Retired systems administrator. Likes to play with words. I'd be shocked if I ever said anything useful.
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I feel like something important's missing here. Kelsey pled guilty. The pardon doesn't undo his own admission, and by what rules do the Board of Professional Responsibility have to observe any changes based on the pardon? Who watches the watchers here?
I’m convinced the Nobel prize committee should create a new honorary prize in corruption and give it to Trump to shut him up.
You could do a temporary IHOP/IHOB switch, or “guest starring” appearance, just for the amusement.
The Nobel committee should create a new medal prize in corruption and award it to Trump as their answer. You have to admit it would be amusing and very on point.
Peter Thiel, Musk, Stephen Miller, and Russell Vought realize their King is sick and dying. This is why they're ramping up towards a dictatorship. To ensure their groomed boy toy, JD Vance, has all the power to do their bidding.
Dem congressional leaders mostly want things to be so like they used to be that they’re whistling past the graveyard. But everything they’re not doing draws us closer. With few notable exceptions.
trump does not intend for the next january 6th to fail www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
Everything the rich have ever wanted is being delivered, a further weakened labor movement, a gutted regulatory regime, a public sector being strangled in a puddle. The rest was hokum invented by academic scribblers searching for a logical rationale for the rich to be more dominant.
“manufactured and un-adjudicated appearance of impropriety” — Slight modification, apologies.
Why won’t Trump bring up the missing children from Ukraine?
Thou shalt live to remove the Republicans from office, gerrymander them out of existence, and then put a HUGE Trump / Epstein exhibition in the Smithsonian Museum.
Anybody Trump announces for Kennedy Center Honors who isn’t MAGA should deny the honor because anyone who accepts is always going to have an asterisk after their name and how is that an honor?
One of the components of this “universal vaccine” is hydrogen cyanide, isn’t it? Because you can guarantee handling all the host illnesses only if you kill 100% of the people given it. I’m guessing this effort is funded by the extraterrestrial species working to clean the planet for colonization.
Can we choose one from column A *and* one from column B? YES please. The Fires Next Time talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-f...
This made me wonder what the appropriate new Scouting merit badges should be. Puckering up to authoritarian cult leaders, or some new kind of fascism-caused economic badge, maybe? The opportunities are endless.
CARTOON OF THE DAY 🇺🇸
AI filmmaking is peeing. It’s pooping. It’s throwing up. It’s a new kind of liquid coming out. It’s hated by the establishment. It’s what goes in the toilet. It’s wet. It’s what’s in the bathroom.
I don’t care how high the “reciprocal” tariffs go, you’ll still have to pry yummy Canadian maple syrup out of my cold, dead Maryland hands. I just hope my last meal was waffles.
Solid point. I’m just as guilty as the next person of thinking “oh my god will *this* be the one that takes them down” and continuing to live with dejected disappointment.
Can we paste this to a Warning button requiring assent before anyone’s allowed to access Xitter? It just seems like a fair warning.
It is a lot of shit to keep track of.
We’ve known since the 1800’s when someone popped in from another time dimension to warn us.
Its not pointless when your party’s leaders think they’ll have the personal money to pay for the mRNA cures found by the rest of the world and f**k everyone else. Also they’re not very bright.
It would be difficult and expensive as that position is considered political and held at-will for the president. Besides its almost certainly a huge reputation boost to have been fired by *this* president.
Swapping out my What to Expect When You’re Expecting Fascism guide for What to Expect the First Year of Fascism.
At some point the Republican “R” after their names on ballots are going to be poison, the question is which of the many evils they’re representing will launch them over the edge of the dam.
I’m confused. As legislators they’re not abandoning their office just because they won’t attend the governor’s special session. And the legislative rules only allow for a $500/day penalty at most for even an egregious excuse, whereas the case can be made they are performing their duties by leaving.
My favorite sci-fi spaceship are the Eagles. Wish I still had my model from my childhood.
Also its a transparent stay-out-of-jail gambit by Netanyahu. Not sure why Israelis put up with that, a change in leadership would have many clarifying effects.
If ICE isn't profiling people during their supposed-to-be-terrifying sweeps, then they're saying their victims are carefully chosen using evidence-based research, that just happens to inadvertently capture US citizens, green card holders and people with cameras. The cognitive dissonance is painful.
For those of us heavily influenced by the TV show "Space: 1999" when we were growing up, I just gotta think they'd better put thrusters on those nuclear plants, just in case. /nerding-out
"Democrats get grief from their base for not doing enough to stop Trump in a 119th Congress when they lack significant leverage. Texas Democrats are doing what they can with what leverage they’ve got. Give them credit for it." @tmsullivan.bsky.social
Can we ask the governors/legislatures of all the *other* states why they are OK with Texas stealing power from them to prop up their mad king? There's no possible way the power dynamic will shift in the future and they will be happily watching their political opponents do all the same things, right?
In some ways, the drug prices thing is the platonic ideal of Trump assertions: An incredibly wrong statement that isn’t sensible much less possible, a media that won’t push back, and an American discourse that will adopt it uncritically, making culture just a hair worse. Great work, all around.
"Don’t let anyone tell you Maxwell was a bystander or just Epstein’s pawn. She was an active predator, a planner, a participant. A woman who used her privilege, her access, and her power to destroy young girls’ lives. And now they’re giving her comfort?" open.substack.com/pub/levremem...
I’m surprised Elon’s DOGE didn’t layoff the entire BLS analyst corps now that we know we only need Trump’s Sharpie to create whatever statistics feel good for him.
Can we somehow get past the “poses a grave threat to democracy” language? It’s here and receding in the rearview mirror. And we’re certainly not going to persuade the undecideds with scary warnings anymore.
😕
Rep Levin seems confused, maybe he didn’t get the caucus memo. Trump MAGA regime’s talking points are to maximize cruelty to terrify people to self-deport and stay away. Maybe he needs a Trumpian “go to hell” tweet to slither back into line?
😬 Elon’s MEMPHIS-based Supercomputer takes a dump on his NASHVILLE tunnel. @GovBillLee #LeesTeslasOnlyTunnel
Watch out, Jeff might steal her Don
With these circumstances it seems fair to use "his child sex trafficking buddy's co-conspirator" == "his buddy" in the logic going forward.
Does every workshop attendee get assigned their own pet for emotional support? Seems like that would be a perk.
Have we figured out what AI prompt generated *this* tariff list, or is it just darts and ass-kissing all the way down?
It is time that Democrats not only match what Republicans are doing with gerrymandering, but exceed it. Every Democratic controlled state needs to be looking to redrawing their maps -- not to gain 5 seats like in TX, but cumulatively 15, 20 or 30 seats. We must use every tool available.
I'm truly surprised DHS doesn't use all the monies to build their concentration camps in river flood zones and in devastated-by-weather communities. Win-win, amirite?
Think about what information the DOJ could have gotten if they had just pardoned Epstein. OK, so he's dead but I'm sure he could have exonerated Trump much faster. Even better Trump could just pardon himself and then he could let all the sordid details fly.
Epic! But, everyone should be doing that.
Writing on @chrisgeidner.bsky.social 's LawDork site: ... look for some analysis of the R endgame, the world running harmoniously under full R control and what that world would look like, ... R political class is working so assiduously to make happen with complete disregard of opposing viewpoints.
Investigating Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein could have a chilling effect on future presidents’ ability to cover up with their rape of underage sex slaves.
If you didn't already control the Onion, I'd think you're the perfect person to run it, because ... funny. Also you have Kat in your life. I want to be you when I grow up.
Good lord.
The stupid, it burns.
Release the Epstein Files. ps: This is nuts. pps: Bondi is a clown.🤡 pps: A "Strike Force" is gibberish.
Trump’s federal prosecutor in LA can’t seem to get grand juries to indict protestors. I’m gonna guess it’s because there are no crimes. This debunks the “massive increase in assaults” claim, as well as the claims that LA is “lawless”, or that the national guard is necessary.
They’re going to tell her they’ll accidentally reassign her to the same prison cell as Bubba the Human Goat if she doesn’t play ball.
The MAGAs were all onboard when Trump called the Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election for Trump a "Witch Hunt" but also seem not to notice when Trump calls the thing they believe (Epstein's elites pedo ring) a "Witch Hunt". Hmm.
Hunter sure was dragged into the middle of every R conversation before the election when it suited Trump's needs. Now that the R's have milked every tiny drop of attention out of it, he should just "go away" Until the next time Trump needs to distract, I guess.
After so SO many lies about everything both consequential and trivial, it's very much easier just to note I don't believe a damn thing the Trump MAGA regime says, and anyway it defeats their propaganda to concentrate on what they do instead.
Cracker Barrel serves DEI chicken every time they use the thigh meat in their recipes. Makes sense.
As I stated at the time the Court's immunity decision came out, not only would it not prevent a future Trump from going after previous presidents, it gives him immunity if he orders his DOJ and intel officials to fabricate evidence to support his accusations! Which...is exactly what they are doing.
She told the truth then, and her hair started to turn white. So she never told the truth again.
Trump regime minions' implicit mission is to enshittify everything they can touch, why should this be any different?
I still feel sad about Adrienne Shelly's murder.
ATTN: If you're one of the Treasury employees that handled Epstein's Suspicious Activity Reports, feel free to reach out to me via signal (in my bio). I’ll keep you anonymous- as I have the thousands of current and former federal workers who have sent me tips. Please share this widely. 🙏🏻
This is, to me, the defining dyamic of everything the last six months. Any game theory notion of deterrence or the shoe being on the other foot ever is entirely gone. Either 1) They don't think they'll ever lose power again or 2) they're confident Democrats won't ever do the same things back to them
Can anyone help me understand why the political class is so obsessed with Trump's poll number? He's ruling without care for them, and the R toadies won't oppose him so that doesn't appear to have any relevance.
Tell us your priority isn’t the welfare and good governance of NYC without telling us, why don’t you? Geez.
This is one of those things which is not partisan politics. Messing with the distinction between military justice and civilian law enforcement is messing with the foundational structure of our constitutional order.
It must be harder to pay the bills for the luxuries when you let your conscience guide your actions too quickly.
At the risk of sounding vulgar, it doesn’t seem likely Trump and his minions have enough fingers to plug all the holes in the Epstein dyke to save him from the wrath of the MAGA faithful. But I wonder how many minions Trump will inevitably throw under his bus to distract the gullible.
How can anyone be sure this accounts for everyone sent to CECOT by the Trump regime? I know I can’t believe a word they ooze out.
I’d say that @stephencolbert.bsky.social is (with the lone exception of @maddow.msnbc.com) the most brilliant, humane person I’ve encountered in broadcasting. His mind works faster than anyone else’s at a level of sophistication that is unmatchable. Genuinely a generational talent.
The story about Colbert being cancelled because…. Trump doesn’t like him, should be a warning shot to everyone. The oligarchy has the power… they will use their money to silence you. Time to rise up.
It seems insane, but then ... Texas.
Hope you're OK. Might need some ice cream for self-care.
He already got what he wanted?
Leave aside what Newsom can do in CA. If he wants to be President in 2028 he can lead an effort to mobilize the Democratic led states to re-district. He wants to lead, let him lead on this.
Lesions. 🤢
It would seem, if the political circumstances enable a minority of the citizenry of a democratic republic to control the three branches of the government simultaneously, that they can work together to ignore the majority and do whatever they think they want. We need to talk about this.
There's a direct through-line between President Trump planning to eliminate FEMA, Kristi Noem nickle and diming it, AWOL new FEMA director Richardson and little-to-no-response by FEMA to emerging disaster events. Don't see it as discrete things, they're all part of the plan.
Geez, I HOPE Elon's volcanically mad about this, and Duffy's first statement as acting NASA admin is to question whether SpaceX is following all the rules the FAA expects of him, and then I'll get the popcorn, extra cholesterol.
Any indication that anyone in media has asked R politicians what they think of the Brazil ultimatum? I'm curious how they'll say it's fine, no problem.
Can I quit my WaPo subscription again, even if I cancelled it at the beginning of the year? I feel like once isn't enough.
Remember, the legal fig leaf for Trump's ability to set tariffs in the first place is that the tariffs are addressing a National Emergency. Does that mean the Trump admin is going to argue in court that Bolsonaro being prosecuted is a "national emergency" for the *United States*?
@andreapitzer.bsky.social said in her latest on US concentration camps: "My sense on this issue is that it’s better not to let the administration set the terms of how we talk about it." I wish that we could argue more against how the MAGA regime continues to set terms on how we talk about things.
Its simple -- if its pushed by the Democrats, or it came from a prior administration, it has to be killed. No deeper explanation required.
Its a choice, isn't it? The DHS concentration camp administrators could choose to provide at least minimally healthy conditions, proper food hygiene, etc, but they just ... won't. IF the CC's are supposed to be seen as waypoints to get immigrants out of the country as quickly as possible, I mean.
It just feels like this is the way, now.
Or "bruner".
"Mastered" or following the given talking-points-of-the-day?
We need a meme-bot that takes these statements, replaces the people detailed in them with MAGA regime people, and re-publishes it immediately afterward. Ala similar to @trumpreposter.bsky.social but with a big "PARODY" footer. Anybody?
I've said this a lot in recent essays but not as often here: Yes, we're witnessing the expansion and entrenchment of a police state in the US. But unlike the vast majority of concentration camp regimes I've studied, most Americans still have countless opportunities to resist. We can stop it.
Remember, if something awful happens in a red state it’s disgusting to question political leaders and their responsibility. But if something awful happens in a blue state well, it’s only natural to blame it all on the libs or the one (1) trans person who was employed by the city for a few years.
I believe that will be one of the things Ms. Kabas will explore in her writing.
Gonna have to do something with all those new shiny airplanes and ICE agents just sitting around bored when they run out of easy-to-target immigrants. I mean, immigrants ... Medicaid health care recipients ... what's the difference, really?
Gonna have to do something with all those new shiny airplanes and ICE agents just sitting around bored when they run out of easy-to-target immigrants. I mean, immigrants ... Medicaid health care recipients ... what's the difference, really?
