"They did sign up for it, actually...": US POLITICS, MAY 2025

MAYDAY MAYDAY MAYDAY

Take it over to the Handmaid's Tale thread.

health and human services department published a report today suggesting gender affirming care for youth is harmful and that it should be replaced with conversion therapy

just actively killing us at this point

Pelosi primary challenger is a rich guy but seems alright

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/tech-millionaire-saikat-chakrabarti-faces-pelosi-20298729.php

reposting this amazing quote here:

"We are working with other countries to say ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries.”

- marco rubio, yesterday

i personally did not get the reference, but i will also preserve the lol response :)

- Emma Lazarus

― imperial frfr (Steve Shasta), Thursday, May 1, 2025 10:12 AM (forty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lol

― the talented mr pimply (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 1, 2025 10:14 AM (forty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

health and human services department published a report today suggesting gender affirming care for youth is harmful and that it should be replaced with conversion therapy

just actively killing us at this point

― ivy., Thursday, May 1, 2025 10:35 AM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

gotta love them suggesting behavioral therapy as an option like it's a new idea. at least in our state, therapy is required and a therapist has to sign off before a minor can receive gender-affirming care.

One of the major failings of media coverage of trans issues has been not making it clear to everyone what gender-affirming care actually is and how it works. I've talked to people who aren't necessarily anti-trans but are just not well informed and they have no idea how long and rigorous the whole process is. The idea that it's something people are doing on a drive-by basis has been effectively planted and not seriously challenged in the mainstream media.

i personally did not get the reference, but i will also preserve the lol response :)

ha! Emma Lazarus wrote the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.

ok lol

https://i.imgur.com/XZos42P.png

i think tipsy very otm about informing the world what gender affirming care is.

the thing is also it should be available to everyone on a drive-by basis

like anyone who wants hormone replacement therapy should get to do it. it changed/saved my life. barriers to it kill ppl. further barriers to it will kill more ppl

I am at the rule of law protest on the sidewalk in front of the US Supreme Court in DC right now

Thank you curmudgeon <3

Thanks curmudgeon!

i think what ppl need to understand is that 1) they, you, everyone you know can or will be taking medications that affect your hormones through your whole life, e.g. my testosterone blocker is identical to the acne meds i took in high school 2) whether they know it or not, there is probably a trans person in everyone’s life, and access to this care is literally the difference between life or death. there should be vending machines full of estrogen and testosterone on the fucking street, jk, i’m kidding, i actually enjoy that my transition is monitored by my doctor who is also trans, but beyond him showing me a powerpoint presentation on the side effects and prescribing me the actual medication, there were no barriers to entry, and if there were, i might not have done it

I mean, what the standard of care should be is obviously an open question. I'm just saying that there IS a standard of care, and that is almost never spelled out in coverage of the issues. My own mom had no idea that, like, medical associations the world over had been considering and setting standards and practices for gender affirming care for years, way before it became this right-wing punching bag. She gets all her news from NPR and the NYT and somehow that had never come through to her.

do these ppl really believe liberals are dumping hormones into the water supply. i just want ppl to recognize that gender affirming care is GOOD and NECESSARY along with the fact that it’s excessively aggressively regulated so that maybe in the future, beyond the present moment, it can be less excessively aggressively regulated. idk i would like to do both

I am at the rule of law protest on the sidewalk in front of the US Supreme Court in DC right now

― curmudgeon, Thursday, May 1, 2025 11:18 AM (forty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thank you!

CAN YOU MAKE ME FIRED?

https://i.ibb.co/HDR79KXD/Messenger-creation-F43-C61-F6-FBD8-4-F4-D-B44-A-A3-D2-DF54-EF91.jpg

One of the things about gender affirming care and what it is or isn’t is - ITS STILL NONE OF YOUR (OR MY) BUSINESS! Leave people the fuck alone! If you’re going thru cancer or aids or getting a buttlift don’t care what your treatment is! If you want a treatment (or if you choose to not have treatment) i hope you can get it but otherwise it’s none of my fucking business! AND I DONT CARE! FUCK!!!!

i'm sure someone smart has written about this but something i think about a lot is the rise of the internet eradicating the concept of minding your own business

I can barely keep track of my own family and friends let alone some kid in nebraska who needs HRT

the dominant narrative now is that gender care is ONLY men becoming women so they can compete and dominate in womens sports and it's just not fair

I feel like there was a time when conservatives kinda understood that, maybe they never meant it but there was that "whatever you do on your property is your business" mentality for a while, the difference now is that right wing media has convinced their viewers **its coming for them**, or their kids, like they really believe the public school system is pulling kids aside and telling them to be transgender

(xp) ... and use female toilets.

the furrification of out children is underway

My congressman wrote a very concerned letter to the University of Tennessee because some right-wing outlet noted that there was a campus furry club. He strenuously objected to any public money being used to support the club, which of course there is no public money going to it. I looked up the club's social media account, it's just a bunch of happy dorky kids hanging out together (mostly not in fursuits, at least in their photos).

Like, the shit these people decide is something to worry about, it's just boggling.

xp People don’t need to know what gender affirming care anyone may or may not be getting, it’s absolutely not their business at all, it is between you and your doctor and whomever absolutely needs to know for provision of benefits and then in confidence.

But people should know what gender affirming care is, and why it is necessary and helpful. Because if you leave people ignorant they will assume stupid shit, ban you, hunt you, jail you, burn you, or kill you. Crazy people will wanna do that anyway. Nobody should help them by allowing ignorance on the matter to survive.

When I say crazy people i apologize for that word, i mean criminal and evil people, tbc.

ty and agreed

in a broader sense a big problem right now is that the right has been very strongly conditioned over the last decade to believe that empathy is a weakness, that other people's lifestyles *should* be your business, either because they're unfairly getting something you're not or because they want to eliminate *your* way of life. like all this shit about the "gay agenda" or the "trans agenda", as though their life's mission is to make more queer people.

these two things go together, like maybe they're not convinced their kids are really being talked into taking hormones by their 5th grade teacher but they can't say it's *not* happening because they people they trust say it *is*, but it still gives them reason to be suspicious of people who they already think are weird, and they're being told that it's actually good to be a judgmental prick

I feel like other people's lifestyles have pretty much always been an obsession of the cultural right, it's not any new thing. A great desire to police other people's "morality" and impose conservative mores on them. cf "Harper Valley PTA"

for sure but it feels like the *only* thing they have now

the culture war dovetails with the 'make america pray again' evangelical bullshit

sadlol, Rubio named "interim" nastional security advisor and waltz nominated to be UN ambassador

Meanwhile … the grift goes on.

Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.

That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump’s crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.

Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, revealed that a so-called stablecoin developed by the firm, would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.

Virtually every detail of Mr. Witkoff’s announcement, made during a conference panel with Mr. Trump’s second-eldest son, contained a conflict of interest.

Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/politics/trump-cryptocurrency-usd1-dubai-conference-announcement.html?unlocked_article_code=1.D08.gwIF.qNS01bh4CeAC&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

This is a dorky Dylan reference, but the corruption in this administration reminds me of "the drilling in the wall" throughout "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" — this constant background hum that kind of gets ignored because of all the drama in the foreground, but it's where the real action is.

That Waltz dude is the first malfeasant douchebag to leave this admin?! BBC just said this I cannot believe this.

he is gonna be the u.n. ambassador, apparently

yes. he has a much easier job now (all he has to do is say "yes" to anything israel wants and vote against the rest of the world). meanwhile, marco rubio has plenty of free time and is doing a great job, so he's going to add national security advisor to his portfolio

Re

"We are working with other countries to say ‘We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries.”

We're not sending our best

Of all the heinous shit he says on a daily basis I don’t know why his “two dolls instead of thirty” remark rankles me so much. It’s so incredibly tone deaf and stupid. I wish it would turn out to be his “let them eat cake” moment, and end similarly.

Meanwhile … the grift goes on.

_ Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.

That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump’s crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.

Yo

absolutely naked corruption that would've sank any other president, but hey what can you do? Nothing, there's nothing that can be done

yeah but we're posting on ILX

I don’t know why his “two dolls instead of thirty” remark rankles me so much. It’s so incredibly tone deaf and stupid. I wish it would turn out to be his “let them eat cake” moment, and end similarly.

The inherent misogyny of it all. Not only are they insuring girls today will have no rights in the future, they want to deny them a happy childhood as well.

And Barbies and Barbie-like dolls aren't really that expensive, particularly in comparison to video games and the like. Even then, kids themselves frequently save allowance and chore money to buy them, so it's like "Hey, let's tax the shit out of these dumb prole children!".

yeP... tariffs = VAT, no other way to describe it

as though their life's mission is to make more queer people.

Otm

Seconded

I remember seeing my first Lesbian Avengers "We Recruit" T-shirt in New Orleans in the '90s, I thought it was amazing.

everyone’s already queer just repressed to different degrees

Honey, don't I know

You luv 2 be lectured on thrift and humility by the guy with seventeen gold toilets

Classic NY Post

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/05/MAY01.P1_LCF.jpg

Oops sorry so LARGE

Table OTM. I want a world with radical acceptance for my son, where people can just be, not be normal but just be; but there’s a fuck of a lot getting people just to tolerate and then accept before we can get there.

This was a real revelation taking my toddler to the pride street party this year - normal, normalized, it’s just such bullshit it suggests there’s a not normal and an ‘other’. Like I say I just want people to be who they are whatever that is with no qualifiers.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/john-fetterman-struggle-mental-health-clinical-depression.html

yet reporters knew this but kept their secrets for the sake of a book

extremely alarming article; if you can't read nymag here's a link: https://archive.ph/7fGvy

He’s not the only one who is uneasy. Former and current staffers paint a picture of an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for and whose mental-health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported. No one is saying every controversial position (for example, his respectful relationship with Trump) stems from his mental health — but it’s become harder for them to tell which ones do. When I spoke with Fetterman in April and shared those concerns, he denied anything was amiss. He told me that he felt like the “best version” of himself and later texted that the staff turnover at his office was typical of Washington. “Why is this a story?” he asked.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/CIA-s-Mandarin-language-spy-recruiting-ads-mocked-in-China

https://archive.ph/oXKmF

Time to euthanize the deep state

funny with rfk and fetterman we have two guys with traumatic brain injuries who "evolve" from very liberal to "radical centrist" in the blink of an eye.

kind of makes you wonder about those who hold those views who haven't had any brain trauma. their brains came pre-damaged.

there's a lot going on in that article (I found the brief aside about his right-wing insurance executive father notable in an armchair psychoanalyst way), but it shouldn't be overlooked what a despicable racist he is.

re radical centrism: fetterman is also a super useful way of showing what a pathetically vain political position this is, based entirely on a bone-headed insistence on being the only one who can think clearly. it's particularly bleak in fetterman's case where clear thinking is so clearly and profoundly not happening

Serious question did fetterman play football in HS/college

He said he "sleepwalked" as a young adult while playing four years of football in college, intending eventually to take over ownership of his father's business.

yeah I'll admit I hadn't ever really looked into his biography and am a little surprised at how phony his salt of the earth public image is

He said he "sleepwalked" as a young adult while playing four years of football in college, intending eventually to take over ownership of his father's business.

what a weirdly phrased sentence

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/US-China-tensions/CIA-s-Mandarin-language-spy-recruiting-ads-mocked-in-China🕸

https://archive.ph/oXKmF🕸

Time to euthanize the deep state

He said he "sleepwalked" as a young adult while playing four years of football in college

man his coach musta been pissed, terrible pass rushing technique

Trump goes after PBS & NPR.. but they're currently funded through the end of 2027, after the midterms

(Does anyone know why there appears to be an Eastern Orthodox priest in the crowd of onlookers?)

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/media/trump-cpb-pbs-npr-funding-cut-hnk-intl

that one affects me. :( i just got a full-time position with _self-censored_, like 2 weeks ago. i think i should be ok but this month they're already making budget decisions on staff for the next FY and, even though funding is already secured for next year, they're likely to be thinking forward to the next stage of our glorious country when making decisions about the coming year

the nice thing is i know i can rely on the legal system and the checks and balances of the constitution to ensure that the blatantly illegal EO isn't followd

do you need a sternly worded letter

this nugget in the article means that this 'proclamation' is scrawling on a cocktail napkin and little else

In Trump’s first term, his annual budget proposals zeroed out the funding for the corporation, but Congress always allocated the funds anyway — a reflection of the fact that national Republican opposition to NPR and PBS is countered by local support

do you need a sternly worded letter

send it straight to marjorie taylor greene, the leader of the house investigation into the chilling corruption of public media

Garrison Keillor should give her a very quiet talking-to

Wait Wait...Don't Defund Me!

Garrison Keillor should give her a very quiet talking-to

As expected, but still demoralizing… major cuts to Affordable Housing funding programs…

have to say that as someone with a very low opinion of fetterman that I didn’t find that NYmag article to be much of a bombshell…the guy is clearly a wreck, but there didn’t seem to be much new there, or even particularly alarming

I mean, as Feinstein used to demonstrate and Tommy Tuberville still does, the cognitive bar in the Senate is pretty low.

and there's Ron Johnson walking around like an open-mouthed glazed donut.

Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but the turnover of staff to that extent was a surprise to me.

i heard something about that in the past few months elsewhere. IMO the guy is dead in the water as far as re-electibility, but he still has quite a few years left in his term.

Fetterman will live till 100.

the one thing I was shocked to learn was that he has a father who is still alive!

haha so much for taking over his business

I guess I thought him buying a gun and wandering into traffic was kind of alarming. it's striking in cases like this that there's really no mechanism for getting this guy out of office for his and our sake

Fetterman is not even in the top 10 of guys that should be gotten out of office for our sake

Tied with Susan Collins imo

who said anything about top 10?

Sorry … I just think there are many many more dangerous people in power

well sure, me too, but I don't see a problem with taking a few minutes to think about this one particular exampled of how terrible the US system of govt is

There aren't many more dangerous Democrats in power.

There are however many more senescent Dems in power.

Take as many minutes as you see fit, rob

apparently his dream budget contains the word 'woke' several times (as well as 'DEI & gender')... is there an appendix that defines this word? Would love to know what they think it means

they think it means votes

The volk don't want no woke

Wokeswagon

i have been given photographic evidence that RFK jr wears jeans at the gym and hearsay that it is his 'thing'

https://i.gifer.com/origin/e0/e0ae4e32dec48d18fee054a845de951c_w200.gif

During his campaign he was showing off lifting weights and serious weightlifters were making fun of the light weights and his shitty technique

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/02/temu-halts-shipments-direct-from-china-as-de-minimis-tariff-rule-ends-.html

I have a hard time caring about RFK Jr's poor lifting technique. It seems kinda beside the point.

Because he got those “muscles” through steroids. Anyway this was during the campaign; now we have a bigger problem.

Trump says "I don't know" when asked whether he needs to uphold the Constitution: https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lodz6fabi22e

Part of his new commitment to honesty; he really doesn't know.

Can't blame him. After all, he fomented a coup against the constitution, was impeached by the House, and the Senate told him "hey! not a problem. we're good with it."

he is not smart. but he totally knows. he will ultimately defy scotus and congress and use the insurrection act and dare congress to impeach him. he knows all the things, he does not care much because he believes he will overcome all obstructions— and having removed many of them. the obstructions are people willing to risk security and say “no” to him.

read _Strongmen_ by Ben-Ghiat.

Even his first 100 days are merely a carbon copy of what bannon and miller had primed for djt1 wrt EOs. it was basically called off. this is all the plan, and he is not alone. he is not smart, but he knows his enemies, who are confused and v weak.

My understanding from his recent posts is that he is advocating:

Re-opening Alcatraz, a designated National Historic Landmark and a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. I can attest that it is a really great tourist destination, reachable by boat in the SF bay. But, come on

Putting tariffs on foreign films to protect our film industry, but how would that even happen? Another a bad idea

Tariffs on foreign films sounds like he's aiming up to push back on CanCon in Canada/USA trade negotiations

whatever

Why is the press and congress coddling him? He has no understanding about the economy, knows nothing about commerce or philanthropy or about trade deficits or tariffs or about small businesses or big businesses. He knows nothing at all, and we are letting him fly our plane into the side of a mountain. Why?

does he think movies are shipped through the ports on cargo ships?
wtf at this man’s brainworms

I'd slap a boredom tariff on The Shrouds, otherwise very opposed to that idea.

How do you even put a tariff on movies? Physical media is already tariffed, where is the digital file’s port of entry?

this is like a fucking w the economy version of Mr Burns “get rid of those sideburns”

whoever on his team first told Trump about tarriffs is now deeply regretting having ever mentioned them

Imagine getting lectured by a man who has only seen film -to-back in his life, and it was the Ryan O'Neal assless pants movie in 1981.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/trump-tariff-foreign-film-national-security-1236386566/

"one film front-to-back"

trump has held his belief on traiffs for a long time,so nobody on his current team is responsible, mebbe roy cohn in one more thing to hate him for

definition of foreign films seems to include any production shot abroad even if made by an american company,

think i'd mentioned somewhere on ilx about an encounter i had in a bookstore in arlington VA in 99 or 2000 - a woman was asking the clerk at checkout for a recommendation of a mystery series, as he was stumped i suggested the donna leon guido brunentti novels, all going well till i mentioned they were set in venice and she said "i don't read anything set outside the US" leaving me dumbfounded as well - forget reading translations, you've just eliminated shakespeare, chaucer, austen, dickens, entire genres such as sci-fi (well mabe if american colony/outpost - wonder if trump annexes greenland she'd read scndi-noir set there)

but there is no logic or thinking, just mindless jingoism

honestly its so hard to believe we're actually in this situation right now, Donald Trump has always been profoundly dumb but his grip on reality is just completely gone now, you could definitely sense it during the campaign after he got shot at but it's worse now and is only gonna go downhill from here. I mean imagine what you'd say if a relative thought "MS-13" was literally tattooed on Abrego Garcia's knuckles. it would be one thing if it was a Reagan situation where it's a bunch of people pulling the strings and doing the real work but Trump is singlehandedly dictating policy and hiring only people willing to follow him off the mountain, he's crashing our economy and torching our trade relationships and threatening war with Greenland and letting the world's richest man cut any spending he wants, all of which is causing real, lasting damage, and....no ones gonna stop him

and what really sucks about it is Trump is so clearly just a symptom of the problem, I mean there's a story now about a woman who was filmed calling a little boy the N-word who just raised $500,000 on GoFundMe, many of the donations had incredibly racist messages scrawled on them, it just seems so fucked over here right now

definition of foreign films seems to include any production shot abroad even if made by an american company,

They're trying to recruit/coerce our sic into acting as a tax collector, aren't they?

Lol at re-opening Alcatraz …. As someone pointed out in the local paper, it would require having to deal with CEQA … though maybe he would try to abolish CEQA … which would be interesting.

apparently Escape From Alcatraz was on TV and that was all it took

apparent from what

I'm not an English speaker and I probably use "apparently" incorrectly.

someone on bsky said:

"I may have context for this! Last night WPBT in Palm Beach broadcast the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz.""
https://bsky.app/profile/robertandrewp.bsky.social/post/3loey3fzhhc2n

he then posted this screenshot:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ow7rlhjmxsdcksj6t6zqqtsf/bafkreibpc5nc6rpxxs4l42e3putzaop2x7hzj744ywu6vxatzx2ctgus5m@jpeg

however, I don't see the movie on the WPBT schedule for Saturday night: https://www.wpbt2.org/schedule/#page=schedule&day=20250503&provider=Broadcast

Saturday Night Cinema is produced by a PBS member station in Spokane, Washington: https://www.ksps.org/programs/saturday-night-cinema/

And I do see it on the schedule for that station:
https://www.ksps.org/schedule/

Note that the screenshot shows South Florida PBS as the station, but when I go to what seems to be the same page, it shows WTTW as the member station -- because that's the station where I live and PBS knows my location.

So my guess is that the Bsky poster lives in Florida and googled "Escape from Alcatraz TV Saturday night" or something similar and found that page, and then assumed that it was being played on the South Florida station (because that's what was visible for him) even though it wasn't.

OK, wait, never mind, I was too quick to debunk. I went to the guy's feed and he said it *was* aired on a different local PBS station, WLRN. And I was able to confirm that. (I actually did check WXEL, because it's also part of "South Florida PBS," but WLRN is not.)

so it is "apparent" from this page: https://www.wlrn.org/television-schedule

it aired Saturday, 5/3, at 9 PM

Somehow I suspect Oliver Stone will not be making a three hour movie about this presidential conspiracy.

sic was just being a dic about 'apparently'

well, we're both doing our things

florida man getting escape from alcatraz/eastwood on its fucking PBS affiliate seems yo you know yr audience eh, i mean fuck that highbrow stuff. that is the antiques roadshow that florida craves

WLRN is Miami-Dade and Broward's NPR affiliate, so.

Why would Trump be inspired to rebuild it by a reminder that people ESCAPED from it?

I loved that film when I was 10

Next he's going to demand the reopening of Witch Mountain.

was gonna say, don't let him see Escape from New York

Why did Dems close Witch Mountain?? One of our GREATEST MOUNTAINS! I will put Good Marco and other heroes on this and we will RETURN TO WITCH MOUNTAIN!!

Under Lying Joe Biden MILLIONS of dangerous criminals escaped from the Planet of the Apes. Why???? Not anymore!!

So many of our bright Americans want to Escape from the Bronx! With my great real estate deals, THEY CAN! My great company built a BEAUTIFUL golf course there (GREEN!) and we can do it again!! Valuable land, should be hotels!

ok we're piecing together this conspiracy... can't imagine he would ever actually choose to watch pbs, so my theory is he had just been talking about the EO to stop funding pbs/npr, turned it on to see what objectionable non-trump-fellating garbage they show on this public television thing anyway, found escape from alcatraz about to start, the rest is history. also

Why would Trump be inspired to rebuild it by a reminder that people ESCAPED from it?

is giving this guy's sense of logic WAY too much credit. shiny object; famous, recognizable name, want to promote! the mystique of "alcatraz" is right up his alley

He wants to turn it into a luxury prison in case he gets sent there.

nah i think he like the rest of us has become fully convinced he is never going to prison

Yeah I think it's just he likes things that resonate as "tough" to him. Alcatraz is a name he knows for being tough. Plus of course being in San Francisco Bay easily conjures associated ideas like San Francisco/California being "soft on crime" etc. Round up all those homeless people and put them in Alcatraz!

totally. it was the woke left that closed alcatraz because they preferred to put prisoners in luxury hotels

...and turn prisons into museums (which he also wants to defund/eliminate)

Meanwhile ... My 2nd podcast episode is up! This one the featured interview is an organizer in Richmond, Va., whom I connected with via the good offices of Roxymuzak. He has a lot of interesting thoughts about organizing on the left (like, it helps to have a structure and designated leadership) and the problems with corporate Democrats. Plus other stuff.

https://theprogressivesouth.org/ep-2-a-richmond-road-trip/

Next he's going to demand the reopening of Witch Mountain. barely suppressed irlol during Monday morning Teams mtg damn you

https://i.imgur.com/7VwThjt.jpg

"These goddamn tariffs will be the ruin of me!"

note the date of the earlier post

https://i.imgur.com/10ossnh.jpeg

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/may/05/donald-trump-tariffs-film-industry-alcatraz-russia-israel-us-politcs-live-updates

Maga politicians shut down the vote to criminalize Israel boycott

It’s sort of insane that they did the right thing but mostly because they want the right to actually be anti-semitic, not because they give a fuck about Palestinians or the current genocide

Appalling that we need MTG to make the obvious point that you can't penalize Americans for criticizing other countries.

the "we support trump so we can say slurs" camp feels very strongly about that particular aspect of free speech

It’s sort of insane that they did the right thing but mostly because they want the right to actually be anti-semitic, not because they give a fuck about Palestinians or the current genocide

― butt dumb tight my boners got boners (the table is the table), Monday, May 5, 2025 11:16 AM bookmarkflaglink

sad lol but that was my initial reaction as well

does criminalizing a boycott of Israel mean you go to jail if you don't buy Sodastream?

jan 6 memory hole update

Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the Proud Boys, said he personally thanked President Trump on Saturday night for issuing a pardon that cut short the 22-year prison term he was serving in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

Mr. Tarrio’s expression of gratitude came during a brief but extraordinary encounter with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Tarrio and his mother, Zuny Duarte, were invited to have dinner at the property by one of its members.

According to a senior administration official who was not authorized to discuss the episode publicly, the club member introduced Mr. Tarrio and his mother to Mr. Trump as the president was walking through the main room at Mar-a-Lago on his way toward a table on the patio.

Mr. Tarrio and Ms. Duarte said in interviews that they spoke with Mr. Trump for about 10 minutes, recalling that he told them he believed that his supporters who faced charges arising from the Capitol attack had been mistreated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/04/us/politics/trump-tarrio-proud-boys-pardon.html
https://archive.ph/a5TSn

sic was just

I was genuinely asking and was subsequently delighted by jaymc’s ferreting

do think there’s essentially zero chance he watched any narrative fiction in full this weekend or any day this year, but Lavator’s speculation is too good to dismiss

Trump’s brain works like Plinko on The Price Is Right. You drop in a Big Mac and eight hours later he remembers being mad that Bloodsport wasn’t filmed in Atlantic City or that it took James Bond to escape from the Rock.

thanks for the image of a Bic Mac sliding down the Plinko pegs, smearing pickles and mustard and sauce.

^^^ soon to replace the checks-and-balances system as the metaphor for US government taught in Social Studies across the land

stop soiling my fond memory of the best Price is Right game

Has Trump gotten around to watching Pootie Tang yet

sign your executive orders on the runny kine

can we get him to watch Bulworth?

otoh maybe that's a bad idea

the alcatraz thing is gonna be a big stupid boondoggle that will never come to anything, but they're gonna jaw about for awhile until he moves on to the next non-problem

COVFEFE

Georgia governor Brian Kemp has announced he won't run for the Senate next year, increasing the odds Ossoff will retain his seat.

MTG has been rumored as wanting to run against Ossoff.

she's in a real safe district, but not sure how she'd do statewide

in running against Ossoff she'd have to remove herself from the House

Jan Schakowsky has officially announced she won't be running for reelection, making it an open primary for that seat.

xp A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll had Ossoff trailing Kemp 46/49 while leading MTG 54/37. There will be a scramble for the GOP nomination and it's not a given she'll be the candidate, but I think Ossoff would like to run against her.

MTG couldn't run for the House and Senate in the same election, so it wouldn't matter if she lost in the Republican primary. she'd still be out of the House... unless she won as a write in in the general election.

MTG could stay in that seat for literally decades, she'd be a dumbass to do a senate run

so a senate run is a definite then

she'd be a dumbass to do a senate run

And if there's anything we know about Greene, it's that she's a tactical genius, a truly canny political operator, not at all a knuckle-walking dipshit who rode a bunch of Facebook-HOA-page level grievances to the safest possible political gig.

MTG is remarkably unpopular, exactly the sort of candidate who could not win anywhere outside of a deep deep red district. i hope she does run for Senate.

Not really shocked, but just learned that Alcatraz had no sewage treatment plant... everything just went right into the bay

that's why you could flush yourself down the toilet to escape

RE Alcatraz, it seems to me he has stumbled upon the truth that mentioning these ridiculous ideas keeps ppl talking about him. So it satisfies one of his highest priorities, the other being people giving him money. I suspect he at least has the self-awareness to know it’s a ridiculous idea but that it’s a winning political strategy. Exasperate the reasonable, entertain the cult, meanwhile let the even ghoulier ghouls trash everything outside of the limelight. He is a horrible person.

I mostly agree with that characterization, but then he'll start going off about invading Greenland and I'm beyond exasperated

...or Canada as the 51st state thing, which is such bugfuck old man thinking.

GlobalX, an airline used by the Trump administration as part of its massive deportation campaign, has reportedly been hacked.

On Monday, 404 Media first reported news of the breach, based on a defacement message on the airline’s official website and stolen data that the hackers shared with the news website.

“Anonymous has decided to enforce the Judge's order since you and your sycophant staff ignore lawful orders that go against your fascist plans,” wrote the hackers, who claimed to be affiliated with the amorphous hacktivist group Anonymous.

The hackers were referring to rulings by several judges ordering the Trump administration to return people who were wrongfully deported to El Salvador.

https://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/globalx-airline-used-trump-deportations-184519422.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFSvzIM6fx3gYLhH1pvNRvnmrqnWSqdLHNqfWZdtOBCXlpbB6Jsy7QZf0Zo8sY5PPA7-UsQO9XjADxvlr8EAq4X-P1Jt6LTLHZj8-6FCFtL-5GztBfSuxPuC2yvFvKdE2Ucrc3DUyPjj9oW0lfqdTHmZKspLOD4RuLgAFOjHBI9s

I would be genuinely surprised if Elon isn’t involved with GlobalX

X marks the snot

more legal news re lawsuits and Trump Admin--

Attorney Mark Zaid has filed a lawsuit against the White House, saying the suspension of his security clearance, which has disrupted his clients' legal representation, is unconstitutional retaliation by Trump.

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the CIA from firing Dr. Terry Adirim, who claims the agency targeted her for termination after criticism by Laura Loomer and Ivan Raiklin.

Another judge has sounded the alarm on the Trump administration's alleged violations of due process in immigration proceedings. Judge Larence Valardo said the administration view of due process was "downright frightening."

Another notable lawsuit filed today comes from Eric Iverson, a US citizen and prosecutor at the ICC who says Trump's executive order threatening sanctions against the ICC has effectively stopped his investigation of war crimes in Darfur.

from legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney on Bluesky

https://www.yahoo.com/news/supposed-moviemaker-trumps-decision-reopen-230134637.html

Please show him Logan’s Run this week.

Soylent Green jokes are suddenly less funny now

what the hell is this shit Gavin. "Make America Film Again"?? how are leading Dem politicians misreading the moment so badly?!?

https://bsky.app/profile/governor.ca.gov/post/3lohxbi7xgs2o

how are leading Dem politicians misreading the moment so badly?!?

i think it's money. people with tons of money perceive the moment behind a gigantic barrier of their own construction, supported by an entire class of people who want to maintain that gigantic barrier

you think of him as a Democrat who got corrupted by money, he thinks of himself as money trying not to get corrupted by Democracy

I think all the times we praised his hair got to his brain.

Honestly he is probably trying to represent California… there have been multiple articles recently about how LA workers in film/tv are struggling as productions are moved elsewhere, including offshore.

It would be great if he also publicly challenged the cuts to the NEA, NEH and museums and libraries which will also result in a lot of job losses in media/arts/culture in California

Or pointed out that Trump's vague, stupid, nonsensical "idea" has Jack shit to do with helping out struggling film and tv workers.

lol, sorry, total non-sequitor, but i was just reminded that fucking DR OZ runs the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

The threat to national security is a bit

Honestly he is probably trying to represent California… there have been multiple articles recently about how LA workers in film/tv are struggling as productions are moved elsewhere, including offshore.

― sarahell, Tuesday, May 6, 2025 10:17 AM (forty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, my sense that he and Whitmer see Trump as an opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons, to get whatever they can for their constituents by taking advantage of Trump's transactional approach to everything. The problem is that this is a devil's bargain because Trump will screw them without thinking twice, and while they may be able to extract certain things from Trump that may satisfy a small portion of their constituents, the majority of Democrats in their states are turned off by any type of collaboration with Trump.

Are any strategies being thrown around beside the usual 'throw tax credits at rich people' strategies for encouraging domestic film production?

Wonder if Melania's movie is using American crews.

Well we still have no idea if he meant US films with foreign crews, or actual foreign films, and what the actual limitations would be, right? Afaict it's still firmly in the territory of "Trump just said some shit" but no specifics aside from "100% tariffs", which can't actually happen because films are not categorized as goods.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to end Energy Star, a popular program whose iconic blue labels have certified the energy efficiency of home appliances for more than three decades, according to two people briefed on the matter.

During an all-hands meeting Monday of the EPA’s Office of Atmospheric Protection, Trump administration officials announced that the office would be dissolved and that Energy Star would be eliminated, the two people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/us/politics/2026-senate-map-democrats-schumer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FE8.DMvu.eNZ3GM4oKzgL&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Oh great, Schumer is in charge of getting Dem candidates to run in next Senate elections. He seems to just make a few calls to predictable candidates

BREAKING: The U.S. Supreme Court allows Trump's anti-transgender military ban to go into effect while litigation proceeds.

The stay of the district court's injunction was issued with no reasoning and over the objections of Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson

From lawyer/ law reporter Chris Geidner on Bluesky

so fucked up

thank you for your service!

not that I trust Tillis as far as I could throw him, but it would be funny if after all of his bootlicking, dude couldn't even get the post: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/06/trump-prosecutor-martin-tillis-senate-gop.html

of course, that just means Trump will slow walk his replacement nominee like he did in first term, so that his 'acting' can be in place a bit longer.

“Mr. Martin did a good job of explaining the one area that I think he’s probably right, that there were some people that were over-prosecuted, but there were some 200 to 300 of them that should have never gotten a pardon,” Tillis said.

very 'ok so the Holocaust was bad but the death toll was over-exaggerated' energy there.

and if the attorney nominee hadn't been in Tillis' state he would've voted for him, see

this is diplomacy in action

Foreign embassies have been disinvited from an annual Washington event commemorating the end of World War II in Europe this week, after a group of European embassies protested the organizers’ decision to include ambassadors from Russia and its close ally Belarus.

I think all the times we praised his hair got to his brain.

https://foxyguilfoyle.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/ba_leah.jpg

It's not that he's an opportunist, they all are, but he seems like an opportunist with bad judgment.

The stay of the district court's injunction was issued with no reasoning

This phrasing seems apt. No reasoning could have been employed in issuing this stay. Cowardice, sure thing, and prejudice, but not reasoning.

"We haven't had time to come up with reasons yet, but we know what the conclusion is."

Awful photos from Nashville yesterday outside a detention center after ICE did a sweep in a heavily Latino neighborhood, with help from the state Highway Patrol. State troopers conducted the stops — which ICE can't do — and then pulled aside anyone without valid ID. Then ICE took them. Anyway, the pictures are of friends and family members outside the center trying to find out anything at all about the people who were taken.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AWd5zKrZ4/

but they only detained the dangerous criminals, right?

Fuck this shit

this fucked up shit is what he promised during the campaign, just like he promised the tariffs. ofc he also promised to reduce inflation and the cost of groceries and to stop the war in ukraine. all on "DAY ONE". and DOGE would be an appointed commission to make recommendations for efficiency, not a bunch of vigilante tech bros crashing the system.

we need ways to raise the stakes higher for Republicans in Congress until they fear us more than Trump. which is easy to say, hard to do.

Especially when this kind of random cruelty is exactly what their constituents love.

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/its-over-republican-jefferson-griffin-concedes-in-north-carolina-supreme-court-race/

good morning!

starting to the think this is the real reason behind Trump's Greenland obsession

https://www.insidehook.com/internet/peter-thiel-praxis-next-great-city-greenland

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21534416/free-state-project-new-hampshire-libertarians-matthew-hongoltz-hetling

seems like a great idea to do this in a place with POLAR bears

those nazi weirdos always want to reborn Hyperborea or Tartaria or Valhalla or some butthole to the inner world shit

New Pangea or gtfo

the power and the glory hole

the power and the goatse

Good point from Chris Hayes:

"It's crazy how the entire supposed constitutional theory of Trump 2.0 is that all power is vested in this single individual, down to every last tiny detail and whenever you ask him he's like 'I have no idea; ask the lawyers'"

glimmer of good news, I'll take what I can get

A federal judge in Massachusetts ruled on Wednesday in favor of immigrant rights advocates who asked him to block the government from deporting migrants to Libya, amid reports that the US military planned to fly detained immigrants there this week.

This whole thread is nuts

https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lom4dpmzvs25

“Both Libyan governments” will refuse deportees.

It just keeps getting more and more stupid. Apparently the admin is sending letters to foreign companies and government including… the city of Stockholm… demanding that they end their DEI programs within 10 days.

Trump team urged Ukraine to take U.S. deportees amid war, documents show

The extraordinary request illustrates the administration’s aggressive bid to identify willing partners who will accept people expelled by the U.S.

against my better judgement, I agreed to do a 'political' phone survey this morning (I used to do these kind of calls in Sydney so I'm mildly sympathetic to anyone who makes a living this way)..

After a few routine opening questions, it quickly went this direction: "How likely would you be to vote for strong, innovative leadership over the failed one-party policies of democrats in California?" etc.

Out of kindness to the interviewer (who clearly did not live in California, despite the LA prefix) I completed the survey, heavily disparaging the GOP wherever possible... but I will NEVER take another call like that.. how do they get actual people to answer this shit? Like, for the 'real' polling (Axios, YouGov, Morning Consult et al)..?

I dunno Andy you should have fucked with them

It just keeps getting more and more stupid. Apparently the admin is sending letters to foreign companies and government including… the city of Stockholm… demanding that they end their DEI programs within 10 days.

I would like to think most people can tell when they’re being read push polling questions, but I have no idea. People underestimate how many yappers we have out there who just like talking to strangers

xxp she was not a strong reader and could not pronounce things that any Californio would know, so I went easy on her.. when she said she wanted to share some short bios about some dudes I've never heard of (probably the GOP lackeys that paid for this shit), I put it on speaker and spaced out

So it appears that Trump withdrew his pick for Surgeon General (Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat) not because she was cagey about her education credentials (she went to some doctor mill in the Caribbean), but because she was a little too friendly with the idea of vaccinations and masking during the pandemic (esteemed polymath Laura Loomer mused: 'Is this just Fauci 2.0?')

Instead he's picked a 'wellness influencer' who's good pals with RFKJ, and will definitely help steer us away from sound, evidence-based medical advice

^^^ didn't call an Interstate Highway "The" something

lol

Fuck, appointing an anti-science 'wellness influencer' as surgeon general. Those people are toxic, starting with Mehmet Oz as head of Medicare and Medicaid. Are future generations going to laugh at us for this or is this just a sign that our world is already over? I'm worried that it's the latter

she sounds perfectly qualified for this administration: Casey Means has no government experience and dropped out of her surgical residency program, saying she became disillusioned with traditional medicine.

The surgeon general recommends lavender oil to treat cancer

the confounding thing about RFKJ is that he'll say something completely rational about getting ultra-processed foods out of school lunches, followed by some crackpot pseudo-science shit that no sane medical professional would remotely buy into in the slightest

yes

jesus fucking christ

A hard-right, Trump-supporting US news network that perpetuated conspiracy theories about the 2020 election will provide news coverage for Voice of America (VoA), the Trump administration said.

Kari Lake, a special adviser to the body that oversees the government-funded VoA, announced on X that One America News (OAN), which was sued by voting machine companies for promoting claims of election fraud, will provide “newsfeed and video service”.

welcome to 1984

are you ready for the third world war?

It’s obviously old hat to point out the prescience of Idiocracy here in the year 2025, but I think I’m still somewhat stunned by how it didn’t go nearly hard enough. Lotta pulled punches, in retrospect.

he'll say something completely rational about getting ultra-processed foods out of school lunches

which he will then likely never do, not under this administration. they're more likely to eliminate school lunches completely.

More fun with Fetterman

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved.

Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.

As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman’s behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.

The interaction at Fetterman’s Washington office, described to The Associated Press by the two people who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity, came the day before New York Magazine published a story in which former staff and political advisers to Fetterman aired concerns about the senator’s mental health.

I was just going to post this. Guy is losing it.

well, i think we all learned an important lesson here. you can get away with a lot if you’re a big guy who wears shorts

I guess him pulling a gun on that jogger in 2013 wasn't some wacky isolated incident. He lost it a long time ago if he ever had it.

His wife should leave him and run for his seat, I think she is much more beloved than he is

Couldn’t happen to a nazier guy

if only we had a tradition of recognizing congress members were medically unfit for duty

But it will pare back other tariffs Mr. Trump imposed on British steel, aluminum and automobiles. In return, the British will open up access to beef, poultry, ethanol, soft drinks, cereal and other products.

all Trump cared about was our ability to make the Brits fatter

Oooohhh, he must be pissed at this new pope stealing his thunder right now

‪Dr. Lucky Tran‬
✧@luckyt✧✧✧.c✧✧‬
· 14m
The Trump administration has terminated HICPAC, the CDC’s infection control committee.

The committee sets national standards for hand-washing, mask-wearing and isolating sick patients.

This reckless move will make patients at healthcare facilities much more vulnerable to deadly infections.

It will take years to see the full extent of the dam age but I bet in four years we will see a 90s-Russia-like drop in life spans

Dam age yeah I made an accidental pun

Then we'll do what Stalin did, wait til the average life expectancy is like 30, elect someone with some level of competency to restore things, then claim American exceptionalism "doubled the average life span" even though it's still much lower than it was

They've already done that vis a vis crowing about the recentish stock market surge

yes!

Fuck yeah Martin nomination pulled

Make sure to flush the remainder

Marisa Kabas‬
✧@marisaka✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 43m
BREAKING: FEMA’s most senior official Cameron Hamilton has been FIRED and walked out of the building, an agency source confirms.

He testified just yesterday that he didn’t think the agency should be eliminated, per Trump and DHS Sec. Kristi Noem’s wishes. Apparently the wrong answer.

Marisa Kabas‬
✧@marisaka✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 56s
To recap, the head of FEMA was fired a few weeks before the start of hurricane season and replaced by someone with no emergency management experience.

Heckuva job Brownie

“It is such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope,” Trump said

It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize It is such an honor to realize words are meaningless now words are meaningless now words are meaningless now words are meaningless now

Ah yes, the people of the world will finally now be aware of America and Americans

at a certain age, it becomes an honor to realize anything at all

Loomer already yelling about a "Marxist Pope" lol

I'm not a Catholic, but I am amused by this persistent idea that there is a right and wrong way to pope that is tied to their take on American politics

What is the obsession with eliminating FEMA?

they want to leave everything to the states, while simultaneously dictating what the states can & can't do

doing the hard stuff for the people

The House took a largely party-line 211-206 vote Thursday to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America,” moving to codify President Donald Trump’s recent executive order.

One Republican, Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), voted against the bill that had been led by firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who hailed it as “one of the most important things that we can do this Congress.”

they'll probably fill his head with cannonballs and powder his behind

Congress has willingly ceded all other power to the emperor, so…

xp There's a long history of conspiracy theorists seeing FEMA as an arm of the Deep State.

of course, FEMA is why helicopters are painted black

Heckuva job Brownie

― zydecodependent (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, May 8, 2025 1:15 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Beat me to it

This stupid fuck just named Jeanine "I can drink that pussy Pete Hegseth under the table" Pirro interim US attorney for Washington, DC.

Hannity must be so mad right now

one world government! isn't that what the crackpots have been fretting about for decades>

Stockholm rejects ‘bizarre’ US letter urging city to scrap diversity initiatives

A city official in Stockholm has said the municipality has no plans to comply after one of its offices received a letter seeking to impose Donald Trump’s rollback of diversity measures, in what is believed to be the first such missive sent to a foreign government.

“It’s so bizarre,” said Jan Valeskog, Stockholm’s vice-mayor for planning. “It’s our political priorities that count, not the ones from this embassy or any other embassies.”

Ro Khanna coming to Kenosha this weekend under a broader Bernie banner anti oligarchy tour… I'm skeptical at best about that guy. They're targeting our local rep, Bryan Steil, who is definitely a POS but still, Khanna doesn't strike me as a believable anti oligarchy figure.

My superficial impression of Khanna is of a career opportunist. Not automatically a bad thing in politics, it's just how a lot of them are. It's how a lot of people end up in those jobs in the first place.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2025/05/08/trump-fires-librarian-of-congress/

President Donald Trump fired Carla Hayden, the librarian of Congress, on Thursday evening.

Hayden was appointed in 2016 by President Barack Obama and was the first woman and first African American to hold the position. She was also the first librarian by profession to be appointed to the job in decades. Typically, historians and scholars have led the Library of Congress.

A spokesperson at the Library of Congress confirmed Hayden’s dismissal in an email but declined to elaborate further.

Grrrr. I was at the Library of Congress tonight seeing the NY Andalus Ensemble playing music with lyrics in Ladino, Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish with roots in Moorish Spain, and a guest speaker was there also talking about the Library's collection of Moroccan music. I was hoping the Library would stay under control of uh Congress, and be ignored and remain a location for folks doing research and occasional concerts and lectures.

Onion CEO (and former NBC News reporter) Ben Collins reveals he's dating Kat Abu: https://bsky.app/profile/bencollins.bsky.social/post/3lomsmp6rtk2h

So I'm guessing they moved to Chicago together when he got the Onion job. Or at least she moved there because of him.

is twitter real life? it sure is for this couple

He’s gotta be older, are we going to get a round of age gap discourse?

Really thinking we need to take that “alternate government” idea seriously, if only just as a tactic

xp yeah, I think he is about a decade older (36 vs. 26)

I too thought the Library of Congress was run by Congress. But I suppose they are now the Duma.

Congratulations to New Jersey's next governor...

Newark mayor Ras Baraka taken into custody by homeland security in New Jersey

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was taken into custody by homeland security at an ICE facility in New Jersey on Friday afternoon, according to Alina Habba, the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.

“The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, committed trespass and ignored multiple warnings from Homeland Security Investigations to remove himself from the ICE detention center in Newark, New Jersey this afternoon,” read the social media post from Habba.

Amiri's son iirc

love her CV

Habba has also held the position of general counsel for her second husband's parking garage company.

In July 2021, Habba represented Siggy Flicker, a former member of The Real Housewives of New Jersey who alleged that Facebook had disabled her account for wishing Melania Trump a happy birthday. Habba wrote a letter to Facebook, which Facebook appeared to ignore. Also in July 2021, Habba represented Caesar DePaço, a vitamin supplement entrepreneur, in a federal court case where she filed a lawsuit against Portuguese journalists for revealing his close connections to the far-right Chega party in Portugal.

Amiri's son iirc

You should read up on his mom, Amina Baraka. She's even farther left than Amiri was.

Isn’t Khanna a liberal democrat from Fremont, CA that is basically a centrist in terms of the political spectrum of the region?

Stephen Miller going all in on suspending habeas corpus, Article 1 be damned

less than a couple months ago, just suggesting that the Trump admin was angling to jail their political opponents was deemed unacceptable doomposting

There is a difference between saying you're looking to maybe do something to the press in hopes of pressuring people into complying in advance and actually doing it.

Isn’t Khanna a liberal democrat from Fremont, CA that is basically a centrist in terms of the political spectrum of the region?

yes

seems like things might be bad

There is a difference between saying you're looking to maybe do something to the press in hopes of pressuring people into complying in advance and actually doing it.

We seem to be caught in an endless cycle of the Trump admin threatening to do insane things, which gets met with a collective shrug and scolding of anyone who sounds the alarm, and then when they inevitably do the thing they said they'd do, everyone is stunned it actually happened.

Stephen Miller hates all immigrants, legal or otherwise.. he's made this abundantly clear
(except for the poor Afrikaners, they're welcome anytime)

People think I'm joking when I doubt there will be an election in the US in 2028.

Trump: You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again. pic.twitter.com/DBGcBr3Wht

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 27, 2024

Oh, bullshit. He says it, doesn't mean it's gonna happen -- unless people wanna give up.

There's a difference b/w taking the threat seriously and acting as if the threat means the threat is a fait accompli.

Saying he's probably going to do this isn't the same as saying people should accept it and not fight back.

I always took the 'you won't have to vote' as a clumsy acknowledgment of term limits, essentially saying to people who are infrequent voters that they should get out for this one, just this last time... but yeah, it doesn't sound very good

I take it to mean "we'll do everything possible to stop or steal the election"

all eyes on Newark, no he was not protesting, it was a legal visit and someone called and told ICE to arrest Baraka

plz push back hard on all "protesting" claims

We seem to be caught in an endless cycle of the Trump admin threatening to do insane things, which gets met with a collective shrug and scolding of anyone who sounds the alarm, and then when they inevitably do the thing they said they'd do, everyone is stunned it actually happened.

― whimsical skeedaddler (Moodles), Friday, May 9, 2025 7:14 PM bookmarkflaglink

Pay attention to what Miller said. He said this is something they're considering if the judges don't play ball. And he said it in the press.

This follows months of him and other members of the administration publicly ostracizing the judiciary.

This messaging is an attempt to make judges afraid to rule against the Trump administration by way of making them think it'll get even worse for migrants in retaliation. And to encourage their own followers to put pressure of these judges until they become fearful enough to back down.

I'm not pretending to have a crystal ball, nor suggesting they haven't done terrible things like defying federal judges in the El Salvador flights. But pressure has also stopped things from happening - including Venezuelan migrants being deported two weeks ago from Texas thanks to the ACLU

We know that court order was complied with as there have not been any reports of those individuals being deported from their families or lawyers. Today, Ozturk was released on bail, due to similar efforts.

There was also this - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-administration-backs-down-student-visa-records/.

There's a reason the Trump admin has been afraid to openly defy the courts similar to a hard autocracy as opposed to try to do so through creative subversion - they know they're losing favor even amongst their own party (albeit slowly) and they are afraid of what the populace will do if they take that tack.

in orbit posted a helpful article before inauguration that pointed out that no matter what we do, we're going to suffer loss. Horrible things are going to happen that we can't stop or slow down and we should grieve those things.

But if we react to every public threat by a member of the Trump admin as a forgone conclusion, shrugging as if to say "time to pack it in", then the victories and the in-roads we did make will disappear and Trump will be able to do as he pleases without interference.

What Alfred said is otm. Be on your guard, but we can't keep treating every pronouncement by the Trump admin as an inevitability, but a rallying cry - what do we plan to do.

Pressure is working - much more than it was in February. But it has a long way to go and we can't capitilate to fear because that's what they want

plz push back hard on all "protesting" claims

― sleeve, Friday, May 9, 2025 7:45 PM bookmarkflaglink

Otm, they're holding him on very weak trespassing claims

Saying he's probably going to do this isn't the same as saying people should accept it and not fight back.

― whimsical skeedaddler (Moodles), Friday, May 9, 2025 7:35 PM bookmarkflaglink

It is, however, giving us the illusion of control in the assumption that Trump will always telegraph what he's going to do in the press and we'll be able to anticipate it.

Most times they've done the most awful of the awful shit, it's been done under a shroud of secrecy only made known by leaks to the press, i.e. the late Friday attempt to start shipping migrants out of the Bluebonnet facility.

hopeful posts Neanderthal, thanks

Of course it's the fuckin New York Times pushing the protest claims

also: they're literally tossing trans troops out of the military... they said they wanted to do it, the courts tacitly agreed, and now they're literally doing

So yeah, they don't always follow through on being awful... but quite often they do

I mean I'm not saying believe they aren't who they say they are. Or to assume it's a nothing burger.

But given that judges are human beings who are receiving death threats and harassment, the White House wants them to stand aside. That's the thrust of what he is saying.

The proper reaction is "fuckin try it, and our lawyers are ready to fight you and our civilians are ready to take to the streets and it will not go how you expect"

Just saying don't feel like we are completely powerless - if it happens, the fight is just beginning, it'snot over immediately (not that you were saying that! But there is a lot of that going on and it is how autocracies win

I don't know who here is suggesting judges step aside or that we should pack it in or not fight back.

Ras Baraka has been released.

Alina Habba and company really desperate, framing a dinky trespassing charge which will at most be a fine (if not outright dismissed) as some big victory.

more and more news sources abandoning the bullshit 'protest' framing thankfully

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/09/us/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-bail-release

Rümeysa Öztürk has been released.

Despite the judge’s decision, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement attempted to delay Öztürk’s release from the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana, her attorneys told CNN.

“Despite the 11th hour attempt to delay her freedom by trying to force her to wear an ankle monitor, Rümeysa is now free and is excited to return home, free of monitoring or restriction,” attorney Mahsa Khanbabai said.

Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts student kidnapped by ICE six weeks ago, has been released from the prison in Louisiana on orders from a federal judge in Vermont.

xpost

Great news.

Thank god.

That kidnapping really shook me.

Wasn’t Habba Trump’s unsuccessful attorney in his New York fraud trial?

Pretty funny to staff your Department of Justice with the imminently disbarred.

I don't know who here is suggesting judges step aside or that we should pack it in or not fight back.

― whimsical skeedaddler (Moodles)

StanM posted, "People think I'm joking when I doubt there will be an election in the US in 2028," which idk, suggests to me we should pack it in because there won't be an American election in 2028.

^^just want to point out something, and it’s ok if you and others don’t agree — the stanM post you just mentioned does NOT suggest to me we pack it in.

i understand it does, to you. i’m just pointing out, no, it doesn’t, to some other people, including me.

to me, there is a heavily implied “unless we do something, on our present course we are headed toward…..” in there. one that also might have applied to many statements/predictions/warnings about climate change over the past 30 years

OK, that's fair. My apologies for singling out StanM.

He is just going off of the newsie-wewsies iirc

any hint of doomposting and I just go nuts, sorry

I get it … I have a go nuts instinct when non US-posters opine on our politics but I try to keep it in check.

xp
def nbd from my side! i do think yr perspective on it is legit too, that it sounds like straight up doom without anything to suggest action, or that at least leaves space and hope for action. that’s important too. <3

Agreed, I read it the same way as z_tbd but do feel like saying elections just won't happen is conceding too much. I take it as a given that Trump and the GOP will do everything possible to undermine or stop elections, but there's no reason to just sit back and accept that.

Halting elections altogether is most common in nations where the military has taken over. Authoritarian governments that have occupied the shell of a failed democracy are more apt to continue the formality of holding elections where the outcome has been ordained. Putin, to cite Trump's favorite authoritarian, can proudly say that he holds regular elections in which he is re-elected by a landslide. Just sayin'.

yeah, it's called competitive authoritarianism. this Foreign Affairs article from earlier this year is still a good guide for what that would (and would not) look like in the U.S.: https://archive.ph/DsTcE

Well from the ground in a red state I can say that absolutely zero of our local and state Republicans are acting like there won’t be elections in ‘26 or ‘28. If it’s part of the party plan, no one’s told them.

Thanks to RFK there may not be any elections in 2028

*erections goddammit

People think I'm joking when I doubt there will be an election in the US in 2028.

🐦[Trump: You have to get out and vote. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four years, it will be fixed, it will be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore.. In four years, you won’t have to vote again. pic.twitter.com/DBGcBr3Wht🕸
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 27, 2024🕸]🐦

I think the less alarming reading of this is him
acknowledging that there's a reluctance to vote among many Christians, ie "Look, I know many of you are apathetic about voting, but vote in 2024 and I won't bother you again: I'll get the stuff that bothers you fixed and it'll be done once and for all." That kind of fix, not anything nefarious (would even Trump boldly say he was going to fix the election?)

https://www.christianpost.com/news/over-32m-christian-churchgoers-likely-wont-vote-in-2024-study.html

Well from the ground in a red state I can say that absolutely zero of our local and state Republicans are acting like there won’t be elections in ‘26 or ‘28. If it’s part of the party plan, no one’s told them.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra)

tbf my own rep filed a resolution to allow trump to run for a third term immediately after trump took office

Resolutions don't even have the force of law. Repeal of the 22nd amendment is what's required. Or the complete abandonment of the constitution.

just want to post this great ras baraka poem that i first heard at the beginning of a theo parrish mix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U-NJf6xqiM

I'm just reading about internal Dem Party arguments regarding how to campaign for the Senate in 2026.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/into-the-wilds-of-democratic-navel-gazing-and-big-think

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/us/politics/2026-senate-map-democrats-schumer.html?unlocked_article_code=1.F08.3eRH.Gkc-PQt7hETc&smid=url-share

Be the more pro-Israel party, appeal to voters’ desire for old Reasonable Republicans

this Foreign Affairs article from earlier this year is still a good guide for what that would (and would not) look like in the U.S.: https://archive.ph/DsTcE

thanks, jaymc! That article is otmfm and should be required reading. I C&P'd it so I can distribute it to others, as needed, in case it gets taken down.

I don't see any reason why safe red districts would halt elections, but we're already seeing red states halt things in blue districts. Down in TX, we have an open congressional seat in Houston that will be unfilled for 8 months because Gov. Abbott is delaying the election. That's very consequential when Congress is so closely divided.

There will 100% be fuckery around the elections, as there already is. Red states in particular will continue their ongoing efforts to limit access to voting for certain demographics. But that is basically an ongoing battle. It’s not the cancellation of democracy, it is trying to manipulate its results as much as possible. Which is hardly a new phenomenon in American politics.

I think these jackasses (a US rep in this case) are finally getting into "boy who cried wolf" territory

Max Berger‬
✧@maxber✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 13m
Republican member of Congress accuses Democrats who inspected an ICE facility of “insurrection” that’s “worse than 9/11.”

These people are fucking insane.

I feel like this stuff is less about making believable accusations, and more about getting themselves off the hook with this idea that everyone is doing insurrections. Maybe they are the boy who cried wolf, but then aren't democrats the same?

good point

False equivalence is the lifeblood of reactionaries.

Whataboutism is the default rhetorical maneuver of every conservative I ever argue with. It’s like the only move they know. And the equivalencies are always ridiculous but that’s not the point obviously, the point is to change the subject.

I have noticed a new move from chuds which is ‘I could explain it to you but you wouldn’t understand’ but there is no explanation forthcoming, ever.

wonder if that's their inversion of "no I will not debate you"

If they say that, debate is worthless, but since they never actually stop trying to have the last word…

“I’m not going to do the emotional labor of explaining to you why we need to suspend habeus corpus.”

If you got the real news instead of what the liberal FAKE lamestream media tells you, you could see that we are under invasion.

An invasion deliberately cause by Biden opening the borders and bringing in millions of undocumented immigrants who will rape and eat your pets while they live luxuriously on SNAP and get free government government healthcare. Of course Biden/Harris was just letting them in totally create more anchor babies, Democratic voters who will take our jerbs and bleed us dry.

Basically conservatives love to use our phrases and vernacular not just for cutesy irony reasons but also because they know we're smarter than them

Suzy otm

(would even Trump boldly say he was going to fix the election?)

Yes

He's often tried to override, rewrite, or ignore the constitution, including his hallucination that Pence could simply decide to invalidate the 2020 electoral votes, or that he can erase birthright citizenship by signing a piece of paper that says he can.

I blame Norman Vincent Peale and the Power of Positive Thinking

I keep making the mistake of breaking my "stay away from any discussion about politics or religion" rule and I'm sorry. Trying again from now on.

Trump accepting a free jet from Qatar, in case anyone was worried he hasn't committed an impeachable offense this weekend yet

Where’s Hunter???????

jfc these reports of ICE raids get worse and worse. And this was in Massachusetts, with the local cops helping and assaulting and arresting people who tried to intervene. I feel like this is the vector of where the street violence is going to come from. More and more people will be rightly upset about this police state shit, which will make the police state shit worse.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/05/ice-arrest-deportation-police-worcester-massachusetts/

That is certainly their objective. Also just using shock and awe tactics to appease the sadism of their base.

The only positive thing to take from this is that the courts have been clamping down, so the only move left is to get even more brazen. Of course, if congress manages to pass a massive budget increase for ICE, things will get even uglier.

Bad stuff still happening to federal employees that gets little attention:

At the Environmental Protection Agency, research at 11 laboratories has ground to a halt because the Trump administration has not approved most new lab purchases.
At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, key work on weather forecasting has slowed to a crawl because Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick must sign off personally on many contracts and grants. And at the Social Security Administration, some employees are running out of paper, pens and printer toner because the U.S. DOGE Service has placed a $1 spending limit on government-issued credit cards. (DOGE stands for Department of Government Efficiency, though it is not a Cabinet-level agency. - from Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/05/11/trump-government-operations-halt-funding-cuts/

And this happened late Sunday night-

House Republicans released a plan late on Sunday that would cause millions of poor Americans to lose Medicaid health coverage and millions more to pay higher fees when they go to the doctor, but that stopped short of an overhaul that would make the deepest cuts to the program.

The proposal, which is one piece of a sweeping bill to enact President Trump’s domestic agenda, including large tax cuts and increased military spending, omits the structural changes to Medicaid that ultraconservative Republicans have demanded. Instead, it bows to the wishes of a group of more moderate and politically vulnerable G.O.P. lawmakers whose seats could be at risk if they embraced deep Medicaid cuts.

From NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/republicans-medicaid-cuts.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Gk8.IThS.eKaVqThIKrgy&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Well, geez, why didn't anyone else think of just asking big pharma to voluntarily lower their prices?

all of his e.o.'s have the air of michael scott yelling "i declare bankrupcty!!!" but this one even more than most

yes, exactly

Is that guy Trump illegally chucked out of the country still in prison in El Salvador? Anyone still talking about that?

Yes he is and many more are also. Big Pharma EO is just a distraction

would cause millions of poor Americans to lose Medicaid health coverage and millions more to pay higher fees when they go to the doctor, but that stopped short of an overhaul that would make the deepest cuts to the program.

Leave it to the NYT to point out that Republicans in Congress showed the mercy to stop short of some unnamed and unspecified horror we are supposed to conjure up from our worst fears as a way of making it sound not so bad.

Well so much for bringing manufacturing back lol.

Just nonstop Calvinball. You keep the actual goals muddy and just declare victory whenever you feel like it.

Is that guy Trump illegally chucked out of the country still in prison in El Salvador? Anyone still talking about that?

yes. it's blatantly unconstitutional and wrong and everyone except stephen miller knows it (actually he knows it) but we will have to wait weeks, months....?....until that is confirmed by a court

xp When they see 'Wall Street rallies after blah blah', they see it as a 'victory' for their groundbreaking 'deal'

But Wall Street was already rallying before the inauguration

Josh Hawley, salt-of-the-earth champion of the working class

Josh Hawley, the influential US senator from Missouri, has warned that his Republican party is suffering from an “identity crisis” over whether it stands for working Americans or rich corporate executives, signaling a worsening split among Donald Trump’s congressional troops over the president’s plans for deep Medicaid cuts.

In an opinion piece in the New York Times published on Monday, Hawley warned his fellow Republicans it would be “politically suicidal” to concede to huge cuts in the federal program that provides health insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans. He derided what he called the “Wall Street wing” of his own party that he said favoured corporate giveaways at the price of “slashing health insurance for the working poor”.

Josh Hawley, salt-of-the-earth champion of the working class

_
In an opinion piece in the New York Times published on Monday, Hawley warned his fellow Republicans it would be “politically suicidal” to concede to huge cuts in the federal program that provides health insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans. _

why would he endanger his career by suggesting they may not stand 100% for rich corporate executives? seems like a risky move

is this another case of "we've got the votes so we'll take turns voicing opposition so no one can say it passed long party lines"?

this might be the answer

29.7% of Missouri residents had incomes below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) in 2023, which was larger than the U.S. share (28.2%).

Could be those reasons, and could be that Hawley wants to run for President some day.

and there's this

His claims in his opinion piece to be a champion of working Americans should carry caveats. He has opposed raising the minimum wage in Missouri and has enthusiastically backed efforts to undermine public-sector trade unions.

all these guys know that they have to pander to the low income voters whom they depend on to get elected, they just vary in how they triangulate that pandering, how near to the surface its obvious disingenuousness is. and honestly as they keep eroding voting rights and democracy it's amazing that we still see it happen, feel like it's not long for this world

well medicare/social security are not called the third-rails for nothing, and because these negotiations are currently happening in the House, he can safely avoid the issue for now. Though I wonder who the op-ed was written for - can't imagine a lot of low-income Missouri voters are NYT subscribers

You keep the actual goals muddy and just declare victory whenever you feel like it.

Jeez bro it says it right on the hat. Make America Great Again. What do you have against greatness, tipsy?

prediction: the Afrikaners will be moved to a new city in TX called 'Starbase,' to work as menial labor

pawns in a dog whistle game

xp it's like he promised, I'm tired of winning

I've never listened to or watched Hasan Piker and don't have any feelings about him, but his account of being questioned at the border is pretty interesting.

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

i got to the point where he said "this is the worst cold brew of my life" and he still hadn't gotten on the plane so i had to tap out

lol the customs officer engagement starts around 5:30.

ah yes... blind people can sell pencils on the corner, just not too many, maybe like five

For years, California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants (CAPI) has provided monthly cash assistance to elderly, blind and disabled immigrants with legal status, a much-needed lifeline for vulnerable permanent residents, refugees, people granted asylum and others. Yet, in announcing its investigation Monday into the program, DHS accused the program of “providing federal benefits” to undocumented immigrants, echoing unproven claims circulating among the US’s political rightwing.

Kinda offstream but: Dear Democratic motherfuckers, we demand 3-5 wealth tax proposals in the well and introduced into the actual processes and also all of the uh “discourses” asap. They should each be workable according to the rules by which they are developed. In addition we demand a multiple media attack in which the proponents state simply “we plan to take the people’s money back. If billionaires think it is the

their money they are mistaken but fine. We and the people intend to take their money.”

yeah but the 'job creators'

the loophole where ritchie riches can take out massive loans (not income, therefore no income tax) and then deduct the interest on the loan payments,thus further lowering their tax burden, is fucking bonkers and infuriating to me

aaaand another week, another utterly impeachable offense, with naked corruption on full display:
On Monday, the top 220 buyers of a Donald Trump-sponsored cryptocurrency won access to an exclusive dinner with the president as a reward for pouring money into the coin. It was the culmination of Trump’s weekslong promotion of the contest, which has drawn allegations that he is using his position to enrich his family business while opening himself up to foreign influence..

B-b-but what about Hunter??

Im here and telling you what to do.

Promise the people to end it. Get elected and do it.

I don’t care if you have to come down in a goddamn golden elevator. Promise some needed radical shit, have some evidence of how it will work, then turn inquiry to simple statements of how important it is, and implied promises for it’s perfect success and the glory for regular americans. A national jubilee and state of improvement.

End it was re loan interest dedux

“its”

https://i.imgur.com/DC7OGyw.png

I guess the online mockery got to them, they updated the hed.

https://i.imgur.com/OU0JZkb.jpeg

"concerns"

Yeah even when they use the word corruption it's in this kind of "some people are suggesting" way.

Many people are saying

Qatari Jet Highlights Corruption Concerns in of Trump's 2nd Term

Questions are being asked

that 'free' jet is anything but, they're gonna have to tear it to pieces looking for bugs

(isn't there a greek myth about a giant wooden horse kinda like this?)

I’m curious whether he sees the jet as just another tool for pissing off libs with the blatant corruption, or if he literally cannot say no to a gold-plated airplane being dangled in front of him.

With the Afrikaners, it seems clear he’s just trying to own the libs. He doesn’t give a shit about those people, he just knows the blatant racism will drive non-MAGAs crazy. Not so sure about the plane thing.

He's hoping the South Africans traffic in some qualuudes for him.

I’m curious whether he sees the jet as just another tool for pissing off libs with the blatant corruption

I'm sure that gives him joy, but now all the MAGA people are calling out as well:

Ben Shapiro, the prominent rightwing commentator, led the charge on his daily podcast. “President Trump promised to drain the swamp – this is not, in fact, draining the swamp,” he said... he added: “Taking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera, all the rest, that’s not America First … If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff would be stopped.”

Laura Loomer, the far-right Maga activist, warned that the proposed gift would put “such a stain on the administration”. Loomer said she loved Trump and would “take a bullet for him. But I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400m ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.

He wants that plane SO BAD, this really puts him in a pickle

He wants the plane so bad he’s going to break up with Loomer

wait, there are quaaludes in south africa?

That might be a myth I just read that it was the only country where they were still produced a long time ago.

The administration really wants you to focus on the narrative that the contract for new Boeing planes - going through normal channels - is years off schedule and billions over budget (which is not untrue) and this is a smart way they can get a new plane for free. Two MAGA storylines. overnment is bad because it's inefficient, plus Art of the deal baby.

Now. One can argue that the old planes presidents use now are outdated and the new model overdue.

But this would conflict with another maga storyline, that of the New Trump Frugality, post-doge post-trade war "just make do with two dolls and five pencils" line.

Optics are "I get the shiny new thing; you shlubs should just be happy back in coach." Which is a very on-brand mode of hypocrisy. The plane is a symbol.

(I know a guy who did QC for Air Force One; he had the supersecret Yankee White clearance, the tippitoppermost clearance. Security on those mofos is tight. But yeah, as others have noted, sure, accept a used plane from a foreign monarch, I'm sure it's clean.)

The thing is the Qataris can tell him don't worry about it, we'll give it to you in 2029, they still get the benefit of the bribe.

^^^^ Love how Shapiro conflates Al Jazeera with Hamas ^^^^^

Laura Loomer, please do take a bullet for Trump. And while you’re at it share one w him ok pls?

rare Schumer spine-sighting

“In light of the deeply troubling news of a possible Qatari-funded Air Force One, and the reports that the attorney general personally signed off on this clearly unethical deal, I am announcing a hold on all DOJ political nominees, until we get more answers,” Schumer said in a Senate floor speech.

Schumer called the proposed arrangement “not just naked corruption”, likening it to something so corrupt “that even Putin would give a double take”.

With the Afrikaners, it seems clear he’s just trying to own the libs. He doesn’t give a shit about those people, he just knows the blatant racism will drive non-MAGAs crazy. Not so sure about the plane thing.

― tobo73,

I was joking with my sister, who lives in SA, about how much they’re gonna hate it here

I know Musk was connected to the SA thing, but it also seems sort of emblematic of Trump's world view. He is still totally shaped by the '70s and '80s, and white South Africans I'm sure he very much sympathized with during the '80s when it was a really prominent political and cultural issue. He's probably viewed them as unjustly treated all these years. His Pete Rose advocacy is another example, both in terms of the era and his sense that a white man had been wronged.

I heard some guy from a church refugee resettlement agency (who have tacitly agreed to help the Afrikaners) and his main point was that this shows just how quickly they can safely vet and fly over 'refugees' when they want to... so why the hold-up on all the others? (Yes, we know.. because they're black & brown)

the whole 'white genocide' is a far-right conspiracy thing based on what happened in Zimbabwe years ago, not what's happening in SA right now

White Zimbabweans and South Africans probably deserve it, tbf

to this day, 70% of land in SA is still owned by whites

It’s really gross over there

this plane thing is gonna be funny, you know how much Trump really wants it but like even for Republicans this is probably a bridge too far

They'll come around

They're coming for pR0n again: https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/5260/text

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prawn?wprov=sfla1

I’m curious whether he sees the jet as just another tool for pissing off libs with the blatant corruption, or if he literally cannot say no to a gold-plated airplane being dangled in front of him.

i assume it's the latter. pretty sure he thinks this is just a fun perk of being president!

also he sees getting something for free as the ultimate win and a sign of strength.

iirc trump has a thing about how old and antiquated air force one is, same goes for the whitehouse--he sees them as being below the standards he deserves.

that is, this is likely about him getting a fancy new(er) plane with nine lavatories.

I have a pal who worked for a big defense contractor on the AF1 project during the first Trump term and he reported that it was a total cluster fuck. The White House kept making changes and additions to the design while cutting funding. Shocker. My pal got out of that company as fast as he could.

the loophole where ritchie riches can take out massive loans (not income, therefore no income tax) and then deduct the interest on the loan payments,thus further lowering their tax burden, is fucking bonkers and infuriating to me

It’s not really a loophole… they only get a deduction up to the amount of interest income they have … if they only have $100 of interest income, then they can only deduct $100 of loan interest… they could have their riches in the form of rental income, dividends, wages …

iirc trump has a thing about how old and antiquated air force one is, same goes for the whitehouse--he sees them as being below the standards he deserves.

See Also: His marriages, mistresses etc.

My wife is a health care reporter

She's been listening to RFKJr and Sanders, plus Rand Paul. It's like a vortex of cranky old guys

Posted this over on ILM too. Hate that we're going to see more of this:

Members of the Austin, Texas, rock band Lord Buffalo have said that they are canceling a tour of Europe because their drummer, Yamal Said, was detained by agents from United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The alleged incident took place on Monday, May 12, when Said “was forcibly removed from [the band’s] flight to Europe” at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport.
According to his bandmates, Yamal Said “is a Mexican citizen and lawful permanent resident of the United States (green card holder).” Last year, in an interview with VoyageAustin, the drummer said that his “family moved to Austin in the late ’80s, after a devastating earthquake hit Mexico City.”

Said “has not been released,” according to his bandmates, but he “has secured the legal representation he needs.” Pitchfork has reached out to CBP’s office of public affairs for comment and more information on the situation.

that's so weird that he was detained leaving the country rather than trying to get back in... so fucked up

Been seeing reports that people are having their papers checked on the way out of America as well as on the way back in, mostly in Vancouver for some reason but I'm a little worried since my mom (last name Guevara) crossed the border at Niagara Falls earlier this week and I haven't heard from her since yesterday.

Hopefully you get word that she is safe soon.

Everything is getting more concerning.

It's shitty that you should ever have to worry about something that should be so unexceptional. I hope it's nothing, but the rampant abuse of power by ICE is far too real not to wonder and worry.

All I can say is: That’s fucked up

So it turns out that wasn’t the full story and was a very disingenuous statement by the band and label, turns out the drummer had a warrant out for his arrest.

My apologies for posting before the whole story was out.

What Austin drummer <doesn't> have a warrant out at the moment?

Lol facts

What Warrant drummer doesn’t have an Austin out

An interview with David Hogg.

ok, I laughed at this:

While many have speculated that the Qataris have offered Trump the luxurious plane to curry favor with the famously transactional president, there may be a simpler rationale: they just don’t want it anymore.

The royals have failed to sell the plane, which was put on the market in 2020, according to an archived listing. Giving it away could save Qatar’s rulers a big chunk of change on maintenance and storage costs, aviation experts told Forbes. Making Trump happy would be an added bonus.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2025/05/14/qatar-747-trump/

lol bribing him with a cast-off. Trump's out of his league, he's only a wannabe gangster. These guys are for real.

"Give it to the idiot, he'll take it. Stick a few bugs in first though."

https://bsky.app/profile/theonion.com/post/3lpa3q6peqs2b

Since there’s no floor that just doesnt hit

Surely if Trump finds out theyre giving him a plane they jusy dont want anymore, his corpulent ego will decide it doesn't want the damn plane anymore.

learned today (along with probably everyone else on blusky) that Kat Abu is dating the Onion guy (Ben Collins)

that was referenced on some other thread

xp some of us learned it last week!

Who is she and why is everyone up in arms about it, I dont get it.

This Janes Comey “8647” thing has got to be the single stupidest faux-outrage non-story of all-time.

Who is she

lefty media personality running for Congress

why is everyone up in arms about it

because Bluesky appears to be the unholy union between Tumblr and Twitter

https://bsky.app/profile/daveweigel.bsky.social/post/3lpc3mqpr3c2s
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:djdxfzbvmvjmjlj3qu32uy2i/bafkreia3phnys6trnmpnghgiqqdbfonjz3h7juzhm6z7qc435bzuzsiktq@jpeg
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:djdxfzbvmvjmjlj3qu32uy2i/bafkreibpvrc7x2xvi2i63w6qgzqvhnuhbftoyz66gxl4ry24lrxwnva3t4@jpeg

things must be going pretty badly if we need to shift the narrative to the paralyzing fear of left-wing ninja battalions

sorry are these people freaking out over James Comey? one of the most timid men on the planet? even for them this is pathetic

that said Comey is the one who got us into this mess

they aren't actually freaking out though, are they? they're engaging in culture wars, and yet again comey, habitual rake-stepper (to be played by Ed Helms in the inevitable movie adaptation of this chapter of hell) is providing the ammo.

Speak for yourself my chapter of antifa takes all out orders from Comey

got my marching orders last night!

Soros signed the check iirc

honestly amazing that the same crowd who tries to drop as many 1488 references as possible and then acted all aggrieved when people pointed it out is now trying to act scandalized about this

the former head of the FBI communicating to vigilante assassins via ... a public Instagram post

Who is she and why is everyone up in arms about it, I dont get it.

not sure if people are actually up in arms about it, her running was controversial to some because it was viewed as carpetbagging (she moved to the district and threatened to primary a safe Dem who was old, and said Dem then decided not to run for re-election). I guess she moved to the area because that's where Ben Collins lives.

Is it true the boss has 86 46 tatooed on his fingers and is going to cecot

"cool shell formation" lmao

not sure if people are actually up in arms about it

there is one guy who is up in arms about the fact that they didn't disclose their relationship until a few days ago, even though a) the primary is 10 months away and other candidates are still jumping into the race, and b) the Onion is probably not going to be covering the IL-9 House race.

lol it's not like she's dating someone from Politico

polls are showing a suspicious level of support from "area men"

the big budget bill just failed in the House

it did not make it out of committee

needs more cruelty

Things went well with Noem yesterday:

Swalwell asked Noem about the infamous photo of Garcia’s tattooed knuckles that Donald Trump loves to wave around. The picture has the letters and numbers MS-13 badly photoshopped on Garcia’s fingers in what looks like Times New Roman. This is the evidence used to justify sending the man to a slave labor prison.

By the way, the line from some conservatives lately is that those letters were photoshopped into the picture to translate the symbols for us laypeople. Oh, okay, someone should tell the president that, because that’s not what he seemed to be telling Terry Moran during a recent interview. Then please break out the key you presumably have buried in a government computer showing that MS-13 members use a tattooed skull to represent the numeral 3. We’d love to see it.

Noem refused to answer the question, over and over and over again. Swalwell told her, “I have a seven-year-old, a six-year-old, and a three-year-old. I have a bullshit detector. I’m just asking you if this is doctored or not doctored.” Swalwell then got so frustrated he had his aide walk over to Noem and wave the photo in front of her face, and she refused to look at it.

Watched this, was so infuriating. These people are so fucking thick it's like their superpower - they can deflect because they can plausibly play like they don't possess the brainpower to understand the question.

Sorry, not the point, but the "M S 1 3" added the image is clearly NOT Times New Roman since it's sans serif.

Bembo or gtfo

That doesn't look like anything to me.

Reminds me of the VP debate when Vance could not answer the question about the 2020 election

too busy watching the Oscar attention on Hillbilly Elegy iirc

https://www.weareequis.us/research/may-2025-poll-on-latinos-trump-and-immigration

'highly overrated' & 'pushy' lol

Springsteen made a series of vehement speeches on stage in Manchester as he kicked off his latest tour, arguing that Trump was “an unfit president” heading up “a rogue government”. He said that in the US, “the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death … they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers … They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom.”

Trump responded on his Truth Social platform, calling Springsteen “highly overrated… not a talented guy – just a pushy, obnoxious JERK”.

Someone should just ask schmuck a l’orange if he feels underrated and watch, he won’t shut up for hours with how underrated he is!

Springsteen is kind of pushy, always telling people to raise their hands, climb on back, prove it all night, etc.

…deliver me from nowhere. Wth does that even mean anyway? Sad!!

The one time I saw him he asked us if we wanted one more song and we all screamed "whoooo!" and he said he couldn't hear us and made us yell it again, when it was VERY CLEAR that we were plenty loud enough the FIRST time.

he's always asking little girls if their daddy's home, what kind of creep asks that sort of thing

RACING in THESE streets?fuel costs being what they are honestly its just downright irresponsible

Just getting around to this 86 46 kerfuffle. Up until this stupid internet outrage was shat out by some idiot, the slang phrase "to 86 someone" never meant to kill them. It just meant to deny them future entry to the bar, pub, or tavern as a notoriously troublesome drunk. Bouncers aren't in the habit of assassinating bar patrons.

yes I've never heard "86" used in a fatal fashion

I mean, Trump's post about Springsteen scans as a much more direct threat than Comey's dumb thing.

86 is absolutely used as slang for termination, really not necessary to play dumb to thwart the right's dumbass obsessions.

I've only ever heard it used in two contexts - throwing something away, or in a restaurant context, that the place was out of a particular item.

+ Get Smart reruns

'86', as explained in Wikipedia:

Eighty-six or 86 is American English slang used in the hospitality industry and in the military and intelligence communities.

In the hospitality industry, it is used to indicate that an item is no longer available, traditionally from a food or drinks establishment, or referring to a person or people who are not welcome on the premises. Its etymology is unknown, but the term seems to have been coined in the 1920s or 1930s.

Military personnel might use "86" to refer to scrapping equipment (e.g., "That old radio got 86'd") or ending a plan or mission (e.g., "The op was 86'd due to bad weather"). It's not an official term in military doctrine or manuals, but it's part of the informal jargon and culture of soldiers, sailors, and airmen due to its common and frequent use, and is a concept military members are assumed to understand, although it originates in broader civilian language.

soda jerk jargon

86 is absolutely used as slang for termination

I have absolutely never heard it used this way ever

we're all playing dumb I guess

Conservatives don't know what it means because they've never worked in restaurants.

Yet so much of their support is in diners.

Never forget:

I’m so sorry to be late to the party on the martini-Bork nexus (I slept late here in Hawaii where it’s five hours earlier). First, let me add that I think the Judge–as I’ve called him since I was a policy gnome at AEI–is one of the most impressive and honorable men I’ve ever met. And he’s also the only person I have ever met who can give one-word answers to very complex questions while sounding like he’s covered all the angles. “No, he explained,” works for the Judge.

Anyway, as fate would have it, the Goldbergs have recently switched (perhaps temporarily) to gibsons as our preferred cocktail. For me, this is a nostalgic turn, as my father drank gibsons when I was a kid. I have many memories of my dad telling waiters, “it’s a gibson, not a gimlet” after receiving some lime flavored swill. Charles Dana Gibson is credited with creating the drink, by the way. And it is merely a martini that uses cocktail onions as a garnish.

As for the vodka martini, I am with the Judge on this: There’s no such thing. Technically, the vodka and vermouth drink is a kangaroo. I can live with people saying “vodka martini” but I can’t stand it when waiters ask, “do you want that martini [or gibson] with gin or vodka.” That’s like asking, “Do you want that milkshake with ice cream or tofu?

lol the 86 Wikipedia goes on to explain its slang use re:killing someone.

Added by Laura Loomer three hours ago

you can also write SNUFF in seashells, he could've been a little less coy

According to Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, "to 86" also means "to kill, to murder; to execute judicially," likely referring to the size of a standard grave being 2.5 feet wide by 8 feet long and 6 feet deep.9

suuuuure

yes, when serial killers get together and chat about their murders, they favor "86" as a way of expressing what happened to their victims.

If 86 meant "to kill" it would appear in a lot more rap songs.

you can also write SNUFF in seashells, he could've been a little less coy

Yes, “Republican James Comey announces his plan to assassinate Donald Trump on Instagram via seashell” is why it’s really unnecessary to start with “it is completely unimaginable that this slang term about eliminating menu items could also be used to suggest eliminating people.”

if people use this term in this way it is not at all widespread.

86 the Boers

it's not unimaginable because someone did imagine it. it's just an instance of applied stupidity in this case.

I feel like I've heard it used in noir films (or parodies of same) but that may be the mandela effect. In any case I have understood "86" to mean killing a person and throwing someone out of a bar for much of my adult life.

huh i’m pretty sheltered and i know it well. i did wait tables i and know what 86 “means,” but i always thought the murder sense was a sort of “slang from slang, and which is intuitive but also everyone knows if the context is there.”

"Put 47 on ice"

cant we focus on the real villain here bruce springsteen?

If Bruce keeps doing four hour shows he's going to kill a few boomers who shouldn't drive home after being up so late.

Alex from NYC of this parish helpfully explained on FB that a West Village bar called Chumley’s where he used to drink (also an early speakeasy) ejected drunk/unwanted customers from its 86 Bedford Street door. People entered the establishment around the corner on Barrow Street. The term “86” comes from the door and every restaurant or bar my hospitality industry family members/close friends have ever worked at had an 86 List with names, descriptions and sometimes photos of banished former patrons.

he's already moved on from The Boss:

President Trump is indicating there’s bad blood between him and Taylor Swift once again, reigniting his feud with the music star and claiming credit for what he describes as a drop in her popularity.

“Has anyone noticed that, since I said ‘I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT,’ she’s no longer ‘HOT?'” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social.

yeah, whatever happened to Taylor?

Aw R.I.P. Chumley’s. (Speaking of being 86’d.)

DJT is bridge-and-tunnel in human form so West Village lore is rather beyond him.

So I guess what we're saying is that DJT should be thrown thru a pair of saloon doors like that grizzled gunslinger on the Pure Prairie League album cover?

who among us can't forget the song of the summer of 92:

"86 on an undercover cop"

was that not 187 on an undercover cop, actually?

that's the joke

a West Village bar called Chumley’s where he used to drink (also an early speakeasy) ejected drunk/unwanted customers from its 86 Bedford Street door. People entered the establishment around the corner on Barrow Street. The term “86” comes from the door

This is a theory, but I wouldn't accept it as fact any more than the idea that you coined the word "gaydar."

Ben Zimmer notes:

The first known appearance in print, discovered by word sleuth Barry Popik, is in “On Broadway,” the widely syndicated column by New York’s premier gossip-monger Walter Winchell. In the column that appeared on May 24, 1933 (as published in the Akron Beacon Journal), Winchell wrote:

A Hollywood soda-jerker forwards this glossary of soda-fountain lingo out there … “Shoot one” and “Draw one” is one coke and one coffee … “Shoot one in the red!” means a cherry coke … An “echo” is a repeat order … “Eighty-six” means all out of it.

Winchell went on to give more examples of the numerical code used by servers at soda fountains, including eighty-one meaning “a glass of water,” and thirteen meaning “one of the big bosses is drifting around.”

After mentioning a few other proposed etymologies (including the 86 Bedford St. theory), Zimmer concludes:

Many other fanciful etymologies have been suggested over the years to explain the mysterious number, but all of the speculation masks the likeliest origin, that it is simply a vestige of the arbitrary codes shouted out by soda clerks.

(Those quotes are from a 2018 Atlantic article: https://archive.ph/gk5Dg)

Most etymology explanations that don’t look through “first mentions” in newspapers are sus, as the kids say.

i trust jaymc

he has the spreadsheet, after all

here it is, explained

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/16/8647-meaning-james-comey-instagram-trump

jaymc, honour the fire of the person who I credited for putting the Chumley’s story forward - if there’s a storied downtown location I expect Alex to be all over its history like ILX’s answer to EV Grieve. I was only the messenger.

As to gaydar, I came up with it as a teenager having never heard it before! Normal wordplay, at least for me. But I had lots of gay guys in my friendship group at a very LGBTQI-friendly college and they’d never heard it either. I only wish I’d written it down in something that got published back then.

I firmly take ownership of the first "whatev" as a contraction of whatever... this would have been circa 2000

I believe suzy when she says she coined 'gaydar' independently of any other source. Creativity with words is happening continuously everywhere. It's fun.

I ordered a set of gaydar about 23 years ago; still on back order.

Late to the party here, but are they intentionally conflating 86 with “deep six”?

‘86 is the year Reign in Blood was released. That’s probably the meaning.

I am sure in some crime show I have seen, a mob boss or drug kingpin has used 86 to mean “kill” … 187 is a reference to the California penal code …

Milo otm

I came up with the word "dada" as a very young infant. Sadly I didn't write it down either.

A DC federal appeals court in a 2-1 decision with Bush and Trump appointed judges in majority on Friday lifted a block on an executive order from President Donald Trump that seeks to strip union rights from federal workers at dozens of agencies and offices. In its order canceling the injunction, the appeals court’s 2-1 majority said the union had not proved it would suffer “irreparable harm” if the executive order was executed while the lawsuit challenging it was ongoing.Trump in March issued an executive order that said that parts of the United States Code that protect federal workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain would no longer apply to agencies including most or all of the Departments of Treasury, Defense, Veterans Affairs, State and Justice. The executive order covers about two-thirds of the federal workforce, according to the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), which filed a lawsuit challenging it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/05/17/trump-executive-order-unions-block-lifted/

Gift link below. This article was posted Friday afternoon warning that the National Weather Service office serving the part of Kentucky that was in danger of being hit by tornadoes had had staffing cuts, and no longer had overnight staffing. The tornadoes hit the area about seven or eight hours after this article went up. At least 14 people in Kentucky are dead. Hard to know if better staffing would have saved any of those lives, but of course, the whole reason that the NWS staffs offices 24 hours a day is exactly for public safety.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/weather/storms-tornadoes-missouri-kentucky.html?unlocked_article_code=1.H08.8kzV.WsFdIngPb4C_&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Oops, meant to post this link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/weather/nws-cuts-kentucky-tornado.html?unlocked_article_code=1.H08.QLda.QG8CXzRM9EWB&smid=url-share

How would an executive order crushing unions not cause them “irreparable harm” while the order is being litigated?

“We won’t stay your execution while the appeals work their tedious way through the courts”.

On so many of these court cases , right wing judges are finding no “irreparable harm” to temporary allow Trump orders to take effect is so absurd. I think Justice Roberts used this logic to allow Wilcox , a Black Dem woman lawyer member of the NLRB Board to be temporarily fired , finding that she can ultimately get her job back when the underlying litigation is done. But her job is term limited so he’s taking away her time on the board that she can’t get back even if she ultimately wins the case.

Allowing union rules to be voided for 2/3 of the agencies and contending that won’t cause orchard as noted above is ridiculous

Which is so absurd

Irreparable harm .

Ugh my typing

So reparable harm is a-OK, then?

Apparently.

Meanwhile Trump is posting angrily on Truth Social that Walmart should EAT THE TARiFFS rather than raise prices due to the tariffs as they announced they might do

That's kinda funny when you think about it. Now all those Fortune 500 CEOs are having to deal with the petulant child they helped to elect as president.

Some of them voted for Harris …

The China trade war, looming economic apocalypse and eventual back down did a great job of distracting people from the inflation universal 10%+ tariffs will cause - if it was anyone but Trump and the political Keystone Kops you'd have to wonder if that was intentional.

Some of them voted for Harris …

While many of them contributed sums to both.

xp

There's still a lot of financial pain incoming. People will notice.

Joe Biden has prostate cancer :(

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/18/politics/joe-biden-prostate-cancer

Eek.

:)

really, murgatroid?

Probably preferable to being murdered in his sleep with a Hellfire.

I no longer have to think about that man

xxp yes :)))) I hope the tens of thousands of dead Palestinians that have been murdered in the past many months haunt him till his final breath

prostate cancer is the least of what he deserves

I'm sorry, I think that's a ridiculous accusation. I don't know how you think he could have meaningfully intervened to save their lives. Our country does not preside over the decisions of other countries

But I'm pretty sure you don't even have a thought for how Trump supports Netanyahu and the current starvation of a whole population and is now advocating for a mass deportation of Gazans so his family can develop the strip into a luxury resort

to change the subject

By age 80 almost 2/3 of men have prostate cancer, it's very common. and for most it is not an aggressive disease. But with bone mets there is a lower 5-year survival rate.

I have a friend with recurrent prostate cancer who is on hormone treatment. He was worried that it was going to be some kind of chemical castration with corresponding side effects, but that has not been the case for him so far

there is so much Biden could have done and didn't, c'mon.

I mean, the blame really lies on the entire Democratic party, don't wanna single him out but...

I'm sorry, I think that's a ridiculous accusation. I don't know how you think he could have meaningfully intervened to save their lives. Our country does not preside over the decisions of other countries

But I'm pretty sure you don't even have a thought for how Trump supports Netanyahu and the current starvation of a whole population and is now advocating for a mass deportation of Gazans so his family can develop the strip into a luxury resort

You have a brain made of rice pudding.

I voted for him and I voted for Harris but what he has allowed to happen in Gaza should be his shameful legacy and he can sincerely go get fucked.

fuck all of you

I want to know what he could have done that would have changed anything!

Can we just once fucking not?

Insist on a ceasefire? Stop sending money and bombs to Israel? Where the fuck have you been the last two years?

March 2024

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/03/joe-biden-israel-gaza-war-netanyahu-rafah-palestinians/

What Biden Would Do if He Were Serious About Ending the War in Gaza
A former Israeli peace negotiator says the president’s response has “failed to meet even the lowest of low expectations

Time and again, Israel crossed the Biden administration’s red lines without changing course in a meaningful way, according to interviews with government officials and outside experts. Each time, the U.S. yielded and continued to send Israel’s military deadly weapons of war, approving more than $17.9 billion in military assistance since late 2023, by some estimates. The State Department recently told Congress about another $8 billion proposed deal to sell Israel munitions and artillery shells.

“It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the red lines have all just been a smokescreen,” said Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and a preeminent authority on U.S. policy in the region. “The Biden administration decided to be all in and merely pretended that it was trying to do something about it.”

what he has allowed to happen in Gaza should be his shameful legacy and he can sincerely go get fucked.

this, pretty much

Well lucky for him he apparently doesnt know shit from shinola at this point so may he be dry and comfortable

"insist on a ceasefire"

"crossed the Biden administration's red lines"

"by some estimates"

this is a recent statement from Marco Rubio:

"I have signed a declaration to use emergency authorities to expedite the delivery of approximately $4 billion in military assistance to Israel. The decision to reverse the Biden Administration’s partial arms embargo, which wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel, is yet another sign that Israel has no greater ally in the White House than President Trump"

two wrongs don't make a right, dude

maybe you should actually read the Mother Jones article and stop being mad at us, Biden was good domestically but an abysmal failure w/r/t Gaza

xpost Wow, I guess we all fucked up by voting for Trump, Dan S.

Dan S, think about this: there were and are Palestinians undergoing treatment for cancer, in Gaza. If they haven’t been murdered, it’s likely that many members of their families have been. Their doctors have been killed. The hospitals that they are in have been bombed. Their medicines have been embargoed, and people have died from lack of medication.

All of these actions have taken place with the full approval and financial backing of the United States, and Biden absolutely could have done many, many things to stop it, but he didn’t, because he is a rich, racist fuck who showed nothing but full support to the genocidal apartheid state known as “Israel.”

It's awful, and I know the US government supports Israel over Palestine and that Israel has a genocidal agenda.

He’s kinda like LBJ … yes he implemented great improvements in the US but was also responsible for intolerable suffering

“this is a recent statement from Marco Rubio:”

Whoa whoa whoa are you saying US governments can make decisions that impact what happens in other countries now