Turning On The Giant Faucet Of Bullshit - US Politics February 2025

Only 28 Days this time...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/health/malaria-tb-hiv-trump-aid-pause-.html?unlocked_article_code=1.tk4.aapH.JXibpQybi3JW&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Lifesaving health initiatives and medical research projects have shut down around the world in response to the Trump administration’s 90-day pause on foreign aid and stop-work orders.

In Uganda, the National Malaria Control Program has suspended spraying insecticide into village homes and ceased shipments of bed nets for distribution to pregnant women and young children, said Dr. Jimmy Opigo, the program’s director.

Medical supplies, including drugs to stop hemorrhages in pregnant women and rehydration salts that treat life-threatening diarrhea in toddlers, cannot reach villages in Zambia because the trucking companies transporting them were paid through a suspended supply project of the United States Agency for International Development, U.S.A.I.D.

Dozens of clinical trials in South Asia, Africa and Latin America have been suspended. Thousands of people enrolled in the studies have drugs, vaccines and medical devices in their bodies but no longer have access to continuing treatment or to the researchers who were supervising their care.

Grisso/McCain:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ultimatepopculture/images/e/e4/28_days_later.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20190320185838

Good afternoon!

https://assets-prd.ignimgs.com/2024/01/11/twenty-eight-days-later-ver2-button-1704982369363.jpg

Not yet figured out Bluesky links on my phone, but just saw that NTSB will only be sending out communications via X now - no emails, no other form of communication.

this all feels so blatantly illegal

Yeah Donald’s justice department should do something about it

Xp Well that’s one way to keep his shitty website alive

So apparently any FBI agent that had anything to do with investigating January 6 is going to be fired... which is about 6000 agents, out of a total force of under 14,000.

Planning an interstate crime spree? Might as well get on that, since the FBI is gonna be operating at half strength for quite a while, given that the Office of Personnel Management (HR for the government) is being destroyed, too.

Re the HIV, TB, and Malaria stuff posted above, the Rubio con job mentioned in there is also disgusting--

On Tuesday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued an exemption to the funding freeze for “lifesaving humanitarian assistance,” including what a State Department memo called “core lifesaving medicine.” However, shuttered H.I.V. and tuberculosis treatment programs have been told by their contacts at U.S.A.I.D. that they cannot resume work until they receive written instruction that the waiver applies specifically to them.

Also on Tuesday, a federal judge blocked the freeze until Feb. 3. But in practice, most U.S.A.I.D. country offices and programs are proceeding as if the freeze remains in place.

They have been unable to obtain clarification on whether and when their work can continue because their assigned contacts at U.S.A.I.D. have either been fired or furloughed, or are under strict instructions to not talk to anyone.

Planning an interstate crime spree? Might as well get on that,

One my my only consolations as we get closer to tax season is my assumption that no one will be looking too closely at my return.

Trump just fired Chopra the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

https://apnews.com/article/trump-chopra-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-47b6b39d0eff05ea0c9bca4eacf55b79

Replacing political appointees from a previous administration with your own appointees is standard operating practice. It's expected. What's insane is how Trump's taken so many actions to decapitate the federal government and bring everything to a screeching halt with zero regard for the repercussions. It's the psychology of a mass shooter, not a political leader.

i hope i'm wrong but i dont see how this isn't gonna lead to a massive crash very soon. gutting half the federal government and replacing the rest with extremely unqualified cronies, i don't think they can pull off too much of what they're gunning for but i do think they can very effectively torpedo this country's superpower status

gutting half the federal government and replacing the rest with extremely unqualified cronies, i don't think they can pull off too much of what they're gunning for but i do think they can very effectively torpedo this country's superpower status

Yeah, firing half the government and only afterwards trying to do stuff like hire thousands of ICE and customs agents with nobody around to a) process the applications or b) requisition/procure equipment, never mind c) issue equipment to new people doesn't seem like a very workable plan. Like, who sets up all the laptops now? Who makes sure everything is logged properly and secure and trackable? Or is "the government" (aka one of the 25-year-old morons Trump keeps around) just gonna call up Best Buy and say, send over 500 laptops we can use for military/law enforcement stuff?

This is when they start contracting the work out to private companies who give them kickbacks

^ ^ ^

One my my only consolations as we get closer to tax season is my assumption that no one will be looking too closely at my return.

Being in a blue state is not going to save you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/nyregion/nyu-langone-hospital-trans-care-youth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.tk4.atPC.Y024lzDeaf8r&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

A leading New York City hospital system has begun canceling appointments for transgender children following President Trump’s executive order threatening to withhold federal funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming treatments, according to the children’s parents.

The hospital system, NYU Langone Health, has not made any public announcements. But word spread among parents of trans children after the hospital canceled appointments for two 12-year-olds who had been scheduled to receive implants that dispense puberty-blocking medication.

The father of one of the children said his child’s doctor had told him that because of “the new administration” — a reference to Mr. Trump’s executive order — the hospital would not able to proceed with the procedure. The child had been due on Thursday to have a small device that would release Supprelin LA, a puberty-blocking medication, implanted in the upper arm. The father said the doctor suggested that they try calling other hospital systems in New York City or one the doctor recommended in Philadelphia.

waiting for Surgeon General Dr. Phil to outlaw medicine and replace with a regimen of tough love and boot camp

Replacing political appointees from a previous administration with your own appointees is standard operating practice. It's expected. What's insane is how Trump's taken so many actions to decapitate the federal government and bring everything to a screeching halt with zero regard for the repercussions. It's the psychology of a mass shooter, not a political leader.

I was replying to:

Trump just fired Chopra the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

hope u guys like stagflation

black market chickens, gigacock eggz brah

Canada has announced 25% tariffs on US imports effective this week.

Also pulling products from red states off shelves where they can

At least all those Democrats tried to block Rubio’s confirmation.

Oh, wait. Not a single fucking one did. Even Bernie Sanders is fine with that asshole

my province NS is removing all american alcohol from its liquor stores. all liquor stores are owned by the province so that's effectively a ban.

What’s the over/under on another Great Depression? 6 months?

American liquor is shit, anyway. Except for maybe my Mr. Black espresso martini mix

people are gonna buy up all the moosehead...

American liquor is shit, anyway.

Do you ever tire of being the most wrong, acerbic asshole on this board?

Canadian beer is like moonshine

No, I don’t tire of it. It’s so easy to annoy thin-skinned idiots who spend too much time here like you

Beer makes you fat. Why would I want to be fat like you yanks?

Pictures, plz.

Can we ban this dickhead already?

Adding to the "federal employees are getting abused" posts, a friend of mine almost replied to one of those ghoulish emails about their job status with both the video where both Don and Jeffrey Epstein are pointing at underage girls, and several pics of Elmo Muskrat before his own gender-affirming surgery on his scalp and chin (I throw no shade at people who choose such options, only at transphobic fucksticks). She refrained. But maybe we all should just flood every fucking social media platform with those!

table otm

table OTM

jinx!

I don't even drink anymore but I will not hear this Tito's slander. It's cheap without burning and makes people more palatable.

amen

table otm

flagged

Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office has received “many, many” calls about trans people’s struggles to update their passports in the last two weeks, a source familiar with the issue told The Standard Friday.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Jan. 20 declaring that the U.S. government would recognize only two sexes. The order also bars people from changing their gender on federal documents.

Nevada Nubes, a trans person who lives in the Mission, said the passport agency denied their request to update their name and issue a new passport showing their gender as X, citing the executive order.

Nubes said they mailed in their passport Jan. 24 to update their name, which they recently legally changed.

“They said they could only give me my passport with my updated name, and then my gender that was assigned to me at birth,” Nubes said. But the office later said it couldn’t even do that. “They’re holding my documents, and I’m not able to travel.”

When Nubes asked for the old passport back, the office was unable to produce it. As a result, they had to cancel a Friday flight to Mexico to visit a friend who is dying of AIDS.

https://sfstandard.com/2025/01/31/trans-passport-gender-donald-trump-executive-order/

The entire system for applying/renewing/replacing passports appears to be down since yesterday: "Passport Application System is undergoing maintenance".

I'm sure its fine

F.A.A.’s Main Warning System for Pilots Is Down, U.S. Official Says

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/us/notam-outage-faa-alerts.html

probably nothing....

My mom's supposed to be leaving for her annual two-week trip to Mexico on Tuesday. I'm wondering if a) her flight will leave at all (will travel to Mexico still be legal by then?); b) it will arrive safely; c) if they'll let her back into the USA afterwards (her last name is Guevara).

Elon Musk says he's going to be shutting down federal grants (which he called "illegal payments") to Lutheran Services providers. https://bsky.app/profile/bubbaprog.lol/post/3lh77ekgdas2h

Similar to Catholic Charities, this is a network of 300 health and human service nonprofits that claims to reach 1 in 50 Americans each year. It "advances equitable outcomes for children, youth and families, improves independence and choice for older adults, champions meaningful services and support for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and strengthens stability and purpose for veterans, refugees, new Americans and more."

It also has a 100% rating on Charity Navigator.

I guess it’s a good thing for them that nothing this administration does is considered illegal, what with these stupid motherfuckers advertising their crimes on X.

i mean, last time i was often criticized for freaking out too much about blatantly ridiculous, short-sighted, and idiotic decisions made by the trump administration.

this time things seem way more extreme but is it? these decisions --- the tarriffs and the cuts to grants --- seem like the kind of thing that will cause very blatant and obvious catastrophes that can clearly be traced back to them. is this what is going to happen?

the tariffs are interesting to me because capital mobility seems very important to people like jeff bezos. and yet these are the people standing behind him now.

there is something i am not seeing.

My take is that Trump is using the tariffs to distract the media while Elon loots the Treasury. I’ve seen plenty of articles about the tariffs, but not nearly enough about Musk’s fuckery.

why does trump want elon to loot the treasury

the whole situation is bizarre. a firehose of radical policy changes, many unconstitutional and quickly struck down by judges

yeah this is kind of what pisses me off the most, every single Trump voter I know calls us hysterical for even suggesting he would do half the shit he did in his first 2 weeks. like how much were they crying over the Project 2025 stuff, or saying "you call everyone Hitler", fucking cowards all of them. whatever happens, they own all this shit

so, take the tariffs. if it causes a major crash, this will be blamed on biden.

if they somehow do not --- if the tariffs work out and helps spur a renaissance of domestic manufacturing --- then that means i do not understand how things work.

it seems ridiculous to be antagonizing canada and mexico for no reason. this doesn't seem like a targeted plan to encourage onshoring through tariffs, it's just chaotic.

call me naive but I think Trump actually will take the blame for this

The thing that sucks is it’s a deliberate goal of these fucks to force a reaction through protests and then declare the Insurrection Act and crush them with violence.

so trump and elon are both deeply disturbed mentally. elon apparently is a heavy user of ketamine and you can sort of tell he is "off" in recent appearances.

Xxxp to Frogbs even those supposed hard nosed capitalists at JP Morgan were like “he’s not going to do tariffs don’t worry” and now they are “whoa we weren’t expecting that!!!”

I just want these peoples’ lifestyles to catch up with them if you catch my drift

this is sort of a point i would make a lot on ilx in 2016 and perhaps annoyingly so. but i guess then there were some brakes on him? so he would say crazy stuff but much of the government sort of chugged along normally?

xp to myself

The North American automobile manufacturing sector, which is highly integrated with Canada, was predicted by an industry representative to crash within the week. Whether that's an exaggeration is to be seen. Watch the markets on opening tomorrow to see the degree of nervousness.

but both trump and musk are mentally ill. they need treatment. but instead they are just shooting from the hip, ripping up the US government. seemingly! i can't tell if this is just some sort of show

Xxxp to Frogbs even those supposed hard nosed capitalists at JP Morgan were like “he’s not going to do tariffs don’t worry” and now they are “whoa we weren’t expecting that!!!”

its been the most frustrating part of all this honestly like yes the Dems are bad at messaging but they were pretty clear on how tariffs were gonna fuck everyone over and that Trump 100% was gonna do them because he's just that stupid and careless and the electorate was just like, "nah, Trump's gonna be good for the economy actually"

like is trump going to do a "deal" with canada and mexico to get pledges to stop drug trafficking and then call off the dogs?

but yeah it's wild like the media pretty much forced Biden out of the race after that debate, they hammered on his mental fitness nonstop and it became the *only* story for nearly 2 whole months, now here we have President Trump dumping millions of gallons of water into the ocean for no reason and there's barely been a peep about it, in case it's somehow still unclear whose side they're on

is musk just building some budget presentation for congress? did they know they could only delay these grants, not stop them? they just want to make a point? are they rational actors? or is this some kind of k hole

i mean, frogbs, in 2016 - 2020 and beyond, there was a lot of coverage of trump being crazy, dangerous, and even a foreign asset. it seemed to make him more popular and people thought libs were chicken little. but idk. maybe we are.

i sense in myself a restraint. like, am i really seeing what i seem to be seeing?

like is trump going to do a "deal" with canada and mexico to get pledges to stop drug trafficking and then call off the dogs?

― treeship., Sunday, February 2, 2025 11:40 AM (thirty-nine seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

in his first term he might've done this just to get some small concession so the media can fawn over his hardnosed approach to politics and call him a winner but now I honestly have no clue, I think the simplest/best explanation is that his brain has been completely hollowed out

he seemed like that before though

i mean, frogbs, in 2016 - 2020 and beyond, there was a lot of coverage of trump being crazy, dangerous, and even a foreign asset. it seemed to make him more popular and people thought libs were chicken little. but idk. maybe we are.

― treeship., Sunday, February 2, 2025 11:42 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

none of that really affected their day to day lives though, if the prices of groceries go up 25% and airlines start having major issues and Medicaid becomes nonfunctional I think they might start making some noise. Trump voters may be total dipshits but they're also very selfish, I don't think they're really okay with their quality of life going down just so Elon can pocket another 10 billion dollars

seeing how the tariffs are essentially self imposed sanctions, the message will be the same as it was internally for the russian sanctions: any failures will be blamed on other countries, and any changes that had to be made because of the tariffs will be touted as major victories. there will be blame laid on the orange idiot, but none from the people who voted for him. we all know how this will unfold.

How much lumber comes from Canada percentage-wise? I feel like it’s a significant amount? On top of the deportations, this could be another huge increase in the cost of constructing new housing.

i think it's around 25%

My fear: when the United States begins to recoil from the effects of its own economic folly, the Trump administration will ask Americans to regard the pain as a sacrifice in a way that George W. Bush after 9-11 never did. It'll convert no one on our side, of course, but it'll harden the MAGA voters' unbearableness.

Trump voters love him because he sticks it to the people they don't like, I dont think they're willing to actually sacrifice what little they actually have

all the talk of whether Trump and his cabal will be "blamed" for this or that inevitable catastrophe, whether supporters will begin to have second thoughts, etc... one possibility is that Trump et al are behaving in a way that suggest they dont expect public opinion or electoral politics to be a significant check on their future power

Not only people that they don't like, but the people that didn't already know they didn't like.

They all became aware of and started despising Canada this week.

Musk openly talked about how tough this was gonna be economically for Americans.

trump voters already sacrificed many things because of the idiot and his gang's policies. it doesn't matter if they will lose much more (and they will, together with the people who will suffer because of these idiots), they will never blame it on trump, unless the whole propaganda machine that feeds them turns on trump.

George W. Bush after 9-11 never did. It'll convert no one on our side, of course, but it'll harden the MAGA voters' unbearableness.

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, February 2, 2025 1:36 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Unlike 9/11, the tariffs are self-imposed and serve no purpose

the pointlessness is the real issue here. i have no idea what could possibly be gained by imposing tariffs in this manner. it does not seem to be part of a larger strategy to increase domestic manufacturing

Unlike 9/11, the tariffs are self-imposed and serve no purpose

now we export our bullshit

Trump has likely convinced MAGA that he’s helping the American lumber industry with tariffs, and MAGA that he’s stopping the import of fetanyl. He probably wants to open currently protected US forests to logging.

Do Schumer and Jeffries have a qualified media communications staff that can counter the Trump take on podcasts, social media, mainstream media, and also getting on Fox News to try to make those in the right wing bubble at least be aware of contrary arguments?

i think musk could end up in jail. not sure if he realizes that he’s incriminating himself

who’s gonna arrest him?

Batman

who’s gonna arrest him?

― what angers me about the smurfs these days (voodoo chili), Sunday, 2 February 2025 14:19 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

dc could put out an arrest warrant

he’s shielded by trump for now but as soon as that’s over, seems likely he could end up in prison. like if something goes badly awry with this payment stuff and trump decides to make him the fall guy

If Trump continues on the trajectory of turning America into a pure strongman state he might take a cue from Putin and decide he needs to put a billionaire behind bars as a show of force to keep the others in line. But also its hard for me to imagine Trump actually getting mad at Elon for screwing something up, I dont think Trump really gives a fuck about anything anymore. I think a lot of whats going on right now with DOGE &c is Trump trying to set up a situation where he can be the nominal head of state but get others to do the presidenting for him

I think the point of all this is to have direct say or what does or doesn't get paid for, what gets taxed. This gives him the power to force orgs, states, other countries to knuckle under in a show of subservience. We'll see if this actually works or just pisses off lots of people while crashing the economy.

direct say *over

xp has anybody that was ever involved with trump not ended up the fall guy ultimately?

I dont think Trump really gives a fuck about anything anymore.

His brain is pudding. "Donald Trump," cognitively speaking, is a collection of about a dozen misremembered 19th century economic and racial doctrines, endlessly repeated placeholder phrases ("like no one's ever seen before") and personal grudges he wants to use state power to avenge.

Glad I bought a car last year. People who want to buy one this year are gonna be fucked with a capital F.

Trump letting Musk take the fall if things turn sour is plausible enough, but right now it's just another fond wish located in an imaginary future. It's becoming clear that the current assault by Musk and DOGE is an attempt to seize as many nodes of power in the government as possible and cripple their ability to serve as instruments that could used by the opposition for impeding Trump's government by decree. He's not going to abandon that effort until he feels cornered.

Why is musk doing this

He was once liked

Schumer on X and Bluesky keeps mentioning some of the bad stuff happening, but he never really says what he is gonna do. Dems could at least be trying to slow things down in Congress, trying to determine who has standing to possibly challenge Musk actions in court, but I haven't seen many actions other than by the 22 states who challenged the spending freeze in several courts.

Calling out Trump as bad or stupid to those who already know that is not enough to help out the federal government employees losing their jobs or being placed on administrative leave, it's not enough to restore malaria and HIV medications to folks around the world . Maybe there isn't much Schumer can do, but I would like to see he and Jeffries trying. Also Maga is being told that Musk and Trump are getting rid of woke stuff that is a waste of money, while they're planning in the upcoming reconciliation bill to cut taxes and regulation by massive amounts for rich people and corporations .

While some are moving on to the tariffs stuff, Trump (no matter how dumb he may be) is stillenabling stuff like the following re dei at the Dept of education -

But according to interviews with those placed on leave and people familiar with the notifications, the department appeared to have cast a wide net, suspending people whose job titles and official duties had no connection to D.E.I., and whose only apparent exposure to D.E.I. initiatives came in the form of trainings encouraged by their managers. One of the training workshops that employees speculated may have led to their being flagged took place more than nine years ago.

Hopefully union lawyers can try to oppose these things, but it would be nice to know that Schumer and Jeffries are supporting the unions and helping them bring legal actions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/us/politics/trump-dei-education-department.html

Maybe there isn't much Schumer can do, but I would like to see he and Jeffries trying.

But...it's the weekend! Check back on Monday afternoon (seriously, they're OOO until 3 PM ET tomorrow).

I realize that it’s hard to take advice or comfort from Ezra Klein, but I do think he’s right about this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-trump-column-read.html?unlocked_article_code=1.t04.BACp.b8IuPSbMH4kp&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

If Trump tried to pass this agenda as legislation, it would most likely fail in the House, and it would certainly die before the filibuster in the Senate. And that would make Trump look weak. Trump does not want to look weak. He remembers John McCain humiliating him in his first term by casting the deciding vote against Obamacare repeal.

That is the tension at the heart of Trump’s whole strategy: Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president. He is trying to substitute perception for reality. He is hoping that perception then becomes reality. That can only happen if we believe him.

The flurry of activity is meant to suggest the existence of a plan. The Trump team wants it known that they’re ready this time. They will control events rather than be controlled by them. The closer you look, the less true that seems. They are scrambling and flailing already.

… What Trump wants you to see in all this activity is command. What is really in all this activity is chaos. They do not have some secret reservoir of focus and attention the rest of us do not. They have convinced themselves that speed and force is a strategy unto itself — that it is, in a sense, a replacement for a real strategy. Don’t believe them.

rump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president.

otm

I don't see scrambling and flailing yet tho

He offers some examples but also assumes more will be evident soon.

I don't see scrambling and flailing yet tho

Or failure.

We are in an era of lawlessness. Not criminality — lawlessness. The law, as written on paper, no longer matters, because the response to "You can't do that!" has become "Fuck you, stop me," and the response to "You must do this" has become "Fuck you, make me."

^^ sadly otm rn

idk, a whole lot of these things will fail, and/or will be significantly curtailed. It's just that the mechanisms for that — primarily through the courts, but also through other institutions — move a lot more slowly than the blizzard of executive orders.

Trump is not following the "norms" or the constitution and he's getting away with it and praised by MAGA, no matter whether his real reasons are being afraid of being humiliated by a US senator or 12 degree chess. He's got enough supporters thinking he is showing that he is in command, and there's not a strong enough media or opposition party that is challenging him.

And Trump has lots of judges in the courts who can help him

Maybe. I'm not persuaded. I do think he's weaker than he looks.

A lot of autocrats come into power, immediately start doing a terrible job, tank the economy, take a big hit in popularity, cant get any of their agenda off the ground… and still remain in power for a good long time through various combinations of coercion, corruption, inertia, and force. In fact thats usually the norm, not the exception. Im nit seeing any evidence that this will be any different

Like, most autocrats are “weak”. Thats why they have to do what they do the way that they do it

I wish I had your confidence.

i think so much of this is powered by Trump, if he dies or becomes thoroughly incapacitated and it's JD Vance who's owning the libs by doing this bullshit i think much of the uh "charm" of this con largely evaporates.

at least that's what i cling too sometimes tbh

I do think he's weaker than he looks.

He's far too weak to accomplish much within the legal limitations of his office. The difficulty here is that Trump's greatest strength is the weakness and fragmentation of the forces arrayed against him. He is daring his opposition to force him act within the law. It's the job of Congress and the courts to act as the brakes on his government-by-decree and it ought to be in their glaringly obvious self-interest, because once Trump is a law unto himself they lose their power and very reason for existing, they've cut their own throats and occupy empty offices empty of authority.

what's happening to USAID is a disgrace

xxp No I agree w/you curmudgeon, I am very pessimistic. I think he's "weak" in the same way Putin is weak - whether he's popular or flailing or effective or hated is beside the point imo bc he and his cabal are not going to give up the reigns of power voluntarily now that they are in control

sorry i'll stop dooming on this thread now. its been a tough weekend.

To be clear I'm not sanguine about the damage Trump is already doing and the further damage he can and will do. There are plenty of things that are clearly in his power, and plenty of other things courts may let him get away with. But this shock-and-awe blizzard is intended to stun people into inaction or capitulation by creating an appearance of essentially an authoritarian takeover of the entire government. And a significant amount of that is just bluster and air. Check back in six months and see if he seems stronger or weaker than he did on Jan. 31.

Do Schumer and Jeffries have a qualified media communications staff that can counter the Trump take on podcasts, social media, mainstream media, and also getting on Fox News to try to make those in the right wing bubble at least be aware of contrary arguments?

if anyone has seen their social media posts over the past week, the answer is 'absolutely not'. Jeffries bascially waved his fucking hands in the air and said 'thoughs and prayers' and Schumer spent yesterday posting on bsky (and maybe elsewhere) 'well things are going to be more expensive now'.

No idea if there was Dem presence on sunday news media (or if sunday morning news media even matters anymore).

I liked the ezra piece.

primarily through the courts

How many divisions has the Pope? Etc.

But I can see merit in the Kleinian view here

One of my wife’s best friends works for USAID and it is not good, to say the least.

A lot of autocrats come into power, immediately start doing a terrible job, tank the economy, take a big hit in popularity, cant get any of their agenda off the ground… and still remain in power for a good long time t

How many of these autocrats came into power in a robust and longstanding federal republic? It's going to be a struggle to draw meaningful parallels between Falangist Spain or Peronist Argentina here.

Yeah. We can argue in good faith about the weakness of our institutions and how well they can stand successive blows like this, but Falangist Spain and Peronist Argentina were in far more doleful conditions than we are.

NO disrespect meant but... you sure?

Spain was in a civil war and a military coup installed Perón. But ymmv!

Can’t speak for Argentina, but unlike Falangist Spain we did not just go through a five-year bloody civil war in the middle of a world economic depression nor are there is a Cold War anymore that let the US prop Francisco Franco up as an anti communist bulwark

otm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETC9cbIoIxk

"WIRED has identified six young men—all apparently between the ages of 19 and 24, according to public databases, their online presences, and other records—who have little to no government experience and are now playing critical roles in Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, tasked by executive order with “modernizing Federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” The engineers all hold nebulous job titles within DOGE, and at least one appears to be working as a volunteer."

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/

white tech bros

Spain was in a civil war and a military coup installed Perón. But ymmv!

But but but Americans had to pay little more for groceries and (briefly) gas, plus they had to stay inside in their homes for varying durations of time almost 5 years ago, which in their eyes is a bigger tragedy than those things put together.

It's nuts that this same crybaby contingent is a-ok with Musk/Trump saying things <might> be hard for a little while.

More reasons I don’t share the confidence that some upthread expressed re stopping Trump and Musk-

The two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development were put on administrative leave on Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems, according to three U.S. officials with knowledge of the matter

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/02/us/politics/usaid-official-leave-musk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.t04.aird.4eZYva313dtC&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Ok... as much as it grieves me, I'm afraid you leave me no choice - I admit it! The comparisons between 2025 USA and Falangist Spain and Peronist Argentina are limited! And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids.....

curmudgeon, I've read all the stories you've posted and we always need palliatives.

Re Sting

I hope the tech bros love their children too

Stopping Trump and Musk in the near term isn't in the cards, they have control of the government and courts. They don't have popular support, they don't control state governments, they'd have a helluva time remaking the military in 2-4 years. What Is To Be Done is the same answer as ever - civil disobedience, labor organizing, mutual aid.

Hegseth may not last two or three months

How does Musk have control of jack shit? He’s not an elected official and he does not hold a recognized position in the government.

Ok, being optimistic that Trump and Musk will eventually fail may help relieve your pain symptoms here, but for others like me your palliative care is not working and is making me feel worse . Maybe I am wrong and / or there is no right or wrong and we all have to deal with this via our own approaches which I guess may be what you are saying.

I mean, as one of the few queer brown people on ILX living in one of the reddest parts of Miami-Dade and programmed as I am, I can't despair.

How does Musk have control of jack shit? He’s not an elected official and he does not hold a recognized position in the government.

And he has all sorts of business dealings with foreign governments that make him a security risk in a bunch of different ways. He's not the boss of a single person in the federal government. I can't believe there won't be some kind of legal challenge to his status.

Ok, being optimistic that Trump and Musk will eventually fail may help relieve your pain symptoms here, but for others like me your palliative care is not working and is making me feel worse.

Oh they will definitely eventually fail. Probably multiple times in multiple ways. That doesn't mean they won't do a lot of bad things, but nothing about this current shitstorm is remotely sustainable.

I mean, believing that Musk and Trump have either the capacity or frankly the attention span to shape a functioning, sustainable autocratic state is at odds with what we know from experience with both of them.

I need musk to vacate the premises. It’s one thing to watch rump and his homies do their thing but that nazi clown needs to be put back where he belongs in the private sector. I would prefer he melt but that’s tbd.

https://scontent-lga3-3.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/475757363_10161489258458095_3842773108521414284_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=j0hI3i5Ut6EQ7kNvgGUDv3T&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-3.xx&_nc_gid=A_ybm5L-4DdxUT194z1Zd9Y&oh=00_AYDOc3LPfNb12HWyk94l2AZW_IECxqIPbrCK23n64SvlOQ&oe=67A5EF81

so one theory is that trump is setting up musk as the "fall guy" in case the plan to build a dictatorship fails.

however, this seems weird as putting musk in charge of so much makes trump look weak. it would especially be true if trump tries to argue that musk was responsible for driving the big initiatives at the beginning of the administration.

I need musk to vacate the premises.

Wait till he or one of his manchild lackeys accidentally or deliberately causes the federal government to miss a payment to Raytheon or Blackwater. He'll vacate the fuckin' earth.

I saw that Musk ceased payments to government contractors as of today, so curious to see how well that pans out for him. what kinds of contractors I don't know.

i'm not a lawyer but he quite literally is not allowed to do that

Ha, headlines say that he is ceasing all contractor payments, but he's not ceasing payments to himself or to any military contractors but he did, based upon advice from felon and retired lt general Michael Flynn shut down payments by the US Department of Health and Human Services to Lutheran Family Services, a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees.

of course he isn't ceasing payments to himself

at what point do americans start the well armed militia thing

i'm not a lawyer but he quite literally is not allowed to do that

― treeship., Sunday, February 2, 2025

It doesn't matter if he is allowed to do that, he's doing it and nobody is going to stop him, and by the way he is never going to jail

We have let arsonists take over our government. All of my rich republican friends assured me that Trump wasn't going to start trade wars, that it was all a bluff, and that lower tax rates on capital gains would be good for them etc. Even non-rich people like my sister and her husband bought into that. My sister sat across the sofa from me last fall and was so sure that his tariffs were a bluff, that they would never be imposed

the well armed militia thing

um, that's supposed to be well-trained militia

honestly I thought the same thing, like this is what he does, I figured the endgame was him implementing then pulling the tariffs because Mexico agreed to hire a few more border cops or whatever, then prices come down and he gets to brag about how he Art of the Deal'd away fentaynl (as it kills more teenagers than ever), it works because the media falls for this shit hook line and sinker, that said if that was the plan he wouldn't be doing this with 3 countries at once, kinda think there really is no plan here

Xxxpost to that ezraklein article:
Speed and force are 100% a strategy unto themselves.
Maybe unsustainable long term, but by then the situation has changed, and the damage has been done...
They don't require a coherent long term strategy because they're not trying to build anything.
They just want to wreck shit, hurt people and steal money.
As somebody said upthread, it's a school shooter mentality.

sink the US into a Depression and then claim that he needs a third term so he can solve it

Luigi Natione

how many more years do we think this guy has left? hes 78 and has spent every single day the last 9 years cranked out and angry

Ppl kept saying that during the ny trial but

sabrina carpenter just won best pop vocal album. i felt like you all should know.

I would even settle for a well-dressed militia

sure but he's very visibly deteriorated over the years, he is clearly not the same guy he was in 2016 or even 2020

Sabrina Carpenter/Chappell Roan 2028

frogbs: this has been a recurring theme on ilx, wishing/hoping he would die, but bad people like him aren't going to die on our schedule so let's stop speculating

you can say that about Musk too, I don't think he ever came across as smart exactly and his public speaking skills have always sucked but he wasn't different from most techbros - good at bullshitting and saying things that seemprofound if you don't think about them too much, now he has the sort of energy I recognize from meth heads who are a week out from overdosing or getting arrested

you guys. beyonce. best country album.

They don't require a coherent long term strategy because they're not trying to build anything.
They just want to wreck shit, hurt people and steal money.
As somebody said upthread, it's a school shooter mentality.

― m0stly clean (Slowsquatch), Sunday, February 2, 2025 8:36 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i don't think trump believes this is what he is doing.

do any of you think that fascism is actually coming, is close, already arrived? i'm not sure what people think it looks like, but when it's "how is he doing it? that's not allowed! that's clearly against the law!" and it keeps happening and no one seems to be in a position to put up effective opposition, and people who oppose these things within the government get removed. i'm not saying anyone here is a perpetual eyeroller of "fascism", but a lot of people are, and i think the time is past to make an adjustment

any chance of a military coup?

to make a similar sweeping statement, i think it's not surprising that schumer et al aren't doing anything and have no effective message - they are out of new ideas. they are stuck somewhere, i don't know where, but not here. there are different ideas on the left, but they're not acceptable to the upper-middle and above class liberals who make up the bulk of the party and their voters because they involve moving on from capitalism and endless growth

sabrina carpenter just won best pop vocal album. i felt like you all should know.

No trophies for art.

it would be nice if a MSM outlet would call out the illegality of this shit this week

MSNBC does. All the time. They've devoted 10 years to documenting Trump's crimes.

yeah i don't think trump has gotten a free pass from the media, overall. he just built power regardless.

i think it's not surprising that schumer et al aren't doing anything and have no effective message - they are out of new ideas. they are stuck somewhere, i don't know where, but not here. there are different ideas on the left, but they're not acceptable to the upper-middle and above class liberals who make up the bulk of the party and their voters because they involve moving on from capitalism and endless growth

it's not surprising because their portfolios will profit handsomely from the boots on our necks.

Except for about 20 mins on Chris Hayes' segment, MSNBC devotes more time to Trump's perfidies than, no surprise, progressive policy.

https://newrepublic.com/post/190784/trump-lawsuit-funneling-info-federal-workers-elon-musk

This lawsuit was filed against Musk earlier this week but it has gotten little attention and no judge has issued a temporary restraining order against Musk. In the spending freeze case at least 2 judges granted tro's.

Scott, looks like no one at the Grammys has had the courage to speak out about Trump or Musk. The Grammys are on CBS whose corporate owner is trying to work out a settlement with Trump over some ridiculous lawsuit he filed against them. The owner of CBS wants to merge with another company and thus is bending the knee

A group of about eight DOGE officials entered the USAID building Saturday and demanded access to every door and floor, despite only a few of them having security clearance, according to a Senate Democratic staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the incident.

When USAID personnel attempted to block access to some areas, DOGE officials threatened to call federal marshals, the aide said. The DOGE officials were eventually given access to “secure spaces” including the security office.

The Senate staffer also said top officials from USAID’s office and the bulk of the staff in USAID’s Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs were put on leave later Saturday. Some of them were not notified but had their access to agency terminals suspended.

Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for DOGE, said on X that “no classified material was accessed without proper security clearances.”

i'm having that unsettling feeling where i keep forgetting that doge is a joke about dogecoin, which is a cryptocurrency which is itself a joke about how things of utter nonsubstance have value if you will it into existence with your techbros and money you got from your dad

no. there has been no politics tonight. other than a black woman winning best country album.

x-post

Oh and the lawsuit I mentioned was filed against the Trump administration for giving info to a Musk company employee. I misstated it above.

Why didn't USAID call the federal marshalls?
This is the brass tacks of it.
As I said on the guardrails thread, whoever's got the guns makes the rules. That's where we are now.
Seems like USAID clearly had the law on their side...
So either they capitulated out of fear or they had good reason to believe the federal marshalls would show up and be on DOGE's side...
I don't understand this stuff...

It feels rather strange that in a country so very heavy with gun ownership, usage and abuse, no one is popping of and trying to shoot these unelected jackboots. For once, use stand your ground for good for christs sakes.

no. there has been no politics tonight. other than a black woman winning best country album.

controp: riding a white horse waving an american flag, beyoncé is as much a symbol of what is wrong with the US as any of the fascists we supposedly hate.

ok man yeah beyonce is as bad as elon musk, got it

Obviously not as bad, but he self-absorbed super-rich don't automatically count as good guys because you like their tunes.

It feels rather strange that in a country so very heavy with gun ownership, usage and abuse, no one is popping of and trying to shoot these unelected jackboots. For once, use stand your ground for good for christs sakes.

idk I have the feeling a lot of strange people are gonna be coming out of the woodwork soon, one thing about Trump is he's not just radicalizing his own base here

Weird dark times ahead for sure. But it can be easy to forget how many weird dark times we’ve had, as a country and a species. It’s always weird dark times somewhere.

My sister sat across the sofa from me last fall and was so sure that his tariffs were a bluff, that they would never be imposed

What does she say now?

do any of you think that fascism is actually coming, is close, already arrived? i'm not sure what people think it looks like, but when it's "how is he doing it? that's not allowed! that's clearly against the law!" and it keeps happening and no one seems to be in a position to put up effective opposition

I think people referring to the law is interesting, because I think a key component of fascism is the absence of law, the explicit pursuit of order without law (rather than "law and order"). That power should reside in the man not in the office

still maintain that Democrats should be hammering "President Musk" nonstop - dual purpose of highlighting that Trump handed over the powers of the office to a billionaire who creeps people out and makes Trump feel weak. He's not smart enough to use Musk as a fall guy for a failed coup but he is dumb enough to be mad that people credit Musk for attempting a coup and not Trump.

Also, for republicans richer=smarter, so musk is defacto the smartest guy in the room.

I think people referring to the law is interesting, because I think a key component of fascism is the absence of law, the explicit pursuit of order without law (rather than "law and order"). That power should reside in the man not in the office

― anvil, Monday, February 3, 2025 5:06 PM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

For a chillingly quick education in the rise of fascism; read ‘M son of the century’ by Antonio Scurati about the rise of Mussolini from WW1 to the murder of Giacomo Matteotti in 1924 (also you can curse the lack of English translations of the latter two books).

From the co-opting and collaboration of the industrial oligarchy and the reliance on an angry, violent, militarised and dispossessed working class; there’s a lot of parallels. Order without law is a very apt phrasing.

Hey, I just finished the chapter in Francois Furet's The Passing of an Illusion depicting Mussolini's consolidation of power. He "remained a dictator who had escaped from the control of the governing classes and justice." The major causes of fascist dictatorship: "first, the success among the masses of the fascists' ideological preaching, which lent credibility to their pretention to govern; and, second, and even more important, the Fascists' political autonomy. What was surprising was not that they compromised with the bourgeoisie but that they remained independent of it."

I am surprised Trump is ceding so much power to Musk to clear out the bureaucracy. I knew he was going to do this but I thought it would be Heritage Foundation appointees leading the effort and doing it in a less chaotic way.

In a way maybe this is better. Musk might screw up and fail to execute the project 2025 vision

I have a neighbor who works at USAID , I know others who work at other fed agencies. I guess we have to hope that when Schumer and Dems get back from their weekend off and meet at 3 pm et they will get on this Musk stuff.

Meanwhile Musk tweeted : We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts sent a letter on Monday to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent demanding answers for why the so-called Department of Government Efficiency was granted access to the federal payments system, giving Elon Musk and his team a powerful tool that could be used to track and potentially limit government spending.

From NY Times

God I loathe the NYT. They are doing so much water carrying for Musk just by framing the data breach as "a powerful tool that could be used to track and potentially limit government spending" instead of "massive amounts of personally identifiable information that is legally prohibited from being shared with them."

otm

The federal employees I know do not tend to be gun people
― Dialysis Den (Boring, Maryland), Sunday, February 2, 2025 11:57 PM (yesterday)

I could see a lot of former fed employees getting into politics real quick though

xp And like, the DOGE spokesperson saying on Twitter that "no classified information was accessed" should obviously never be printed unless the next sentence is "Unlike information that is kept secret for national security interests, Social Security Numbers and other sensitive PII stored in the federal payment databases is not considered classified."

Trump did an Executive Order earlier granting lots of people security clearance, so nothing to worry about

FYI the DOGE spokeswoman is married to Stephen Miller.

Lolll

checks out:

In 2012, she was involved in a scandal when she was caught destroying hundreds of copies of the school's newspaper, after it endorsed an opposing student government candidate.

My sister sat across the sofa from me last fall and was so sure that his tariffs were a bluff, that they would never be imposed

What does she say now?

― anvil,

she'll say mexico backed down and trump is powerful and good (if the news this morning about mexico sending national guard troops to the border and the tariffs being delayed is accurate), and if that's not true, she will say that it's inevitable that mexico and canada are about to be dominated under trump's pressure. if they never do, that will become someone else's fault

Not bad if true:

https://bsky.app/profile/marklemley.bsky.social/post/3lhbmwfn2qc2n

Dude's a Stanford Law guy so I suspect he'll bring some heat.

From the Wall Street Journal (this is all I could get pre-paywall):

Democratic Senator Says He Will Stall Trump Nominees Until USAID Is Back
Schatz said he would hold up Trump’s diplomatic confirmations

WASHINGTON—Sen. Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii) said he would place a “blanket hold” on all of President Trump’s State Department nominees until his administration’s attack on the leading foreign-assistance agency ends, a move that threatens to stall Trump’s ability to get his foreign-policy team in place.

Raskin, Van Hollen, and Beyer are apparently Doing a Thing at USAID at 1.

Before throwing the tomatoes can we at least note that they're at least trying? They can protest and investigate but they don't have a lot of power to compel the uncompellable

well, that's all you can hope for, right? like I get the tools at the Dems' disposal are limited right now, but...we all saw what the GOP did when Obama had a mandate, a much larger one than Trump does now in fact. maybe they don't have much power now, but I strongly suspect they will win big in 2026 and 2028 (as they may need to, given how much Trump will put his finger on the scale), and the voters need to know they're actually serious about unfucking this country and defending trans people along with every other minority he's targeting. stop with this "the people want bipartisan solutions" thing, even the imaginary family in Schumer's head has got to be fed up with this

lol wait, so now Rubio claims he is "acting director" for USAID?

can't believe the CIA is so weak they won't even take out a tweaker billionaire to protect their slush fund

you don't need an exploding cigar or headache gun that drives him to suicide, precisely zero people would be surprised to wake up to the news that Musk ODed

looks like tariffs on Mexico are off for now since they agreed to send 10000 more border agents. of course, as it turns out, this is just something Biden negotiated a while ago

xp
"We're secretly replacing Musk's ketamine with fentanyl ..."

Are we supposed to be pro-USAID now?

Today's executive orders are amazing btw.

> Trump also expressed interest in acquiring Ukrainian rare earth minerals in exchange for more American aid to the war-torn nation.

As the plan is to subsume USAID is under State then yeah, Rubio.

CIA's needs are adequately hidden in the Defense budget (which no one is coming for). Plus, as noted above, no one is going to stiff Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed, etc.

Etaeoe, the #resistance may entail some strange bedfellows in these times.

> Trump also expressed interest in acquiring Ukrainian rare earth minerals

Why because they interesting

lol wait, so now Rubio claims he is "acting director" for USAID?

Very Alexander Haig.

I am expecting some territorial pushback from heads of departments against Elon snooping around and shutting things down.

I am expecting some territorial pushback from heads of departments against Elon snooping around and shutting things down.

I mean, bureaucratic territory pissing is a constant in any administration.

it sure does feel like Dems have joined GOP voters in thinking this country just isn't worth saving

Parker Molloy doing her best to sound alarms: https://www.readtpa.com/p/the-media-is-missing-the-story-elon

Think about what's already happened: A billionaire with extensive business interests in China now has access to sensitive national security information. A man who publicly mocks federal workers can now monitor their emails and computers. Someone who treats government agencies like hostile takeover targets has gained control of the systems that deliver Social Security checks to elderly Americans and food assistance to hungry children.

This isn't just about destroying the administrative state — though that's certainly part of it. It's about replacing government accountability with private control. When Musk's team tells federal workers they should seek "higher productivity jobs in the private sector," as reported by Wired, they're telling on themselves. The goal isn't to make government more efficient; it's to transfer its power and resources to private hands.

Democracy requires public servants who answer to the people, not to billionaires. It needs civil servants who can't be fired on a billionaire's whim. It requires systems that distribute public resources based on law and need, not private interests. Instead, we're watching the systematic dismantling of these democratic safeguards, carried out by someone who treats the Constitution like terms of service to be rewritten at will.

> Trump also expressed interest in acquiring Ukrainian rare earth minerals

Why because they interesting

Hey, mineral collecting is serious business.

It’s all just so far beyond how bad I expected it to be. The shock hasn’t fully sunk in.

Ending OSHA being floated now too, not an executive order (yet) but Rep. Andy Biggs from Arizona introduced a bill to do so. Not even hiding that they don't just want people poor, they want them dead too.

Anything radical that involves Congressional votes to pass is aspirational rather than a serious threat. It's the breadth of preemptive unilateral executive actions, whether legal or not, that's the flashing Drudge siren.

i expect that before the term is over, the fecklessness of the democratic party (and their real lack of powers, in terms of numbers and their ability to persuade normal people that they care about their wellbeing) will create a vacuum that will be filled with citizen violence, which trump and his regime (they are fascists, start calling them what they are) will compare to jan 6, "this is the real jan 6", etc

xp - Agreed, I just hope someone is keeping track of all of these "mask off" moments of what they'd really like to accomplish.

Hey, the left also wants a day of love. Is that too much to ask?

(they are fascists, start calling them what they are)

and sorry, pet peeve, but if you're one of those pedantic people who refuse to say "fascist" because it's not playing out the way it did with mussolini, invent a new word and use that one. say SOMETHING to differentiate this what you thought was normal

(same with genocide and gaza. call it ethnic cleansing, invent a new word, just stop ignoring it)

good thing nobody should ever give a fuck what Trump and his regime say, like can we start by not paying attention to their rhetoric at least

this shit should not be surprising - trump ran on this platform, everyone in the party is in on it and wants it, white evangelicals want it, rich people want it. in the same way, you should not be shocked when trump refuses to leave office ever again. he may well die, or be forced out by someone even more evil. but he's not leaving unless he's forced out, and to act like the 2026 or 2028 elections are something normal to look forward to and that 2016 - present is some abberation is not only misguided and unhelpful but completely wrong and wrong in a dangerous direction of complacence

xp - Agreed, I just hope someone is keeping track of all of these "mask off" moments of what they'd really like to accomplish.

why? they already SAID what they wanted to do, before they regained power! the masks have been off for a very long time now

anyway, sorry self-banning for a bit, logging off etc. this shit is DISMAL, but it's not SURPRISING

I just mean that someday it might be handy to have a list of all the shit they even floated, part of Project 2025 or not.

Resistance works.

Two days after nonprofit groups sued the federal government over a stop-work order targeting programs that provide information and guidance to people facing deportation, the U.S. Justice Department reversed course and ordered that funding to the programs be restored.

The four federally funded programs educate people in immigration courts and detention centers about their rights and the complicated legal process. The Justice Department instructed the nonprofits on Jan. 22 “to stop work immediately” on the programs, citing an executive order targeting illegal immigration that President Donald Trump signed the day of his second inauguration.

A coalition of nonprofit groups filed a federal lawsuit Friday challenging the stop-work order and seeking to immediately restore access to the programs. The Justice Department rescinded its stop-work order for all four programs Sunday afternoon.

Musk did not say what legal authority he believed the White House has to shut down a federal agency without congressional approval, or how quickly the administration planned to act. He said the idea had “the full support of the president” and that he had spoken with Trump on the matter several times.

Guess what? I'm reopening it

Acknowledged, z_tbd.

Lawmaker actions and lawsuits? Bring ‘em all on.

“I’m the acting director of USAid. I’ve delegated that authority to someone, but I stay in touch with him,” the secretary of state told reporters during his trip to El Salvador.

who can it be

Are we supposed to be pro-USAID now?

Olufemi Taiwo:

seeing takes about the aid institutions and their role in imperialism. correct. If someone said "investor-owned hospitals exploit the vulnerable to benefit shareholders" I'd nod. If their followup was "and that's why I'm turning off your mom's dialysis machine" I'd...have some followup questions

https://bsky.app/profile/olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social/post/3lhbtz6ugzs2p

Like I said, not criminality — lawlessness.

Elon Musk Suggests Getting Rid Of All Regulations In Midnight Call

President Donald Trump’s “government efficiency” cheerleader Elon Musk proposed simply ignoring all federal regulations during a public call shortly after midnight Monday morning.

Musk, whose newly formed “Department of Government Efficiency” team has in recent days executed a dramatic power grab at several government agencies, called for “wholesale removal of regulations.”

The public call was hosted on his website X, formerly Twitter, and included two senators and the Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy.

“Regulations, basically, should be default gone,” Musk said. “Not default there, default gone. And if it turns out that we missed the mark on a regulation, we can always add it back in.”

“These regulations are added willy-nilly all the time. So we’ve just got to do a wholesale, spring cleaning of regulation and get the government off the backs of everyday Americans so people can get things done,” Musk said, adding later: “If the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, well, it’s not freedom. We’ve got to restore freedom.”

they're just being Über-progressive, move fast and break things brah

They are committing serious crimes on a large scale

"Laws are added willy-nilly all the time. So we've just got to do a wholesale, spring cleaning of laws and get the government off the backs of everyday American so people can get crimes done."

time to start a supplements company and market it to MAGA chuds, my pills cure ED and male pattern baldness, they're full of rare earth minerals and whatever is in the ground I dug up behind my garage

is there are regulation against shining laser pointers into the eyes of private jet pilots? That's the one we need to ditch first

"Not default there, default gone."

Who wants to tell him

Get rid of all technology, technology should be default gone, not default there. If it turns out we missed the mark and we want some technology back, we can invent it again.

Second district judge going 'yeah right' to funding freeze stuff:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.276842/gov.uscourts.dcd.276842.30.0_3.pdf

I appreciate all this part of it as a 'hey over there in legislative, sorry, can't handwave yourself out of it' (defendants are the Trumpers):

In addition, Defendants’ actions appear to suffer from infirmities of a constitutional magnitude. The appropriation of the government’s resources is reserved for Congress, not the Executive Branch. And a wealth of legal authority supports this fundamental separation of powers. The legislature’s “power of the purse is the ultimate check on the . . . power of the Executive.” U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, 130 F. Supp. 3d 53, 76 (D.D.C. 2015). The Appropriations Clause of the Constitution gives Congress “exclusive power” over federal spending. U.S. Dep’t of the Navy v. Fed. Lab. Rels. Auth., 665 F.3d 1339, 1346 (D.C. Cir. 2012) (quoting Rochester Pure Waters Dist. v. EPA, 960 F.2d 180, 185 (D.C. Cir. 1992)). Without it, “the executive would possess an unbounded power over the public purse of the nation[] and might apply all its monied resources at his pleasure.” Id. at 1347 (quoting 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1342, at 213-14 (1833)). Indeed, the Clause “was intended as a restriction upon the disbursing authority of the Executive (Branch).” Cincinnati Soap Co. v. United States, 301 U.S. 308, 321 (1937). Congress has exercised its plenary power to give meaning to the Appropriations Clause and “reinforce (its) control over appropriated funds.” Id. In 1982, Congress enacted the “Purpose Statute,” which requires the appropriation of federal funds in accordance with “the objects for which . . . (they) were made.” 31 U.S.C. § 1301(a). Any “reappropriation and diversion of the unexpended balance of an appropriation for a purpose other than that for which (it) originally was made” is treated “as a new appropriation.” Id. § 1301(b). Related laws expressly prohibit the Executive Branch from encroaching on Congress’s appropriations power. See id. §§ 1341, 1350.

what is this 'sovereign wealth fund' malarky? don't they know about the deficit? Idiots

I mean, it's in the best interest for these tariffs to be kicked down the road, but GOOD LORD am I already preemptively sick of the crowing about the "DEALS" he made.

it’s the Dunning-Kruger apocalypse

it’s like a bunch of 13 year olds decide to trick out their dad’s car and just unscrew parts of the engine that look dumb or ugly but have no idea what they’re for or how an engine works
“this part is weird, it looks stupid”
CLANG
“uhh thats the alternator? you need that for electricity?”
“this is a CAR not an electric vehicle NERD”
etc

i mean, but scarier & more directly affecting our lives etc

Unconfirmed reports that people's Social Security payments are not arriving.

Just great. After delaying it until the last possible moment, I got a letter in the mail today from SSA telling me that I have to start my application for Social Security

So Musk says “If the government has millions of regulations holding everyone back, well, it’s not freedom. We’ve got to restore freedom.”

But in the same breath when someone on Twitter posted a list of the names of his spotty teen lackeys he replied with "this is breaking the law"

You can't have it both ways Elon you cunt. Are you pro free speech? Or pro having zero laws and regulations?

Why dont we get rid of ALL regulations so people can go buy a gun without any checks and balances and you figure out the rest you shitstain.

Two sweet old ladies stood all day in front of my federal office building today in the freezing cold holding anti-Elon signs. Cops hassled them but they werent easily intimidated. I could have wept with gratitude to them.

Trayce ilu and you know that but please (for me?) stop invoking the gun stuff

is there a historical analog for Musk's meddling in the U.S. gov't? I mean, we've had advisors who were foreign-born obviously, but they tended to hold actual cabinet posts (Weinberger, Brzeziński, Albright ) and I guess John Maynard Keynes was a kind of advisor to FDR... but Musk is like a straight-up Rasputin! (tho at least Rasputin was an actual Russian)

Kissinger

xp My husband got his, thank goodness. I was worried about it since we need it for the rent this month.

Our divisions share point site was down this morning g due to not complying with whatever EO about gender. Our ftp site that is used by the public is also down

wonder how Musk feels about all these new gender-oriented regulations?

Actually I don't really give a shit what he thinks

xxp I thought of Kissinger as well but he was primarily a foreign policy dude not involved in domestic shit

he still made a huge impression on US inter/national politics for someone who wasn't born here

absolutely, especially with China policy

Trayce ilu and you know that but please (for me?) stop invoking the gun stuff

Fair point. I'm extremely anti gun as it happens. I just find this all flabbergasting :(

So the tariffs were rolled back and Rubio said many of USAID’s programs will continue under the state department. (Which ones? Does this mean people in Africa will not be denied the medical and food assistance they’ve come to rely on?)

It seems like they are jerking us around a lot.

They’re doing horrible things, no doubt, but it’s not exactly clear what is really happening.

So the tariffs were rolled back

apparently this had more to do with the Dow Jones plunge than any assurances from our border neighbors

The fuck did he expect would happen to the dow jones

It’s very hard and exhausting to try to make sense of his decision making process

i submit that the issue with Elon's role is that he's an unelected fascist barging around government offices where he has no business being, issuing orders and doing untold damage to all kinds of systems and people's lives. really not sure why his foreign birth should enter into it tbh.

it’s like a bunch of 13 year olds decide to trick out their dad’s car and just unscrew parts of the engine that look dumb or ugly but have no idea what they’re for or how an engine works
“this part is weird, it looks stupid”
CLANG
“uhh thats the alternator? you need that for electricity?”
“this is a CAR not an electric vehicle NERD”
etc

the important nuance: the car is actually a bus loaded with people and is traveling at top speed

Musk and Trump are definitely fans of Speedspeed.

It’s very hard and exhausting to try to make sense of his decision making process

You should stop trying, then. He's stupid, ignorant (of politics, history, and economics), and sliding into dementia. You could spend your time trying to figure out how to break down the correct percentages of each of those elements as factors in any one thing he does, but it all adds up to a combination of the three, so who gives a fuck?

Not going to link it because it is too annoying, but the lead story at the NYT right now is about Musk and his “blitz,” and how it is “shaking” Washington. It barely quotes any critics at all, and doesn’t even allow that there may be some legal and constitutional issues around all of this until about the 40th paragraph. I know that complaining about the New York Times is pretty much pointless, but it is still a little jaw-dropping how quiescent the coverage is.

Just read it. Idk. It described what he is doing and why it is illegal and destructivr.

You have to go deep into the story to get to this paragraph, which has almost no follow-up or quotes from the critics:

Mr. Musk’s actions have astounded and alarmed Democrats and government watchdog groups. They question if Mr. Musk is breaching federal laws that give Congress the final power to create or eliminate federal agencies and set their budgets, require public disclosure of government actions and prohibit individuals from taking actions that might benefit themselves personally.

It would be much better reporting if they bothered to actually document how and why he could be breaching specific laws. Instead it's just, "some people have questions."

susan collins supporting gabbard. idk if she has concerns tho

gabbard gabbard hey
gabbard we accept you

it’s not exactly clear what is really happening

There's a man with a doge over there

Rich people speakin their minds/
Getting so much resistance from the woke mind virus

Everybody look who's bowing down

Who let the doge out?

lol

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/americas/el-salvador-migrant-deal-marco-rubio-intl-hnk/index.html

In addition, Bukele “has offered to house in his jails dangerous American criminals in custody in our country, including those of US citizenship and legal residents,” Rubio said.

Bukele confirmed the agreement on X, saying in a post, “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.”

President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order aimed at eventually closing the Education Department and, in the short term, dismantling it from within, according to three people briefed on its contents.

The draft order acknowledges that only Congress can shut down the department and instead directs the agency to begin to diminish itself, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about internal issues.

That work is underway already. The new administration has been trying to reduce the workforce by putting scores of employees on administrative leave and pressuring staff to voluntarily quit.

And roughly 20 people with Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency,” known as DOGE, have begun working inside the Education Department, looking to cut spending and staff, according to three people familiar with the situation and records obtained by The Washington Post.

At least some DOGE staffers have gained access to multiple sensitive internal systems, the people said, including a financial aid dataset that contains the personal information for millions of students enrolled in the federal student aid program.

many xposts to raymond - i apologize for being snappy earlier today! i was feeling very agitated about....well, you know. but i'm sorry to have acted in that way

Ugh, I know someone at the Department of Education and someone at USAid, so folks just proclaiming how stupid Musk and Trump are doesn't exactly help folks at those agencies with bills to pay and families to feed. I get your points, but despite those guys flaws they are causing serious real woes.

Yeah I don't think Musk got to where he is by being a total idiot, his public proclamations notwithstanding.

I think he's just absorbed a Trumpian "All publicity is good publicity" mindset. Both of them have zero qualms about saying objectively stupid things because they know they will 1. get covered, and 2. piss off people they dislike. What else is there?

I'm trying to make some kind of analogy where the media is a railroad track, and Elon Musk is a train, and every day people are tied up and left on the tracks, and every day the locomotive shows up wrapped in a different groyper meme. There's a lot to dislike about the situation, even before you realize that the Musk meme train is filled with stormtroopers commuting to work on the Death Star.

many xposts to raymond - i apologize for being snappy earlier today! i was feeling very agitated about....well, you know. but i'm sorry to have acted in that way

― z_tbd, Tuesday, February 4, 2025 12:06 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

All good! This is a supremely stressful time for everyone.

Doge is the Wagner Group of the administration and Musk is its Prigozhin. Hopefully he has a similar fate in his timeline.

Apologies if this has already been shared here

https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-legal-challenges-trump-administration-actions/

Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican and a physician who has been on the fence about Mr. Kennedy, cast the deciding vote, after days of publicly agonizing over what to do. The final tally was split along party lines: 14 Republicans voted yes, and all 13 Democrats opposed him.

So full senate vote coming soon after committee vote. "publicly agonizing"...

i hope there aren't any national health problems during the next 4+ years

Cassidy got assurances there wouldn't be.

the purpose of any government, when you strip it all the way down to the essentials, is to protect the people from harm and provide a system of "justice".

just thought i'd throw that out there. sometimes i completely forget because it seems like their purpose is the exact opposite

so...anyone have any good resources on how to protect my own and my baby's health with an empowered rfk?

I'm getting every vaccination available to me over the next 1-2 months (Pneumococcal, Shingles, TDAP, and MMR). Also stocking up on the usual COVID supplies... quality KN95 masks, latex gloves, hand sanitizer. If bird flu hits, I don't want to be scrambling for that stuff.

The assistant commissioner of a division of the General Services Administration told staff early this week that layoffs across the federal government are “likely” after the deferred resignation offer expires Thursday, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post — the sharpest move yet toward forcibly removing many of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/04/federal-government-layoffs-likely-memo/

Vodoo get a good pediatrician if you don’t have one already

Best year EVER

The "LOL nothing matters" bravado and preening obliviousness it takes to have a White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2025 is leaving me literally breathless. But hey, Amber Ruffin's gonna tell jokes! She's funny.

Is Trump going to be there though? He didn’t go to any during his first term.

Vodoo get a good pediatrician if you don’t have one already

― Heez, Tuesday, February 4, 2025 1:05 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i have a good one. i wonder if they will have any resources

Is Trump going to be there though? He didn’t go to any during his first term.

Whether he shows up or not (he won't, but I bet Musk will), the fact that these bootlicking pieces of shit think a banquet to celebrate the fantastic work they do is the right move as the entire US government is being privatized and demolished by the people they follow around like Entertainment Tonight reporters is...well...it says quite a lot.

Xp get ready for vaccine tourism!

brb going to niagara falls every 6 months

Great time for my dad to need his VA benefits to come through, a thing he's been working toward for like a year but there are 100 steps you have to take including time to research your entire life history of medical records. I'm sure it will be fine. :/

I know everyone here hates Gavin Newsom but this is okay in my book

‘We don’t trust Trump’: California earmarks $50m to fight administration

Plan sets aside $25m for legal battles against US government and $25m for legal groups to defend immigrants

California’s Democratic-dominated assembly endorsed up to $50m in funding on Monday to defend the state’s progressive policies against challenges by the Trump administration.

The legislation sets aside $25m for the state department of justice to fight legal battles against the federal government, and another $25m for legal groups to defend immigrants facing possible deportation...

Schumer and Jeffries can’t think of anything better than proposing a new law that uses the MAGA slogan “Stop the Steal “ as the name for a new law that combines existing laws to block Musk from what he’s doing.

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lhetayjwjt2j

Each morning, a peaceful protest outside of the Office of Personnel Management headquarters at 1900 E St NW from 7:30 am to 8:30 am, with coffee and donuts.

Some dc group is doing the above . AFGE that has been filling lawsuits also just announced a noon Tuesday rally near the Capital . They said they are doing it lunchtime so people working nearby can attend at lunchtime and then go back to work

Noted labor writer and metal scribe K1m K3lly is noting on Bluesky that she's heard Department Labor is next in DOGE's sights, her source says they've been told to give DOGE access to whatever they ask or risk termination.

"Please tell the boys with the broccoli haircuts whatever they want to know."

"When Big Balls asks for your password, share it immediately."

The Trump administration is still freezing many climate and infrastructure grants despite two federal court orders barring it from doing so.

Nonprofits and state agencies still lacked access Monday to EPA grant awards funded through the Inflation Reduction Act. Two district court judges have issued orders to reverse such spending freezes — with U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan reinforcing her order from Politico

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/04/epa-spending-freeze-court-orders-00202253

Like I said above, there are no laws anymore, just "Fuck you, stop me" or "Fuck you, make me", depending on the circumstance. But I'm pretty sure Elon Musk doesn't have Secret Service protection (yet). That window may close soon.

He just carries his son on his head everywhere instead for protection.

My uncle works for the dept of labor and is terrified he’ll lose his job. He’s close enough to retirement age, but after supporting two kids and still paying off his own mortgage and loans, there’s not a lot of wiggle for him.

Ugh, I'm sorry table. Hope he makes it through this madness okay.

so do we file taxes this year or is Elon in IRS too?

i'm pretty sure paying taxes is just something suggested to do now. like giving to charity. its not the law or anything.

The "Freedom Isn't Free" sect are always the loudest with the bitching about paying taxes.

Trump, Hosting Israel’s Leader, Says Palestinians Should Leave Gaza

“They have no alternative right now” but to leave, President Trump said shortly before he welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

will democrats say anything? will this be their first time trying to do anything to stop the genocide, now that biden is out of office?

i could be wrong but it almost seems like most elected democrats are fine with it, and they'd probably agree with trump if it would make the problem they made worse go away

thankfully we knew before the election that Biden's Israel policies were so bad that Trump could not possibly be worse.

its not like Jared didnt float razing Gaza and building high-end beach-front property or anything

Looks like a pretty sizable protest outside the Treasury right now, glad to see something.

Democrats are starting to say things. (Whether that’s enough, or whether they’ll go further, remains to be seen.)

Saying things outside of federal buildings, even.

Federal buildings that they can't get into despite being actual public officials.

the clips of the protest that I'm seeing are fairly lively, Dems are getting punchy little by little

Tables, my sympathy for what your uncle is going through. (He and I and Heez and a few other posters and/or their relatives share something in common, if you follow me.)

it's hard to imagine that we aren't going to have a country full of extremely pissed off people in short order if things continue to collapse like this

Trump just said the U.S. is going to take over the Gaza Strip, once those 2-plus million people are gone.

Whooee.

Personally I can't see this stuff dispassionately because of my gov-adjacent bubble, but I can clearly see a lot of messaging on the web of "good!" And "It's about time" wrt the fear and pain of my townspeople.

I know he's just a babbling wheezebag but jeez fucking christ already

Trump once again says Gaza is a “demolition site” that is “very dangerous and very precarious”.

He says the Palestinians in Gaza should be moved to a “beautiful area with homes and safety …. so that they can live out their lives in peace and harmony”.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will go a job with it too,” Trump says.

"We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site, level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings."

And it will be renamed "Trump Strip" after the dazzling casinos and condo units my crypto coin will help finance

Just total horrible nonsense. None of that is going to happen.

Four years sure feels long right now.

"Just go live somewhere else," a novel way to solve unrest in the Middle East; why didn't anyone think of that before

I have several teary conversations with friends and neighbors. One with the IG and another with USAID. These are people I know because we started families around the same time and our kids are close. We all talk about not passing this stress on to our kids but it’s fucking tough. I’ve also been solo parenting for the last two weeks while my wife travels for her international development job. It’s hitting me now that when she does this again in April I’ll be back in the office 5 days a week.

Very few Feds sign up to work for the government out of patriotism. I sure as fuck didn’t I wanted to be a rock star. But at some point something clicks and you get it. My job serves a better good for this country. You start actively trying to make it better, which is often super frustrating in such a large bureaucracy. We’ve been doing really great stuff the last 5 years and now I’m just waiting for it to fall apart makes focusing on work difficult. I don’t think most of the country understands how much damage this is doing

Word up

Sympathies, Heez.

Powerful post, Heez

I hope Bondi deports Fetterman's wife

(who knows, maybe that's why he voted for her)

Democrats are starting to say things. (Whether that’s enough, or whether they’ll go further, remains to be seen.)

― Clever Message Board User Name (Raymond Cummings), Tuesday, February 4, 2025 6:36 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

The ones on Twitter mostly seem to be doing endzone dances on Palestinian voters in Dearborn

Otm Heez

Every team meeting I’ve been in over the last week somebody has burst into tears. We’re already operating so close to the bone that even a 10% reduction in headcount in my division would be catastrophic for the services we provide. The results of losing 40 or 50% to layoffs are just unthinkable

I don’t think most of the country understands how much damage this is doing

They most assuredly don't understand the extent of the damage already done to destabilize their lives and make all of society poorer and more precarious. Their heads will continue to be filled with nonsense to help ensure that once it hits them personally they still will not understand who did this to them.

Its like an underwater earthquake in some far-off part of the ocean, and people dont realize the tsunami thats already on its way

The tsunami will hit tomorrow; the USPS is no longer accepting inbound packages from China or Hong Kong.

we used to assume that trump just wanted to be liked, and would do anything to further that aim
now it's clear he doesn't even give a shit about that anymore, he prefers being feared

Heez and One Eye Open, your posts really hit home

This Gaza thing is just mind-blowing

Yeah but it’s one of the more predictable things he’s done so far

The USPS thing is pretty nuts too. How is this squaring with Bezos when something like 70% of Amazon products come from China?

Lotta people going to be pissed tomorrow when their Shein, Temu, TikTok shop and Amazon orders don’t show up.

when you put it like that though it sounds kinda cool...

Okay, I am going to bite, as objectively as I can:

do these fucking fascists not realize that their wealth depends upon the global economic order that they seem hell-bent on destroying? do they realize that they can't just bully companies into "making things in America" because that simply...isn't the way things work? part of what has me so...uh...concerned, tbh, even as a leftist crank, is that it really just doesn't seem like any of this makes any fucking sense?

"We're a bunch of cruel fascists, let's destroy America's economy" just does not square up with...any sort of ideology that I know of.

"we're a bunch of wild-eyed anarchists, let's loot the fucking banks" is more my style, obv.

I don’t think the tariffs are designed to encourage domestic manufacturing. Tariffs like that would be more targeted and paired with incentives of some kind.

I have a feeling we will soon be seeing looting on a massive scale.

xp Also it's not like you can just flip a "domestic manufacturing" switch. It takes years to open a factory.

So what Elon will do is misdirection. The DOGE probably will uncover waste, inefficiency, even fraud. He is going to emphasize *that* to pull attention away from what he is doing, the ways he benefits. He wants to maintain the image of someone “cleaning up” a bloated and corrupt government.

I think Trump likes this plan because it will “humiliate” the “deep state.”

The sign to tap reads "Trump Is A Stupid, Declining Asshole Who Wants To Stick It To Everyone & Everything That Told Him To Eat Shit In 2020"

Exactly jaymc. Whatever is going on now isn’t about creating better trade conditions for the american worker. I wish it was something like that — not that i’d necessarily support it as i think he jerking our allies around in nasty ways — but it would be a rational thing to understand and debate. What he is doing is using tariffs to threaten other states to cave to his demands, which seem expansionist and imperial.

Many intelligent canadians i have been talking to think the 51st state stuff is serious. Even though he called off the tariffs for now it might be. Greenland, Panama, now Gaza — this is a much more expansionist vision than we saw in 2017.

He is a madman.

Xp

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the CIA has offered buyouts to its entire workforce. Because if you're gonna purge people from the government for political reasons, you definitely want to start with the spies.

So there is all kinds of fucked up things the CIA does that I don’t support. However… it can’t just be evaporated like that without causing a massive threat to global security. I would think…

I’m not sure getting American troops killed so you can put trump hotels in Gaza is gonna go over well

“Let’s destroy America before our enemies do it”

I wouldn’t think he would go over well, especially after jan 6, but here we are

I've told the story before of the night I went to see GG Allin perform. He came out naked except for cowboy boots, sang about one verse of the first song, then started smashing the microphone into his forehead until he was bleeding down his face. Then he turned his back on the audience, squatted, and shit on the floor. Then he started rolling in the shit, rubbing it on himself, and charging toward the crowd. We all fled. But as we left the back room where the show was and came out into the main room of the bar, the bartender pointed and laughed at us, and I'll never forget his words: "What's the matter? Isn't this what you wanted? Get back in there and party with him!"

This is that, on a nationwide/global scale. People paid for what they thought they wanted, at least in part because they thought it would be entertaining, and now they don't want it anymore. (Also, people wanted the US to cease to be a hegemonic global force, and now they're getting exactly that. But not in the way they wanted, I don't think.)

i don't dare look but does fox news still love him and explain away everything he does?

Comparing Trump's party to GG Allin is *chefs kiss* tbrh

That’s an amazing post unperson

Seconded

I don’t think anyone has played themselves as hard as Rashida Tlaib.

Well the people of gaza didn’t buy a ticket to this show, neither did the undocumented people fleeing gangs and political persecution who are now totally unprotected

it can’t just be evaporated like that without causing a massive threat to global security. I would think…

Flood the world espionage market with disgruntled agents, fabulous idea.

xpost amen, real people who were already being hurt are being threatened even more. It's all depraved.

I don’t think anyone has played themselves as hard as Rashida Tlaib.

― Allen (etaeoe), Tuesday, February 4, 2025 10:40 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

oh?

I think "Boy, don't you feel stupid for not voting for just a little genocide as a treat" is the sick own you think it is, etaeoe

i keep seeing this commercial with a guy lying on the floor in pain and amazon sends him a huge bottle of oxy with three refills. they know how to sell doctors! but what if their oxy comes from china...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCYaYZhd1bo

Damn, Amazon's gonna start a chain of pill mills servicing their warehouse workers.

It's OK, it'll come out of their HSA.

(Also, people wanted the US to cease to be a hegemonic global force, and now they're getting exactly that.

Don't think that is true at all? Just because the hegemonic global force is flailing around and self destructing doesn't mean it suddenly loses its status, we're all still chained to the US for the foreseeable afaict.

The Gaza story would just be something to chuckle at if it wasn't coming from a hegemonic global force for instance.

People who would like to see a dialing back of American imperialism probably aren’t the same people who are deeply upset by Elon’s USAID fuckery in particular.

hey, it's a two-state solution.

Are we supposed to be pro-USAID now?

...

their wealth depends upon the global economic order that they seem hell-bent on destroying? ... even as a leftist crank, is that it really just doesn't seem like any of this makes any fucking sense?

...
So there is all kinds of fucked up things the CIA does that I don’t support. However… it can’t just be evaporated like that

...
People who would like to see a dialing back of American imperialism probably aren’t the same people who are deeply upset by Elon’s USAID fuckery in particular.

The last run of posts is amazing and suggests a theory.

Tru/sk has done something: turned burn-it-down radicals into fans of the prior status quo. Anarchists are defending the government.

If it weren't so bizarre and awful I would be, like, quipping with detached irony or casting - what was it? Loftily removed bons mots?

My home town is on fire, and people who were shaking their fists at it a few weeks ago are passing buckets.

Leftists preferring the current terrible system over outright fascism isn't exactly a novel development, there's plenty of historical precedent - I fear your detached irony would fall flat.

I think the prior liberal status quo has some things to recommend it over the new oligarchic one. John Ganz's analysis yesterday really hit home for me:

To save themselves, the tech-oligarchs must attack the very notion of universality as such—hence their abandonment of liberal universalism for racism, nationalism, masculine domination, etc., because they represent a conspiracy, a shrinking, exclusive interest against a larger one. They are attacking first and foremost the State and the Bureaucracy, the civil servants: everything that Hegel identified in The Philosophy of Right with the universal, general interest of the whole society against the particularity of “bourgeois society,” the chaotic mass of self-interested businessmen. They want the State to appear just as particularistic as they are and destroy its legitimacy.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/what-happened-here-c9f

I understand why ppl are critical of USAID and frankly international development as an enterprise all together but I am literally getting text from my wife I who is in Laos right now. Here’s what she just wrote:

I had a very powerful meeting with a woman leading the only effort around access to justice for women here, she gets all of her financing from USAId and she’s providing the only legal services to trafficking victims. The stories she told me would make your skin crawl. I need to find a way to get money to her work because otherwise she shuts down.

I love guided by voices and all but GBV means something totally different in my house

These kinds of departments are a mix of necessary humanitarian aid and sneaky ways for the US to exercise soft power and even disguise covert operations.

What Musk is doing is like if, in response to doctors getting kickbacks from pharma companies to prescribe opioids, the government shut off all funding to hospitals.

pretty sure that's next anyway

Musk is an anarcho-capitalist wrecker. He’s not trying to remove fraud and waste. If that was the case he would also address tax loopholes and corporate subsidies like the ones he receives. *He does not have a vision of the state that involves providing for the common good.* He is eventually going to go after Social Security and Medicaid because there is no other place except the Pentagon he could go to make the kinds of cuts he is talking about.

Trump’s rhetoric often had to do with getting a better deal for the American worker. *That is not what this is.* Nothing could be further from Musk’s mind than people’s wellbeing.

Trump voters probably won’t get it. It should be obvious with Musk even if they were charmed by Trump’s gruff New York manner, his personal vanity and other human foibles. Musk sounds like an android and he wants to put microchips in people’s brains.

the trump hardcore probably don’t care or even approve of all these seemingly “bold moves” but i do think that there is a substantial number of mild middle of the road people who will be radicalised by this, and i don’t think it’s wishful thinking. the instant you or a family member are hurt, stressed or traumatised and there’s a direct causal chain that’s it

Feel like they are overplaying their hand at record time

new wall street journal headline this morning:

Trump Campaigned on Ending Foreign Entanglements. Now He Wants to Own Gaza.

i mean the question is how do these people express their buyers' remorse, before 2026?

i can think of a few ways

They don't, it's "we'll see how it plays out," which might be an acceptable way to view it if it were an actual, y'know, _game_.

Not so gamelike when your life is the ball and your children are the blades of grass.

Trump has swindled his way into power, by swindling people who were very willing to be lied to if the lies were coated in delicious, delicious racism. When he starts doing what he said he wouldn't do, enabled by both houses of Republicans who were also happy to be swindled if those lies were coated in delicious, delicious cruelty and also corruption and bribery, where is that tension expressed? I saw Jamelle Bouie writing last night that one reason leaders should prefer democracy to autocracy is that a key component of democracy is the peaceful transition of power.

mulitple xps

As in his first term, but even much more now, the cumulative effect of it all is not even outrage but exhaustion. Having to hear and think about this guy and his latest crazy shit nonstop is so tiring. But we can't just not pay attention to him, because any given statement or whim has real-world effects for real people, often bad ones. We voted this guy into our lives and we're stuck with him.

Yup

We live with what we failed to prevent, not that any of us had the power to do so

The fucking asshole won’t even leave us alone for Superbowl Sunday because he’ll be there too

"when your life is the ball and your children are the blades of grass"

worst megadeth album title ever...

Here it comes... the Muskovites are into Medicare and Medicaid.

Megadeth Muskovites Medicare Medicaid

All dactyls!

I got in a FAFSA for kid A last week, we are in the middle of pursuing a Medicare waiver for kid B, meanwhile my wife's job revolves around FDA and mine around GSA. Fun!

Ugh I gotta fill out a FAFSA too. It's so dumb because we won't get any aid, but our state's program that pays tuition for community college (a rare piece of good government here) requires that you file it before they'll give the scholarships.

jamelle bouie pointed out in his times that this might have something to do with musk's hatred of usaid

https://adst.org/2021/06/american-peoples-foreign-policy-usaids-role-in-apartheid-south-africa/

i just caught that $2 airplane thing that trump said. he's too funny. who needs a train? a $2 airplane ride or you just drive! makes sense.

that is some serious monty burns action.

So sick of trying to parse what that fucker even means. It’s all noise.

We want hen fap

Something needs to be done. I’m completely at a loss. This is the stupidest situation I have ever seen.

Since November, like many others I'm sure, I had a lot of anxiety about his second term and had nightmarish visions of how it would go down. Somehow it is significantly worse than I imagined but also completely unlike any scenario I could have predicted. While, yes, he is definitely following up on things he promised to do, it's just done in such a sloppy, scattershot, chaotic way that I couldn't have imagined the pieces of it - Musk most obviously, but so much else is just baffling to me.

Idk, somehow it feels like both a slow motion crash but yet also a speed run towards irreparable authoritarianism.

Meanwhile transportation funding is now going to be prioritized to places with higher rates of birth and marriage. (Which not coincidentally de-emphasizes urban areas.)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-02-04/department-of-transportation-memos-tie-funding-to-birth-rate-marriage-policy

Just a fleet of empty buses circling suburban neighborhoods with three SUVs in every driveway.

Holy Shit, Nancy Mace Is Trash-Flavored Trash:

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lhgxogdqxt2o

Idk, somehow it feels like both a slow motion crash but yet also a speed run towards irreparable authoritarianism.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, February 5, 2025 1:31 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is much worse than i thought it was going to be.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/business/media/lara-trump-fox-news.html

cool cool

xp - holy shit, and is that Boebert clapping like a moron when she says it? I can't quite tell.

lol that’s the least worrisome news so far like Fox has any integrity

To the Lara Trump news^^^^

My dad who watches fox (but only the real news parts!) was visiting this weekend and getting news from his son who had actual emails that he could look at. I guess it had an effect because apparently when they got home my mom asked if he was gonna watch fox and he told her he’s trying to wean himself off of it

hi us pol thread, the british history podcast guy (an american) just posted this on bsky, is it of interest?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l8vWfaFVMU

I already cannot see the U.S. as having any right to view itself as the Police force of the Globe.
Reelection of this felon amd his ideas of how he should be behaving to the rest of the world including casual mention of intended war crimes should ideal put a permanent full stop/period to that being able to repeat.
Would be great if a more egalitarian world set up would come out of that but that might just be a dream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaTbI7FCLl0

Russia 1992/US 2025 but this time the people stripping the country for parts aren’t sent from the Clinton administration

It feels like some kind of national suicide. And Biden idiotically not dropping out, preventing us from putting forward a strong candidate, feels like complicity. I am so horrified right now. This was alll preventable

the national dem apparatus is absolutely responsible

first, do no harm

So basically it's Trump throwing shit out, walking it back almost immediately, to distract from whatever the fuck Musk is doing.

Ref, the USPS reversing the Chinese/Hong Kong package thing in less than 18 hours and admin officials already walking back the Gaza comments.

Not to downplay what Trump is trying to do either, or excuse any of it, but that stuff is kind of what I'd expect with him spewing shit that gets walked back or blocked. It's the Musk piece that absolutely terrifies the shit out of me.

This has been observed before but: Flight 93 and half the passengers are rooting for the terrorists

https://i.imgur.com/4Q6yrHx.jpeg

Apparently some brave soul in the State Department building flew the flag upside down.

Not to downplay what Trump is trying to do either, or excuse any of it, but that stuff is kind of what I'd expect with him spewing shit that gets walked back or blocked. It's the Musk piece that absolutely terrifies the shit out of me.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, February 5, 2025 3:54 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The Musk piece is designed in part so Trump’s wild ideas won’t get stopped in the future

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mtr3pwmbnirvyp3robuicd57/bafkreiasfg6yvykr7huezgrrmtvyznnaaevdbjzbyyxy4cctanrtwl2qti@jpeg

Tho it feels too little too late

'Finally he's gone too far!'

Norm Ornstein has a good list of ways Senators in particular can fuck shit up within the bounds of decorum.

Senate Democrats need to use every tool at their disposal to throw wrenches into the works of the plans of Trump, Musk, and their GOP cultists in Congress. Doing so will also underscore how serious the threat is to our system, thereby forcing media to cover it. Here are some of the ways to use the rules to delay and discomfit the GOP majority; no easy action or votes.

Insist that the Journal of the Senate be read at the onset of every day’s business, soaking up time otherwise spent on legislating.

Deny unanimous consent to every action. The Senate operates by unanimous consent, and getting around it is time-consuming and uncomfortable.

Refuse to allow committees to meet when the Senate is doing business on the floor.

This is the relevant portion of Senate Rule 26: A committee may not meet (or continue a meeting in progress) on any day (1) after the Senate has been in session for two hours, or (2) after 2:00 p.m. when the Senate is in session. The Senate routinely waives this rule via unanimous consent. Deny it.

In Rule 14, there is a requirement that every bill is to be read in full three times before passage. That is routinely waived to include only reading a summary. Require the full reading, especially with omnibus bills.

Use the filibuster on every bill and confirmation. Draw a page from the Mitch McConnell playbook; raise the bar to 60 on legislation and use all the delays that can come with filibusters on confirmations. It is a regular misconception that filibusters have been taken away from confirmations. In fact, the cloture barrier has been moved from 60 to a simple majority. But even if these confirmations can pass ultimately, they can be delayed significantly by exploiting the rules.

Use the hold to block many if not most confirmations. A hold is simply a senator indicating he or she will deny unanimous consent to move forward on a confirmation, but it has been respected for many decades as a norm blocking action. Holds are no longer anonymous, but that is not a barrier. This something applied more than once by Senate Republicans during the Biden presidency; it was not just Tommy Tuberville and military promotions. Rand Paul, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, among others, used blanket holds to protest Biden policies or just to gum up the works. Kudos to Hawaii’s Brian Schatz for showing how it is done, with today’s blanket hold on State Department nominees over the hostile takeover of AID. It should be done by others for Treasury, Justice, Defense, Education, and other departments.

xp - Yeah, probably, but really all they can do right now is make some noise and try to gum up the works a little, so it's better than sitting quietly.

Good luck!

But in interviews on Wednesday, several Arab and Muslim American leaders or activists who voted for Mr. Trump stood by him. Some doubted that he would follow through on his Gaza proposal while also crediting him for the recent cease-fire, a product of collaboration between the current and previous administrations.

Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich., a Democrat who endorsed Mr. Trump last year, said on Wednesday that he did not believe the United States was prepared to force Palestinians out of Gaza.

“It’s all just talk,” Mr. Ghalib said as he waited for a call from the White House.

And Rabiul Chowdhury, a founder of Muslims for Trump, was willing to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt, seeing him as a strong negotiator.

“Democrats and extreme left are trying to kind of use this to ignite our community, but we’re not falling for that trap — they’re still the worst in our eyes,” Mr. Chowdhury said. “We are finding our alliances through MAGA folks.”

There are many areas, he added, “where MAGAs and the Muslims align.”

the condo/casinofication of gaza is pure hogwash, I'll agree with that

the idea that Donald Trump is president of the united states is also hogwash but here we are

there are internal documents from the Israeli government with similar proposals iirc

I don’t trust my instincts anymore about what is just talk and what is a serious threat.

Not a bad strategem.

Sometimes it's the small things that help you get through the day, Daily Beast headline:

Mitch McConnell, 82, Taken Away in Wheelchair After Falling Twice

too bad he didn't fall into Musk's wood chipper

No, make it slow and painful

I know there's a lot to absorb right now but in case you're wondering, the FCC is up to bad shit too.

https://reason.com/2025/02/05/how-the-fccs-warrior-for-free-speech-became-our-censor-in-chief/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/05/cia-reported-buyouts-workforce-donald-trump-administration

Wild style

This reminds me of when kanye west bought that architecturally significant house in malibu and ordered that all the wires and plumbing be ripped out of it for no clear reason, just an artistic instinct

I don’t trust my instincts anymore about what is just talk and what is a serious threat.

― treeship 2, Wednesday, February 5, 2025 3:59 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same

Like take this cia thing. It’s insane.

Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich., a Democrat

the same piece of shit who prohibited Pride flags in Hamtramck

I live in hell:

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/miami/news/lt-governor-jeanette-nunez-expected-to-be-named-interim-fiu-president/

It feels like some kind of national suicide. And Biden idiotically not dropping out, preventing us from putting forward a strong candidate, feels like complicity.

Biden-as-Fisher-King a very distressing aspect of all of this

I know there's a lot to absorb right now but in case you're wondering, the FCC is up to bad shit too.

I appreciate the care in this, tipsy. Probably a good time for me to find a line between the doomposting thread and this one. Actually it would be a good time to not look at the internet altogether but I seem unable to do that

I don't buy the complicity of Biden.. it seems clear to me now that Harris was just not the candidate for this election cycle
No, it wasn't a blowout but with hindsight, it seems like the return of Trump was almost an inevitability.. pains me to say that

It would not have hurt to have had a more normal nomination process — one that wasn’t beset by a scandal about Biden’s team hiding his condition. These were all completely avoidable marks against the democrats.

I agree with that

That it wasn't a blowout - that it was close (much closer than it was presented last November) - makes it feel like stupid mistakes might have doomed the world to this.

But who knows, and maybe it doesn't matter. Bring on the White Horse Prophecy.

I'm on team doesn't matter. But if the circumstances of last year recur (senescent president, egomaniacal toddler with cultlike hold on a large chunk of voters distributed just so, decent but imperfect backup candidate, events and economic conditions as they were) the lesson is um learned, I guess?

imo it does matter that the national democratic party stands for so little that they were unable to convince enough people to keep these nihilist wreckers out. a lot of people knew this flavour of chaos was coming but the democrats could not get them to look beyond whatever ancillary financial benefits they'd deluded themselves were coming their way and that's a problem. mammon is king and it's not good enough to say, hey we are the superior judges of mammon distribution

Seems like the first woman to lead the U.S. will be a brutal Thatcherite, not a brat person of color from Oakland

That wasn’t why she lost. She would have won if it wasn’t for the bungled handoff. In my opinion. She lost because she stood for the Biden admin in people’s eyes. What she did in her position was fine but it was too late.

There is another piece to all this though. Their strategy seemed to be to jail Trump. So they should have made sure they did it! The federal investigations should have started way earlier! They put him in this position where he could gain sympathy by saying he was a victim of lawfare.

can we please not do this shit again

relitigation?

i have zero interest in relitigation or even recrimination i'm all about action babe let's fire the DNC into the sun and move on

the idea that any of them feels like they can show their face is amazing. has shame disappeared entirely from public life? time to bring it back imo

These are the dems we have at present; which is it - they should be doing more, or they should hide in shame and slink off to die in the shadows while the maga set romps?

I forget. How many times does a dog walk in tight circles before it lies down to sleep?

oh they’ve done enough

you guys are gonna hurt your stomachs. remember to breathe. maybe a little exercise. a light salad. 4 bottles of bordeaux.

can't afford the bordeaux - tariffs!

Sometimes it's the small things that help you get through the day, Daily Beast headline:

Mitch McConnell, 82, Taken Away in Wheelchair After Falling Twice
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 5 February 2025 22:03 (yesterday) link

Who wants to do the honors?

https://media.tenor.com/f7oKF5fw0QgAAAAM/mac-and-me-wheel-chair.gif

A conservative nonprofit has posted the names and photos of more than 50 federal workers on what it is calling a “watch list” related to diversity, equity and inclusion, asking President Trump to fire them.

The group says the workers named in its “D.E.I. bureaucrat watch list” supported diversity, criticized Mr. Trump on social media or made donations to Democrats. Many of the targets are Black workers at health agencies.

The list was compiled by the American Accountability Foundation, a small right-wing nonprofit that was founded in 2020 to oppose Biden administration policies and nominees. Since Mr. Trump’s election, the group has stepped up its targeting of specific federal workers — some of them career employees with little power — that it believes oppose his agenda.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/politics/dei-watchlist-federal-health-workers-cdc-nih.html?unlocked_article_code=1.u04.Wi1m.591oND903C86&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

what in the everloving fuck is this shit

He said that his group had identified them by looking at political donations to Democrats, and by looking at social media posts. He said he had not reached out to the workers to verify the information he published, or even to determine if they still worked for the government.

“I’m busy; I’ve got a lot of stuff to do,” Mr. Jones said.

If you ever wondered what it was like to live through McCarthyism ...

This whole "experiencing in real time the worst episodes of history" is not a good feeling.

100%

it's not quite the same when you already know though

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said President Trump’s idea to take over the Gaza Strip is “provocative” but it’s “part of the conversation.”

Fetterman, who has been a staunch ally of Israel in its war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, appeared to be open to considering the plan when speaking with Jewish Insider.

“It’s a provocative part of the conversation, but it’s part of the conversation, and that’s where we are,” Fetterman said. “The Palestinians have refused, or they’ve been unwilling to deliver a government that provided security and economic development for themselves.”

“They allowed 10/7 to occur, and now Gaza has to be rebuilt,” he continued,

"What's in it for me?" — a provocative and cool part of our national conversation about aiding and abetting genocide.

The tone and approach of that NYT article is reprehensible.

Seriously, I just woke up and am now fully fucking awake.

It’s like “hey, they’re targeting these people, but, whatever”

Seems like the first woman to lead the U.S. will be a brutal Thatcherite, not a brat person of color from Oakland

We've had three women Prime Ministers in the UK, all of them right wing, and the current leader of the Tories, a woman of colour, is more right wing than any of them.

And the last one did more damage to the economy in the shortest period than any other PM I can remember

the next to last one dug her political grave by misreading the moment with Grenfell Tower, makes u think

Back when the UK had an opposition that actually opposed Tory nonsense.

it’s not like the Dems are any better at this point.

it turns out, according to the new york times, trump is a GENIUS.

"As outlandish and unworkable as Mr. Trump’s proposal on Tuesday may seem, it is “no less than an historic resetting of decades of received diplomatic wisdom,” said Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser. However unrealistic, he said, “it may force the sides to reconsider long-held positions, stir things up dramatically and lead to new openings.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/world/europe/trump-gaza-hamas-palestinians.html

Polite Kahanism, how lovely!

"As outlandish and unworkable as Mr. Trump’s proposal on Tuesday may seem, it is “no less than an historic resetting of decades of received diplomatic wisdom,” said Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser. However unrealistic, he said, “it may force the sides to reconsider long-held positions, stir things up dramatically and lead to new openings.”

My provocative assertion that the collected works of Shakespeare were actually written by me may force literary critics to reconsider long-held opinions, stir things up dramatically and lead to new openings.

This is such a joke

I read that NYT article first thing this morning and my head literally exploded. Picking up all the pieces has been a pain, need to remember to put on my craven-apologetics helmet.

Meanwhile, if your company ignores a union vote, fortunately you can appeal to the... oh wait.

https://wapo.st/4jMdrk3

I read that NYT article first thing this morning and my head literally exploded. Picking up all the pieces has been a pain, need to remember to put on my craven-apologetics helmet.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra),

Trump Wants to Turn Trump Into Rivera, Only Hamas Stands In Its Way

The party that finds all sorts of excuses to cling to their “tradition” is now the party of “stirring things up dramatically.”

Trump just called chuck schumer a “palestinian.” I think I am having a stroke

The nicest thing he could have said

I realize we're holding our umbrellas under this storm of shit falling on us, but let's avoid, please, the DO YOU KNOW WHAT TRUMP SAID NOW affliction of 2017-2018. Let's confine it to more cataclysmic news.

but let's avoid, please, the DO YOU KNOW WHAT TRUMP SAID NOW affliction of 2017-2018

otm

Xp Dan

There are no conservatives anymore because the world has changed to an extent where these types don’t want to conserve anything. They want to tear down the institutions they see as corrupt.

Marc Andreesen recently talked about how all the woke college grads were trying to “destroy” silicon valley companies from within. This is an absurd exaggeration. But not just that — it also is a projection of what they want to do, which is destroy civil society.

They as in these so called conservatives. Trump’s coalition.

Musk destroyed Twitter from within because it was full of intellectuals who made fun of him and now he’s teaming up with Trump to do the same thing to the Federal government, and for the same reasons

There are no conservatives anymore because the world has changed to an extent where these types don’t want to conserve anything. They want to tear down the institutions they see as corrupt.

I have opted for "right-wing radicals" since the W administration.

They want to conserve a poisoned realm for white men.

They’re not that radical. They absolutely want to preserve their wealth and the future wealth of their friends and they’re willing to wreck anything to do it but it’s in the service of consolidating power in the hands of those who already have it

xpost what he said

otm x 2, they are conservatives in the sense of conserving (and expanding) existing wealth and power. Which imo is always the most important meaning of "conservative," beyond and underneath any trappings of civility and custom.

This is good, from yet another outraged historian: https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-destruction

This bit in particular struck me, because this is essentially describing the private equity/vulture capitalism mindset, now applied to government:

The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow.

Snyder's been on a helluva run the last few years.

I think they are idiots because wealth cannot be created in conditions of anarchy and chaos.

There are warlords and cartel leaders who would disagree.

Yeah treeship I don't think that's true

Sure. I guess the idea of being an “elite” in a broken world holds no appeal for me. I do not understand why people who have benefitted from our country, our workforce, our infrastructure, want to wreck it. It makes me livid.

Marc Andreesen recently talked about how all the woke college grads were trying to “destroy” silicon valley companies from within. This is an absurd exaggeration.

Andreesen sucks but he’s not entirely wrong about the “Shanley Kane era.” I suppose it depends on what you mean by “woke” and by “Silicon Valley company” but there was a period of years where politics was omnipresent at technology companies, even companies that exist outside of social media or otherwise lack a direct connection to politics. I believe that period was terrible for both my personal politics and technology generally.

Q: Why does DJT want to cripple the US?
A: A crippled country is easier to loot.

SOMEBODY's naivete is getting really tired.

The U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., ruled Thursday morning that Elon Musk and his team of coders have been blocked from further accessing government databases.

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly approved the temporary restraining order outlining the conditions.

Kollar-Kotelly previously served on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) and was appointed by the late conservative Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist.

Let’s see if they follow the order

Yeah I was going to ask what this really means in practical terms. Until some kind of enforcement entity physically removes the DOGE gang from the premises, I'm not sure what this does.

How many infantry divisions etc.

it would not surprise me at all if they stopped right now, and then somewhere down the line everyone's bank accounts get siphoned

memo from bondi to DOJ: the president is your client. zealously defend him.

https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/DOJzealousadvocacymemo02052025.pdf

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

(note: the doj is was independent of the president's personal desires)

Also it's particularly wild to me that, all the details of the fuckery aside, that there are rightwingers crowing that this is "just an audit". Like, you genuinely believe that this guy with billions tied up in defense contracts is going to perform an objective audit of the gov'ts finances? The level of disingenuity and/or self-deception is off the charts

They will defend dear leader to the bitter end. They are literally “this is fine” dogs.

I think the "this is fine" dogs are more the equivocating establishmentarians. The rightwingers who are crowing are the guys setting the house on fire.

I think they are idiots because wealth cannot be created in conditions of anarchy and chaos.

― treeship 2, Thursday, 6 February 2025 15:30 (forty-five minutes ago) link

There are warlords and cartel leaders who would disagree.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 6 February 2025 15:32 (forty-three minutes ago) link

Yeah treeship I don't think that's true

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf),

The world they want to create would leave them vulnerable to having it all (and more) taken away from them though. There would no protections in the event of a fall out or hostile takeover. Oligarchy is a dangerous game

True

xp

Oligarchy is a dangerous game

For sure, just ask Immortan Joe. But I think the Muskovites (probably correctly) assess that at least within their conceivable lifetimes, they have plenty of resources and options. If one country falls apart, they just take their private militia and move somewhere else. It's not a sustainable model, but "sustainability" is a dirty word to these guys anyway.

If one country falls apart, they just take their private militia and move somewhere else.

Just as long as the private militia's payroll checks continue to clear.

All paid in crypto, I'm sure.

A generation that has modeled themselves on Simon Gruber from Die Hard with a Vengeance.

More bullshit:

US immigration is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations

Thousands of press releases about decade-old enforcement actions topped search results, all updated with a timestamp from after Trump’s inauguration

lol why didn’t Biden just spam us with old new releases about how inflation is zero

Record grain yields comrades

Inflation is zero*

*Compared to the exact present moment

Yes^^^

So USAID was investigating Starlink? Huh

During a hearing at the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability in September, USAID Inspector General Paul K. Martin told Congress that the agency was examining its relationship with Starlink, one of Musk's most prominent tech ventures.

In 2022, USAID and Starlink collaborated to provide 5,000 Starlink terminals to Ukraine, to give the country fighting Russian invasion access to Musk's advanced internet system, operated through SpaceX, as reported by The Lever.

"In addition to another ongoing audit on direct budget support, we are examining USAID's Energy Security Project, USAID's oversight of Starlink Satellite Terminals provided to the Ukrainian government, and USAID's efforts to protect against sexual exploitation and abuse in Ukraine," Martin told Congress.

"When completed, we look forward to sharing the findings of these reports with the subcommittee."

“It has become ever more apparent that, to our president, the rule of law is but an impediment to his policy goals. The rule of law is, according to him, something to navigate around or simply ignore, whether that be for political or personal gain,” U.S. District Judge John Coughenour said as he announced his ruling. 

“Nevertheless, in this courtroom and under my watch, the rule of law is a bright beacon which I intend to follow,” continued Coughenour

“I said this two weeks ago, and I’ll say it again today: There are moments in the world’s history when people look back and ask, ‘Where were the lawyers, where were the judges?’ In these moments, the rule of law becomes especially vulnerable. I refuse to let that beacon go dark today,”

Another woke Reagan appointee.

I've had a helluva day. I gave our faculty union guidance on how to respond to the interim appointment of Jeannette Nunez as my university's president, in essence shoving out our sitting president before his contract has expired. Then a couple hours ago a 21-year-old local Dem hack chastised our local Dem club for LOLing at a MAGA activist losing his TPP status on Instagram. Now I'm on a faculty meeting where I'm listening to how our Board of Governors has demoted two of my three courses, among others across our school's curriculum, for reasons that I imagine are #woke.

So when a Reagan or Poppy Bush judge gives Trump a kick in the balls before I've had the world's biggest martini, I weep with gratitude.

This interview with Senator Brian Schatz is worth five minutes of your time.

Meanwhile, Musk and his associates continue to gain access to important federal systems. Do you think it’s smart strategy for Democrats to be focusing on that particular aspect of things above almost anything else — that Musk, an unelected billionaire, is wreaking all this havoc, and so on?
I want to question your premise, because all day, every day, I am asked about Democratic strategy. So I’m always doing this meta-commentary, as if I’m a podcaster. “Is it smart Democratic strategy?” I think there’s a lot of that, where we consider success to be whether someone ratifies our strategy via the punditocracy, and I just want us to get out of that habit.

That’s a fair point.
Bad things are bad, and you should fight bad things. One of the things people like about Republicans is they’re very determined to do the things they promise to do, and they’re willing to temporarily lose a news cycle in order to win a bigger argument that will cause a bigger shift in the national conversation. And we just have this left-of-center left punditocracy. It’s Morning Joe, it’s [Axelrod] and Carville — whose whole profession is, once they do their perfunctory criticism of Trump, then they get into the thing they really wanted to say, which is how much better things would be if they were in charge. And none of these people have run a Democratic campaign or enacted legislation in more than a generation.

And so it’s not that people shouldn’t use a skeptical or critical eye when evaluating what Democrats are up to, it’s just that the chin-stroking of it all is just a little exhausting. We just need everybody to jump in the boat and start paddling in the same direction, at least roughly speaking. And I have noticed this online — half of activism now is people rephrasing the things that I post. And I’m thinking of all the activities you could engage in online or offline, rephrasing the way a politician decided to say something is like the goofiest bullshit I’ve ever heard. So I think that we have to operate from some core principles, that we’re trying to protect people from a billionaire takeover of the United States government, of their government. And if that makes me sound corny, so be it. But I think that we have had too many pundits and pollsters and strategists who have been losing decade after decade. And I think it would be great if they all made some room for some new thinking.

salud Alfred! Hope you evening is better

I want to question your premise, because all day, every day, I am asked about Democratic strategy. So I’m always doing this meta-commentary, as if I’m a podcaster. “Is it smart Democratic strategy?” I think there’s a lot of that, where we consider success to be whether someone ratifies our strategy via the punditocracy, and I just want us to get out of that habit.

boom -- THANK you.

solidarity Alfred

The fucking Dem runt who wagged his finger at us probably has a photo of James Carville in his mom's office.

Nearly all staffers from the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency are expected to be temporarily restricted from directly accessing the Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the U.S. government.

Employees of DOGE, an advisory body tasked with cutting programs and slashing federal spending, were believed only to have access to the highly sensitive systems within the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

Attorneys from the Department of Justice agreed to the Trump administration motion filed on Wednesday night to limit access to payment systems. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly must sign off on the DOJ's proposed order.

Also, apparently one of Musk's DOGE staffers resigned today when asked about his old racist posts in support of eugenics.

You’d think that would lead to a promotion.

Well, I'd imagine it's why he was hired in the first place, but maybe some of them do have shame.

the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency

quickly developing pet peeve is how often the news accounts are forgetting to add in things like "this is not actually a formal department with any authority whatsoever", "this is not part of the government", "we don't know who works there, or how many there are", etc. it's annoying, but in the same way that it's important to add things like "Trump said, without evidence", or "Trump lost the 2020 election, it needs to there

and alfred, sorry to hear about your really shitty day. it must be enraging to have to deal with. i hope the meeting is going ok, by which i mean i hope you haven't flipped a table over. (it'd be understandable if you did)

Oh man, sorry about your day Alfred, I missed that post for some reason. Sending good thoughts your way.

Elon’s efficiency department has racked up 7 million in expenses in just a couple weeks

Actually, it feels great to be engagé! Better than sulking or sullenness. Let's GO.

this DOGE shit is going to wind up be extraordinarly expensive for the US

might be good to remind people this is what their tax dollars are paying for

Worlds richest person expensing lunch on the tax payers dollar

I have been pushing the people who have been orbiting our union, obviously showing interest but not yet joining, to join and fight with us. It's a small thing, we're a small campus, but I know we have smart people and every bit helps. xps

NEA grants will be awarded to pushers of patriotic kitsch going forward.

Grants for Arts Projects
The National Endowment for the Arts is revising the FY 2026 Grants for Arts Projects guidelines and they will be available on arts.gov/grants no later than Monday, February 10, 2025.

As part of these changes, the February 13, 2025, Grants for Arts Projects deadline has been canceled. The FY 2026 deadlines are now March 11, 2025, for GAP 1 and July 10, 2025, for GAP 2. Organizations that have already submitted an application must submit a new application under one of these deadlines.

Under the updated guidelines, the NEA continues to encourage projects that celebrate the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity by honoring the semiquincentennial of the United States of America (America250). Funding priority will be given for projects that take place in 2026-2027 that celebrate and honor the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This can include incorporating an America250-related component or focus within a larger project.

...

The updated guidelines are in response to recent directives. They also streamline and simplify the application process and align with the agency’s mission.

I think it is incumbent on every US artist to apply for an NEA grant this year and absolutely stuff their application with fascist kitsch language. Use every right-wing magic word. Lie to them, take their fucking money ('cause it's our fucking money) ... and then do whatever you want with it. Having read Frances Stonor Saunders' The Cultural Cold War, all about how the CIA funded Abstract Expressionism and jazz, I think I have a pretty good idea how to explain what Burning Ambulance does in a way that will make it appealing to patriotic American culture warriors.

Most, if not all, NEA grants don't go to individuals. They go to state or local arts organizations, typically for large projects or for subsequent disbursement (and often not to individuals even then.)

Oh, I know. BA has existed as an organization since 2010. We have a tax ID number and everything.

Sorry about your day and all the bullshit, Alfred. Hope it's a good martini!

Semiquincentennial is a heck of a word.

we could call this style of art “Capitalist Realism”

Next time you hear jazz, thank the CIA.

Sorry about your day Alfred.

Back to USAID, it seems lawsuits are being discussed but because it is not clear whether USAID will be merged into the State Department or whether Trump will just try to shut it down, no lawsuits have been filed yet. But meanwhile US employees (including my neighbor are being put on administrative leave) and employees abroad are being told to come back to the US within 30 days (although Rubio has expressed his "concern" for those abroad).

U.S. Agency for International Development employees and contractors are discussing potential lawsuits targeting the unprecedented attack on the federal agency by President Donald Trump's administration, according to four sources familiar with the talks.

Lawsuits based on loss of income could be used to bring up weighty constitutional claims over presidential power in the face of congressional legislation that set up and funds the agency and its programs...

The challengers could seek an immediate injunction seeking to block Trump's moves, which fly in the face of Congress' role in enacting legislation on such issues. It is unclear exactly whether Trump intends to dismantle the agency altogether — as Musk has said — or whether it will be drastically restructured.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/lawsuits-imminent-trump-dismantling-usaid-rcna190862

a lot of midwestern farmers grow the actual cereal grains that are exported by USAID, and have been since the 1950's

yup, and trump states are really going to feel that pain. as if farmers in this country weren't already feeling enough pain.

I'll allwaaaays
Feel that pain

As well they should

https://newrepublic.com/post/191249/democratic-voters-congress-phones-doge-musk-trump?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the_ticker_rss&utm_term=tnr-newsletter-20240823

“Members of Congress told Axios that they hadn’t received this many calls since events like the October 7 attack on Israel, the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, or the Trump impeachment hearings.”

He’s…not…popular…

Cue up DJ Khalid’s “All I Do Is Win”

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5131524-pardoned-january-6-rioter-minor-solicitation-charges/

Alfred, I hope you treat yourself to an extra Negroni this weekend.

Just finished a martini!

🍸

I don't know why the Dems aren't playing to Trump's insecurities around Musk... Blumenthal should be like "We know who wears the pants in the family... Trump ain't nothing but Musk's little cuck bitch" etc., just lay it on thick 24/7

Vought confirmed

lol I don't know who came up with "incel clown posse" but I salute you

that's pretty good

Yeah that's better than nerd reich

Alfred, I raise my less sophisticated whiskey glass in your direction. Those are the meetings/calls/omens I dread in academia.

Nerd Reich is good idk

yah I can work with that one too

Thursday's lawsuit was filed by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE). It is the first legal action related to Trump's measures to cut USAID.

In addition to Trump, the lawsuit takes aim at the US state department, USAID, the treasury department, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

The lawsuit argues that the president is violating the Constitution and federal law in attempting to dismantle the agency.

"Not a single one of defendants' actions to dismantle USAID were taken pursuant to congressional authorization," the lawsuit says.

"And pursuant to federal statute, Congress is the only entity that may lawfully dismantle the agency."

It calls for an independent acting director of USAID to be appointed, for USAID buildings to be reopened to employees, for the USAID website to be restored, for grants and contracts to be reinstated, and for mandatory evacuation notices to staff to be lifted.