on America’s justice system in history.”

I’m not listening to legal arguments from a Trump lackey who didn’t finish college, fuck off

Biden commuted Leonard Peltier's sentence, for whatever that's worth.

just heard that, good news

Poor Mumia still can’t catch a break. Fuckers

xp Actual gasp, great news, and my second very quick thought was "those fucking mfers to wait until now" which...same as always I guess.

Trump doing a low-energy hits set rn.

I keep thinking he’ll go full Joker and say something like ‘weeeeeellllll PARDON ME! Huh, guess I just did!’

Josh Shapiro is too busy working on his Obama impression for 2028 to cut Mumia loose.

why does weird shit become SO normal at literally the moment he takes office

Josh Shapiro can get fucked, talk about a Dem I will never fucking vote for.

the miracle has just begun

Fauxbama will still have all the issues that cost him the VP nomination.

https://i.imgur.com/2IvrYiv.jpeg

satan:

https://i.imgur.com/iRSixEG.png

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/horrormovies/images/3/33/Reverend_Henry_Kane.jpg

this David Lynch movie sucks

Toupée Peaks

what year is it

This ramblin' Don weave at whatever the fuck this circlejerk afterparty thing is something else... talking about acid dissolving immigrants.

Biden's farewell speech having silhouette lighting is a choice.

lol milo

https://i.imgur.com/Iniv3om.jpeg

it's killing me - which david bowie cover / famous image is ^^that^? it's either bowie or someone from dick tracy / roger rabbit

Stevie Ray

my apologies to bowie, but i was thinking of

https://i.imgur.com/5WQHFay.jpeg

doesnt seem great

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lg74qw7q5x2n

did he get buccal fat removal

warning: musk giving nazi salute

he did it (at least) twice:

https://bsky.app/profile/bitmapx.bsky.social/post/3lg74xcqbbc2f

WTF that was an outright nazi salute, what the shit is going on.

I mean, I think you know what is going on

The ol’ Laura Ingraham wave iirc

xposts you may have also been thinking of Bowie in The Hunger

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/61e5685ff098d83c24a77ee7/07386ebb-2cb7-48fc-9770-78fbfe3c3b6f/The-Hunger-David-Bowie.jpeg

She looks like the fucking Hamburglar to me

Unambiguous full on Nazi salute and the only mention I’m seeing in national American press is CNN forming it as a question.. “did he?”

what was he even on?

https://i.imgur.com/WM5XzjL.mp4

( https://imgur.com/gallery/HT9bbjV )

maybe Benadryl? perhaps he was trying to karate chop the Hatman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6FvsKo162U

I’m wanting a March Against Billionaires (explicitly called just that, not something more vague) Plus a general strike, or series of them. No one knows what will happen in the coming days and months but I do worry that we are currently trending towards it being x number of years of these diseased maniacs doing increasingly monstrous and disastrous shit, while on social media ppl attempt to distract themselves from the horrors by arguing over nuances or making ironic comments about the spectacle of it all. Sorry, I don’t know what else to say right now. I didn’t watch any of the inauguration stuff but of course the lowlights end up reaching my eyes and ears no matter how much I restrict my news diet. It’s just all so grim. My body feels like it is desperately trying to reject something, but instead of bad food it’s reality itself

4 hours in and President Musk is already doing sieg heil salutes to the crowd. Splendid.

President Musk Is On Everything And Thinks He's Got Rollerskates

A reminder: there's going to be an outpouring of triumphal ugliness emerging from Trump and his flunkies in the next week or two. That was built in when he won the election. It'll be hard to stay steady-minded in the face of it, but that will help more than if we're constantly knocked off-balance by this kind of shit.

mmm

https://bsky.app/profile/joshuaeaton.bsky.social/post/3lg7jmct35k2n

I love how all my Trumpy FB friends are sharing Melania pix from today, commenting on how elegant & classy she was today, when it's plainly obvious how miserable she is in every...single....shot.

Like, they haven't found a single one of her smiling or waving or something positive to attach their praise to.

Just to be clear, Biden commuted Leonard Peltier‘s sentence to indefinite house arrest. Biden sucks.

Like, they haven't found a single one of her smiling or waving or something positive to attach their praise to.

What?

First result from Google:

https://www.newsnationnow.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/108/2025/01/AP25020603502802_f8d10e.jpg

The Jabba energy is high.

xxp also so they wouldn't have to keep paying Peltier's health care, but I will still take the symbolic win

So Musk deliberately did a Nazi salute.

Probably hopes people will call him out so he can make it seem like they are being paranoid and hysterical. Familiar dynamic from the Trump years.

Also was probably on drugs.

Also is a Nazi

I think I hate him more than Trump. Not sure.

lol Eric Adams got a call in the middle of the night inviting him to the inauguration. Per NYT:

Mr. Adams, a Democrat, had planned to appear at two events in New York City in honor of Martin Luther King’s Birthday. But shortly before 8:30 a.m. Monday, his office announced that Mr. Adams had accepted a last-minute invitation to the inauguration.

Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, posted on social media that Mr. Adams had been invited “in the early hours of Monday morning” and that he had accepted “on behalf of New York City.”

this is what the Melania pics remind me of
https://www.amazon.com/Mask-Jim-Carrey/dp/B095R8JTFX#immersive-view_1737428192370

And, as promised has pardoned the January 6 insurrectionists, restoring their rights to buy guns.

Someone shared a video on Bluesky mashing up the Trump/Melania avoided kiss with the Simpsons bit where Bart slows down the video to see the exact point where Lisa breaks Ralph's heart.

Melania looks like Heisenberg. She's only mising the goatee.