"Welcome To TACO Hell!": US POLITICS, JUNE 2025

<ERIC ANDRE GUN MEME>

"WHY DID ROBOT BIDEN DO THIS?"

it's some real dem grand strategy shit, is making a robot that shits the bed and doesn't recognise George Clooney!

Step 1: replace Biden with https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=77&threadid=92365

argh

In September the deep state killed Biden for the very first time

Now he’s a robot
It’s June

Times
Times

I am the Biden man

(Secret secret, I’ve got a secret)

Robot Biden is two trochees, like ninja turtle, zombie vampire, or Jesus lizard.

https://xkcd.com/856

Looking up at a TV playing the local news, and they're actually using graphics calling it "The Big Beautiful Bill" ffs...

Which Ohio diner are you in?

That’s what it’s called!

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/fema-head-wasnt-aware-hurricane-season/

Good luck to all on the east coast

He was just having a little fun while doing his job—dismantling the agency.

FEMA = Feverishly Eliminating Most Americans

assholing for assholery's sake

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Navy to rename an oil ship named after gay rights activist Harvey Milk, a move that pointedly comes at the start of Pride Month.

Military.com first reported the impending name change, citing a memorandum from the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. The document reportedly showed that the service planned to strip the oiler USNS Harvey Milk of its moniker...

‪Brett "Solidarity 2025" Banditelli‬
✧@bandite✧✧✧.o✧✧‬
· 55m
Minneapolis residents running ICE/DHS out of town so hard multiple police agencies are lying about what really happened while DC Democrats give Republicans free TACOS really does show the difference between the party base and the party infrastructure, doesn't it?

c'mon call him out by name

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/elon-musk-trump-spending-tax-bill-disgusting-abomination-rcna210690

game recognize game

But Musk won't call out the tax cuts he's getting or the Medicaid cuts

After seeing his work on the DOGE I'm guessing he isn't objecting to extending and enlarging the tax cuts of 2017 for the wealthy. The "abomination" he's thinking of is the failure to make massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Exactly. The Medicaid cuts aren't big enough for him.

Marjorie Taylor Greene - Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.

I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there.

This section was in non- Maga news coverage, but she didn't see that or read the bill

tbf, the bill was withheld from most of the members of Congress until the last moment before the voting and was well over 1000 pages.

and it wasn't in pop up book format

Pretty sure MTG can't read, period.

really hoping this Musk sniping on the spending bill eventually transforms into a full-blown, drug-fueled breakup of the bromance, with lots of mutual mudslinging and cheap insults

it almost seems inevitable

He knows he needs the MAGAs to keep Twitter usership levels from shrinking, so as of yet he hasn't called Trump out by name, probably is egotistically hoping that someone as brilliant as 'him' giving the hint is enough to get the big man to stop listening to the morons around him.

so I guess we need someone to create an index that hypothesizes what the stock price of Twitter and Tesla would each need to decline to before he finally takes gloves off.

IDK, don't you think a full repudiation of Trumpism would ultimately be the best thing for his brand? Liberals could maybe talk themselves into buying a Tesla again

But I guess the Federal contracts is where the real money is, especially with Starlink etc

if he's going to do that, he needs time to pivot. that crowd still makes a huge chunk of his enthusiastic user base.

feel like the Tesla brand is pretty much shot barring him selling the company outright

Xp — there were drafts of the bill for weeks — I spent an hour or two skimming and making notes — someone whose actual job is to vote on legislation should have at least done that?

well yeah but they are not actually opposed, it's just cover for voting for unpopular horrendous things to say they wouldn't have voted for it if they'd known

welp, when the bill comes out of the Senate and goes through reconciliation, she can see if that provision stayed in the final version.

She might not remember to check though, which is totally valid. Who has time, really?

Yes this is a gift link to an Atlantic story — but it's a good one, called "Feudalism Is Our Future."

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/07/government-privatization-feudalism/682888/?gift=83kOO-_pxHChnfcCXfgpODcYwIxBDk3wsibK8lRrGXc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

Public police forces with a mission to protect everyone are largely a 19th-century invention. But police forces are shrinking. In the U.S., anyone with money and a need now hires private security guards, who outnumber police officers by a ratio of 2 to 1. Among companies based in the U.S., the third-largest global employer—after Amazon and Walmart—is a private security firm, Allied Universal. Private guards patrol small towns and swaths of entire cities. A consortium of hundreds of businesses in Portland, Oregon, hired a company named Echelon Protective Services to secure their downtown precinct, day and night. During the fires that devastated Los Angeles in January, the wealthiest residents of Brentwood called in the secretive security firm Covered 6 to protect their homes from looting. As for personal protection, the market has no ceiling. Mark Zuckerberg’s reported annual budget for personal security is $23 million, five times more than the pope pays for the Swiss Guards.

As in medieval times, the affluent withdraw behind barriers. If it were built today, Windsor Castle would be described in the sales prospectus as a “privately governed residential community.” In the 1990s, when the economist Robert Reich began writing about “the secession of the successful,” some 3 million American housing units were lodged inside gated communities, which protected a population of about 8 million. Today, gated communities encompass 14 million housing units. On its website, a real-estate company in Florida earlier this year asked readers, “Is a Moat Right for You?” It was an April Fools’ joke, but not a very good one, because modern moated residences already exist. Perhaps the most exclusive gated community in the world is actually an island—Indian Creek Village, in Biscayne Bay, Florida, with 89 residents (including Jeff Bezos, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner) and a perimeter-security radar system designed by the Israeli company Magos. Officers in speedboats intercept anyone venturing too close.

Privatization has also upended the law. One example from an ambitious survey by Robert Kuttner and Katherine V. W. Stone in The American Prospect : the growing use of compulsory arbitration, written by corporations into private contracts, as a way of settling consumer and employment disputes. The public court system is clogged. Arbitration—the “outsourcing of jurisprudence,” as the authors call it—creates a parallel private system, one in which efficiency may be more highly valued than public oversight or due process.

Oversight more broadly—of the environment, food, drugs, finance—has been drifting for decades into the hands of those being overseen. In their 2021 book, The Privatization of Everything, Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian documented the loss of public control over water, roads, welfare, parks, and much else. The deliberate dismantling of government in America in recent months, and its replacement with something built on privatized power and networks of personal allegiance, accelerates what was long under way. Its spirit was captured decades ago in a maxim of Ronald Reagan’s economic adviser Murray Weidenbaum: “Don’t just stand there— undo something!”

so ruthlessly priors validating that i don’t think i should read it and don’t know if i can endure a worst outcome experience tbh

police forces are NOT shrinking, wtf

the rest of that is otm but...

IDK, don't you think a full repudiation of Trumpism would ultimately be the best thing for his brand? Liberals could maybe talk themselves into buying a Tesla again

He's not cynically exploiting the fascists, his daughter transitioning (and years of drug abuse) just broke down all the walls that stopped him from talking about it in public. He can't repudiate his soul (such as it is).

My city’s police force has shrunk, but they are now raking in even more $$ on overtime.

This based on BLS data says total police declined slightly from 2012-2021, so with population growth police per capita is down a little. Police everywhere are having a hard time recruiting, fancy that.

https://www.safehome.org/resources/states-with-most-police/

I'm talking about budgets, not actual #s of cops, like that might be true that actual #s are down but it feels disingenuous and unrelated when police budgets are like literally 60% of some larger cities

TLDR ACAB

Oh yeah I thought it was already known that police depts have been using ever-increasing budgets to pay offers MORE, not to pay more officers. (Cf the prior statement about recruitment, and I can't remember where I saw this so it might have been specific to the NYPD.)

Sure, still plenty of cops to show up in riot gear when needed. I think the bigger point is just that there are twice as many private security guards.

that's fair but I don't think it should take away from the "defund the police" discussion

iow framing this as "private cops are replacing public cops" is inaccurate and misleading in terms of actual economics and budgets, give that public cop money to the damn schools if all we have are private cops now

I chuckle at the idea that lawmakers of the richest country in the world would approve a bill 1000 pages longs, knowing where it came from, without reading any of it. What exactly wouldn't you do to prove your loyalty, suck his d. ?
I also can't get over the fact that media is using "BBB" with a straight face. Big and beautiful, seriously ?

On the private security guard thing, the ratio is some other countries can be 4 or 6 to 1 police. It's a 20-yo global trend.

xp some ppl want to build back better tho the better business bureau has beef with this bs

Good morning,

That Cullen Murphy piece is very good (and I say that as someone who avoids the Atlantic), thanks for posting it. I'm somewhat bemused he never says the word neoliberalism, but maybe he was intentionally avoiding it.

It pairs well with this Defector piece on Bitcoin: https://defector.com/what-world-does-bitcoin-want-to-build-for-itself

I just don't understand it, the man is a criminal, an insurrectionist, a rapist, openly corrupt, also everything he does is so blatantly unconstitutional that you literally can just cite the founding fathers to justify pulling any lever necessary to slow him down...why capitulate? Gretchen Whitmer did photo ops with him and praised him publicly and hours later Trump talked about pardoning the people who tried to kill her. What are you getting from this? Or are you just afraid that a bunch of morons with no attention span are gonna be mad at you?

They support what he's doing and/or think they can profit off of it

“so the party can focus on what really matters."

Fundraising

they didn't sign up to be the resistance. they signed up to be politicians

some of them are having a seriously hard time pivoting

I don't know if Kamala Harris has an actual job now, but she certainly comes hat in hand to my email inbox every couple days

I'm sure many of the Dems who voted against impeachment honestly think that voters will reward their cool-headed moderation

you have to save your ammunition with the impeachment vote so that when there is a serious problem with democracy and the president needs to be impeached, the vote will be meaningful

also, of course it wouldn't pass the senate, so it's purely symbolic. cowards

Kamala was in SF recently (not for protests or even to carry water for Uber and other technocrats... but to dine at the newest hottest restaurant):

https://www.instagram.com/shoji_sf/p/DKfvXTvSeNM/

Maybe Dan S was there with her?

huh maybe that's why she's asking me for money

Dining out in San Francisco IS expensive, tbf

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites

The US military strikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities last weekend did not destroy the core components of the country’s nuclear program and likely only set it back by months, according to an early US intelligence assessment that was described by four people briefed on it.

The assessment, which has not been previously reported, was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon’s intelligence arm. It is based on a battle damage assessment conducted by US Central Command in the aftermath of the US strikes, one of the sources said

The White House acknowledged the existence of the assessment but said they disagreed with it.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement: “This alleged assessment is flat-out wrong and was classified as ‘top secret’ but was still leaked to CNN by an anonymous, low-level loser in the intelligence community. The leaking of this alleged assessment is a clear attempt to demean President Trump, and discredit the brave fighter pilots who conducted a perfectly executed mission to obliterate Iran’s nuclear program. Everyone knows what happens when you drop fourteen 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets: total obliteration.”

brave fighter pilots

That there's your problem, ma'am. You was supposed to use bomber pilots.

has there ever been a successful corporation where top brass was constantly contradicting their own analytics like this? nah, we weren't in the red last year, in fact we made money and lots of it, everyone knows how great our product is, whoever told you otherwise is just trying to make our CEO look bad

yea I know the US Government isn't a corporation but on the other hand they do take about half of my paycheck

It's only a matter of time before leaked pics of the facilities appear and they say SEE IT'S BLOWED UP anyway

remember being “on-message”? even when everything was an agreed upon lie, everyone in the White House & Cabinet said the same basic thing

it’s not even like they’re building the plane while they’re flying it
THEY CANT EVEN AGREE ON WHAT THEYRE BUILDING FFS

sorry i’m losing it

Remember when your parents would take you to Washington DC and you'd see Congresspeople leaving the Capitol and your parents told you what they did and there was supposed to be this sense of awe?

Now parents probably say "don't worry, they're as scared of you as you are of them"

Leavitt's 'low-level loser leak' thing is kinda telling.. they know that it probably wasn't some junior staffer as this was a highly classified report, and somebody went and told the NYT or CNN or whatever, that's literally top Pentagon brass willfully undermining the bullshit narrative coming from the White House

Expect more of this

when you have someone as unpopular & unqualified as Hegseth in charge, why not spill the beans? they'll never find you

yeah the amount of off the record dirt on these assholes must be immemse, like these mfers are eating their young & choking on their own tails left & right

yeah hearing '... and was not authorized to speak on record..' more & more, like they don't give af

one thing I know about right wingers is even if they all have the same idiology they really hate having to work with incompetent and lazy people, as I guess we all do, but they get way more pissy about it

prob cant be stated enough how incompetent everyone in this administration is, at least in the first term you had some vets and longtime strategists and people like Sean Spicer who were timid college Republican nerds, now it's teenage shitposters and FOX News idiots while Trump himself has gone from rambling old man to someone who probably should be in the dementia ward

yeah talk about a big tent it is an actual circus now everyone from Big Balls to RFK Grampa Simpson to Linda McMahon to drunko the clown Hegseth
the bar for competence is nonexistent - staffers can shoot their shot, with multiple outlets daily, like fkn go for it get your hot takes out there you craven workerbees

Say it ain't so Big Balls.. we hardly knew ya
Guess it's not as fun without Elon's ketamine vivacious energy... lol that they're using google accounts in this context

A Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) aide known as “Big Balls” resigned from his role on Monday following the exit of White House adviser Elon Musk.

A White House official with knowledge of the matter confirmed that Edward Coristine, who codes under the “Big Balls” alias, departed, in a statement to The Hill.

Coristine, a 19-year-old high school graduate, was privy to high-level meetings involving DOGE, the Treasury Department, Commerce Department and military operations throughout his tenure at the newly formed digital agency.

He is no longer active on his Google Workspace account with the General Services Administration (GSA)

The tent just got a little smaller :'(

Elon & Big Balls going to Mars together, ultimate buddy movie
we won't have them to kick around anymore

I'm also pretty confident all these people hate each other because they're all angling to be Trump's #1 Good Boy, especially knowing that Trump doesn't really give a fuck about anything other than himself and can be persuaded to bomb Iran because some sycophant on the 5 o'clock hour of FOX News told him to

when Hegseth is inevitably fired, Andrew Tate ready & willing to step in

They all hate each other because they are venal thieving shits who think everyone is trying to screw them over because that is exactly what they are doing.

Rats in a sack, baby!

what a difference a day makes

Trump and Hegseth admit doubts about level of damage to Iran nuclear sites

President calls intelligence ‘inconclusive’, while defence secretary describes harm to facilities as ‘moderate to severe’

if you want to be thoroughly depressed, read a transcript of the ACIP meeting going on now

ugh i can't
give it to me gently

CDC presentations say vaccines effective

ACIP panel recites anti vax talking points in response

no hell hot enough for RFK

(A good summary)

https://bsky.app/profile/walkerbragman.bsky.social/post/3lsgnijvons25

I have no idea what this means in terms of recommendations but I asked mom to get her booster tomorrow while on one week break from Ibrance.

Hate it because it's her one week of feeling normalish again but don't want her going into fall not up to date given the fuckery coming

(She consented, to be clear. I recommended gently but said it was her call)

https://i.imgur.com/SnIoi9u.png

🤔

i guess you could say….i’m sorry? and i made a huge mistake? and maybe i’m going to step down, and never come back? and i’m going to stfu forever? i’d put in $5 toward that

chuck can you recommend anyone who is much, much, much braver than you and starts with the idea of the “good thing” and makes decisions based on that?

I feel bad for them because there's not much going on to fund raise over - yes, abductions on the streets and working people being sent to overseas prisons, but is there's anything Dems are doing about that? Nah, not really, especially not Chuck

Brad Lander, run for Schumer's senate seat!

I thought AOC was gonna do that? I'll take either tbh.

I got vaxed yesterday, first COVID shot of the year. Walgreens employee, genuinely surprised, asked if my job was "still" requiring it; she looked more shocked when I said I wanted the vax, period. "So much hatred towards these things now," she said.

I am immunosuppressed due to post-transplant anti rejection medications, so I stay pretty vaccinated. Have to specify I can't have anything live.

However, Holmes referred to her own ruling as “little more than an academic exercise,” noting that ICE plans to detain him. It is less clear what will happen after that. Although Abrego Garcia can’t be deported to El Salvador — where an immigration judge found he faces a credible threat from gangs — he is still deportable to a third country as long as that country agrees to not send him to El Salvador.

Supreme Court evil majority, Trump & I evil, and no due process even if Garcia gets a trial.

https://wtop.com/national/2025/06/kilmar-abrego-garcia-is-expected-to-be-released-from-jail-only-to-be-taken-into-immigration-custody/

Trump and Ice evil

https://bsky.app/profile/samueldg.bsky.social/post/3lshpjbn4fk25

I feel like she’s just trolling at this point

Queen Maxima of the Netherlands mocks Trump's weird pouty mouth lol

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/06/25/22/99725411-14847693-While_Trump_smiled_and_spoke_to_her_husband_Queen_Maxima_appeare-a-3_1750887324693.jpg