"Is He Dead Yet?": US POLITICS, SEPTEMBER 2025

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/bafkreihrgvf4i2f4vsh57ylz7qbzy46rphrxfezmjbuawhmii42hrira4u@jpeg

Labor Day, Labored Breathing...

For posterity: I would prefer if we avoided direct quotes from that moron, but..AUGUST US POLITICS thread

He's just reflecting how we all feel at this point.

the most poetic thing would be him dying of covid, imo

I vote for decomposing on the toilet

lumbering slack jawed and gape mouthed- america right now

Old Soviet joke for today:
A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?”
“I’m looking for the obituaries.”
“The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.”
“Not the one I’m looking for.”

Happy Labor Day fed workers from Trump:

More than 445,000 federal employees saw their union protections disappear in August, as agencies moved to comply with an executive order President Trump signed earlier this year that called for ignoring collective bargaining contracts with nearly one million workers.

The termination of protections followed an Aug. 1 appeals court ruling on legal challenges to Mr. Trump’s directive. The order, signed in late March, directed 22 agencies to ignore contracts for employees in specific unions. Last Thursday, Mr. Trump signed a second executive order stripping union rights from thousands of other employees at six additional agencies…“This is literally the largest act of union busting in American history,” said Mike Podhorzer, a former political director of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. “There’s not another time when that many people lost their union.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/us/politics/trumps-unions-federal-workers.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ik8.l4FZ.5nbPv75odep-&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/opinion/trump-unions-labor.html

curmudgeon's link is a working gift link

what

minty tear gas
Somebody is throwing things out of a window of the White House

wtaf

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

Discussion in the Trump thread.

Old Soviet joke for today

'In Soviet Union, television watches you!'

the most poetic thing would be him dying of covid, imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFqFLo_bYq0

X-post Alfred posted an Eric Loomis opinion piece about why Loomis thinks unions are so quiet about Trump destroying unions from the NY Times; I posted a gift link to a reported article describing how Trump is crushing federal worker unions and going for private ones.

From the Loomis opinion piece —

Organized labor, for all its talk about solidarity, remains deeply divided on how best to approach organizing, politics and Mr. Trump. Certain labor leaders, particularly Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters, have embraced Mr. Trump and his brand of Republicans, particularly around immigration restrictions. Other unions with memberships that are heavily white and male also lean toward Republicans. But they still represent a minority of union members.

In 2024, union workers were among the only demographic groups where Democrats improved their standing compared with 2020. Perhaps that reflects efforts by Joe Biden to be, as he put it, “the most pro-union president in American history.”

Unions have the internal support, structure and organizing capacity to support the fight against Mr. Trump. Yet no one in the labor movement has taken the public role of countering Mr. O’Brien and making it clear to the American public that most unions are strongly opposed to Mr. Trump.

Loomis then expresses his hope regarding specific things he wishes unions would do.

A+ title and timing, no notes

The Trump administration’s crackdown on crime in Washington has been propelled, in part, by an aggressive clampdown on guns, with city and federal officials confiscating around 150 weapons since the president declared a crime emergency in the capital nearly three weeks ago.

“I’m pleased to report another 105 arrests have been made and 12 illegal guns taken off the streets of Washington, DC,” Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media on Thursday. It was part of her near-daily tally of gun seizures, an effort spearheaded by Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Under almost any other president, heralding a gun sweep would not be notable. But the shift toward gun enforcement — and publicizing the aggressive street sweeps — marks an abrupt departure for an administration that has courted Second Amendment maximalists and sharply downgraded federal firearms enforcement.

President Trump’s political appointees rolled back Biden-era regulations and diverted officials assigned to weapons cases to immigration raids. The White House has also proposed steep cuts to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and installed disengaged, inexperienced leaders to oversee its increasingly marginalized work force.

While these moves have not exposed major political divisions, they have caused some uneasiness among gun-rights supporters who are concerned that law-and-order officials like Ms. Pirro, who once supported restrictions on assault rifles, will create a chilling effect on legal gun owners in the district and in the surrounding area.

https://media1.tenor.com/m/_w4qfEzQzFoAAAAC/indecisive-i-dont-know.gif

dammit

https://bsky.app/profile/frogandtoadbot.bsky.social/post/3lxrfud3s3v26

https://bsky.app/profile/darlinghamburger.bsky.social/post/3lxsny44n6c2w

I mean he's probably just getting Wendys but I wanna believe

Maybe Trump can die every day this month

still not enough

guess he'll die
another day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtWoQ2uH8Xk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVsQLlk-T0s

It's nice not hearing from him! I'm focusing on the beginning of the NFL season (and the 49ers) and the Booker longlist/shortlist. It's the season for both!

What is that Walter Reed map showing?

It was showing streets around Walter Reed closed, suggesting Trump (or somebody important) was there. Map doesn't currently show that fwiw.

Unspecified Oval Office announcement from Trump tomorrow afternoon pic.twitter.com/nnzrU7tEpc

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 2, 2025

Unspecified Oval Office announcement from Trump tomorrow afternoon

probably just pulling all Harriet Tubman coins out of circulation

they're transferring him to his new body

paparazzi are lying in wait for a glimpse of Trump like he's bigfoot

https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lxu7jftdjw2r

BREAKING: Judge Breyer rules that President Trump's deployment of the military to Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, says Trump is using military as a "national police force with the president as its chief."

Injunction granted.

Feels like it shouldn't take months to get an injunction on a military occupation of a city

I guess now that Trump is dead we're going to all kinds of crazy rulings

the announcement: they're moving space force hq to alabama. thus "air & space forces magazine" being listed in the media pool in that release. the question now is can he actually deliver this news himself.

(that kyle cheney X post above cut off the bottom of that media release from yesterday)

huh, I wonder if it'll be Huntsville, where that space center already is.

reuters and ap saying huntsville, yeah. big whoop, really.

wow, that is an aggressively dull announcement given the breathless pre-announcement

(Paul Stanley voice)

WHAT'S UP HUNTSVIIIIIILLLLEEE?!?

Oval Office Space Force bore/ I can't take it anymore

There's still a chance he slumps over during the announcement

I wonder if the announcement will be actually live or prerecorded and painstakingly edited to make sense.

he might die after he sees china's big impressive military proud, very angry troops, very fierce, much heart attack

military *parade*

the question now is can he actually deliver this news himself.

He will take maximum advantage of all the cosmetic and medicinal assistance available to him, including but not limited to painkillers, amphetamines, IV fluids, or a blood transfusion. they only need to prop him up enough to convince the public he's in good shape. the only definitive answer that could be extracted from his appearance would be if he looks pretty bad. looking passably good would mean nothing unless it is backed up by his resuming his normal schedule, including frequent exposure to public view. If he disappears again, we can infer a lot from that.

seems like a kid in Utah had an idea at least

the issue is exactly that, people do not know what to do

it's more than that. it's that people care deeply but don't know what to do. hence the distressing feelings

Meanwhile, correct me if I'm wrong, but Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva still hasn't been sworn in and seated ... just because?

yep

Late thread title candidate: "transgender woke BIPOC food justice."

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m2365uzj2g2b

xps Yes I think some number of people are willing and wanting to do all kinds of things, but there's no coherent leadership telling anyone to do anything.

There's a huge opening here. For people with ambition, connections and ability. This is how successful populist movements come together, when there's a vacuum. I don't know where that starts, but there's room for it and need for it. Like, one thing that would be nice to see is a unified front of every group that IS out there fighting — the unions and ACLU and Planned Parenthood and all the environmental and racial justice and LGBTQ groups and university faculty and whoever else is useful — and just start running candidates in Democratic primaries everywhere, unless the people holding the offices are already on board. I know, you're going to run into egos and turf and all that, but that's where strong effective leadership matters.

I’m thinking back to how ANSWER (I think they were Wobbly-related) were able to channel anti-Iraq war feeling.

Good story from The Intercept with anonymous military reactions:

“Listening to Donald Trump was deeply troubling and it is clear he is unfit for the role of commander in chief,” one of the defense officials told The Intercept, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Trump lectured our military leaders on his victimization and inability to let go of perceived past slights.”

“This is truly disturbing. He is clearly unwell even for Trump,” said a second defense official, who later referenced the 25th Amendment, which permits a president’s powers to be transferred to the vice president when the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet conclude that the commander-in-chief is incapable of performing their duties. “This is incredibly embarrassing for the United States.” He added: “Imagine sitting through this in person.”

We joke about the gorilla channel and a closed circuit fake fox set but his cabinet is 100% feeding him AI shit and playing it off as real.

Johnson is delaying Grijalva’s swearing in so the Dems are still down a vote going into the shut down fight

xps

Or is it because she would be the go ahead vote on the Epstein petition?

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5529055-republicans-grijalva-swearing-in-house/

^^^ that was my understanding regarding the delay.

feel like that why they're doing these mini-leaks, to reduce the pressure on releasing the whole thing

The Epstein petition will still be around on Oct. 7 when Johnson says he’ll swear Grijalva in but the shutdown deadline is Oct. 1st.

his cabinet is 100% feeding him AI shit and playing it off as real.

I absolutely believe Miller in particular is driving Trump around like a puppet and has been for a long time.

agree

Trump hates people but he really wants to be loved, he's insecure... Miller just wants hate in every sector of society. Something happened to him a long time ago, maybe a latino dude put him in a trash can or something

Sad! Adderall Puppet

‪Phil Lewis‬
✧@phille✧✧✧.b✧✧✧.soc✧✧✧‬
· 3m
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats vote down GOP bill to keep the government open, putting it on track for shutdown after midnight.

Haha yes Miller def had some fucking "this will create a Bad guy" thing going on in his past. I've read articles about him - he's been a gleefully hateful machiavelli since he was in high school.

This is from the actual HUD website:

The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.

check it out: https://www.hud.gov/

I'm pretty sure that's on all federal .gov websites.

does Schumer know he's part of the Radical Left?

Trump hates people but he really wants to be loved

I don't think this is quite true, he doesn't want to be loved, he wants attention/validation. It doesnt matter all that much whether the attention is positive or negative. A god is feared as much as he is loved

yeah, I see that.. if he really wanted to be loved, he would enact broadly popular policies and then rigorously defend them

I think he just wants some engagement, ANY engagement.. the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowds

he just wants a handsome firefighter to say sir you are a genius and right

he would enact broadly popular policies and then rigorously defend them

This would also mean he was popular because of something he did rather than because of who he is. That is not the aim

I do think he's deeply insecure... probably something about being a clown from Queens, and not getting invited to all the good families' summer homes in the Hamptons

who knows or cares what he wants

i am sick to death of this person

creepy dystopian vandalism of government websites

who knows or cares what he wants

otm

otm

its me i know and care what he thinks

Late thread title candidate: "transgender woke BIPOC food justice."

― Lithium Just Madison (C. Grisso/McCain)

God dammit, I _just_ got a second-round interview with Transgender Woke BIPOC Food Justice. Can't get a fuckin' job anywhere these days, I tell you.

I do think he's deeply insecure...

I read the book by his niece, Mary Trump. Daddy Trump was a nightmare of a parent. He's an extremely damaged person, as he makes obvious every day of his life.

XP: I had to look up Brooke Rollins (Secretary of Agriculture), and of course she's from Texas, a prominent figure in Rick Perry's administration from back in the day.

love being ruled by a bunch of guys who shouldve been forcibly retired years ago https://bsky.app/profile/kenklippenstein.bsky.social/post/3m23xjtdmwk2l

Inspirational!

I think one useful thing the Dems should do during whatever shutdown hell awaits is get rid of Schumer as minority leader. Time for an ouster. I don't even care who comes in next, I just think they gotta send him to the showers. Thanks for yr efforts etc.

Have any of them expressed any interest in that?

No, it would have to be pushed from the ground up. But I'm sure there are plenty who'd be happy to take his place if they think it's possible. I've seen House of Cards, I know how it goes.

The Dump Chuck movement.

am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?

October thread title?

― sleeve, Sunday, September 28, 2025 5:31 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

^

It's kind of an inverse Gil Scott-Heron

An interesting Bluesky thread about farmers from Sarah Taber (self-described "ex-farm worker & crop scientist"):

China is so much of the global soybean market, you can't make up losing them by selling to other countries. There isn't enough soybean demand in the world to fill that dent.

And farmers... know that.

And it's just not likely to get better anytime soon.

The first time the US started a trade war with China... what can I say. They noticed. They worked with other countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to buy their crops & invest in growing more of them.

US soybean farmers have two options.

Grow something else, or get welfare checks forever.

There is no third option.

So which option are US farmers leaning toward?

Let me put it this way: I haven't run across anyone saying "I'm thinking of growing something else" yet.

When I ran for office in 2024 (NC Commissioner of Agriculture), I ran on a platform of "We need to stop making our state's farms all about cheap bulk crops for China."

I said it a little nicer than that. But there's a reason that was my platform.

I saw this coming!

That's not because I'm a genius with a crystal ball either! Everyone who was paying attention saw it coming.

Like China. They spent the last four years investing in soy farming in Brazil, Argentina, etc.

Because of this, and Trump's popularity, I knew there were very good odds the farmers in our state would lose their markets.

(NC doesn't export much soy. But we do export lots of pork, chicken, & tobacco to China.)

We had to be ready to pivot away from bulk exports to China.

To do that, it takes leadership that knows how.

That means both the technical know-how on investing in new crops, AND the will to do so. Leadership that isn't in the pocket of the meat & tobacco companies.

That's what I ran on.

That's why I'm in a unique position to tell you how US farmers warm up to the idea of "It's time to grow something else."

They don't.

To review: there are only two paths forward for a lot of US farmers, and "grow something else" is anathema to a lot of them, that means a whole lot of US farmers are banking on the other option.

Get bailouts forever.

I'm sure they're not putting it in those words to themselves. But... that is the only other option.

So now we need to talk about how the US is emerging into a dictatorship right now, and how agriculture has thrown in its lot with that happening.

When Trump bailed out farmers in his first term, that was executive branch orders. Congress had nothing to do with it.

So already setting up a pattern of "Who cares about Congress & how it's supposed to set the US's budget? I'm king, I like you, here's your money."

And that's what I'm seeing this time around as well.

Congress can stop the trade war, AND budget bailouts.

But the farm sector isn't asking Congress for anything.

It's all pleas, for money, directed towards Trump himself.

And the farm sector won't criticize Trump or his actions. It's not "Hey Trump your policies stink." It's "We love you but this'll be hard for us…Money please!"

That's the dictatorship playbook.

Kiss the dear leader's ring. Support him. Expect kickbacks.

And most of all, ignore Congress.

The farm sector chose to help bring Trump to power, and play this like a dictatorship.

Because they saw it as a good way to get easy money.

I know we have a folklore of farms being, like, the traditional beating heart of democracy.

That's a nice idea! But this is what's really happening.

We need to see how much work the farm sector's doing to undermine our republic, and name it for what it is.

I want farmers to think very carefully about if this is the kind of country we want to leave for our kids.

And if it's not, we need to do the work it takes to live in a free country.

"Freedom isn't free" isn't just for soldiers.

It's for all of us.

And sometimes it just means "If you're lucky enough to be entrusted with land, do a good job with it.

"Don't just shoot yourself in the foot & grovel for refunds."

Well that's enough from me for now.

Tonight's farm fact: sometimes entire sectors of the economy jump into bed with dictators, and agriculture is no exception.

I'm not trying to alarm everyone, I just thinking seeing agriculture's role in all of this helps make it easier to get our arms around what's happening. And respond appropriately.

Don't take this as a fire alarm, take it as a few tiles that help the whole mosaic of current events make more sense.

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-farmer-bailout-tariffs
same same

https://www.publicnotice.co/p/trump-farmer-bailout-tariffs
same same ish

"I do not deride any of this in the least" : U.S. POLITICS OCTOBER 2025