Tell me you haven't heard of softpower without telling me you haven't heard of softpower.

PEPFAR is an unalloyed good and one of the few (maybe the only) good thing to come from Bush II's admin. The cost of doing it is cheap for a country our size.

Finding the baseball card signed by Jackie Robinson was a chef's kiss. The wine store is still active though I don't know if it is in the control of her family.

On the one hand, here is a charming story about a woman able to raise her daughter in an apartment that she was raised in: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/realestate/renters-childhood-apartment.html

On the other hand, this story is an epic policy failure because it is about a not poor woman (she went to boarding school and is at least shabby chic upper-middle class) who can live a quirky, subsidized bohemian life because of a rent stabilization law.

Now if only the press would call this out as Trump huffing and puffing and getting nothing but that would go against the Team America vibe so they won't

Mexico apparently has 14,591 troops at the border and the deal with Trump is that they would have 10K troops at the border. Not 10K more but 10K so Trump agreed to let Mexico reduce its border guards

“I just had a good call with President Trump,” Trudeau said in a social media post. He said Canada would push ahead with its 1 billion Canadian dollar, or about $6.89 billion, border reinforcement plan and deploy additional technology and staff, all of which had been announced previously.

Trudeau said Canada would also appoint a “fentanyl czar” and would: “list cartels as terrorists, ensure 24/7 eyes on the border, launch a Canada-U.S. Joint Strike Force to combat organized crime, fentanyl and money laundering.”

So it looks like Trump got nothing

FWIW, I think Musk is angry at USAID because they took stances against Apartheid. They were not perfect but they did a lot of good stuff too and there very well be a huge crisis in Africa because USAID was supplying food and medical supplies in places like Sudan.

For those claiming Democrats are not doing anything,

Schatz announced a blanket hold on all of Trump's state department nominees until USAID is restored.

Murphy announced a similar blanket hold on other officials I believe.

This gums up the Senate and it is stuff the Democrats can do

Mark Rubio has announced himself as acting head of USAID

Chris Murphy, Jamie Raskin, Andy Kim, Jasmine Crockett, and some others are aware of where we are at

Trump caved to the Mexican lady.

Or Trump caved because of a 500 point drop in the market.

It basically looks like a kick the can down the road kind of agreement where both sides say they are doing something but it is really the status quo which will remain. Border migration from Mexico was down before Trump was elected again.

Trump is very mad at South Africa now: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4e61eff1e920d5a836ca4d9a65a4bf983f8f85e96110dc8f6131787c62979576.png

I wonder why

Harris won 75 million plus votes and Democrats increased their house seats. You and Jaybird are treating this like a 1972 plus 1994 defeat and there are only 180 or so Democrats in the House and less than 45 of the in the Senate.

In the meantime, guess who is whispering to Trump about South Africa: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4e61eff1e920d5a836ca4d9a65a4bf983f8f85e96110dc8f6131787c62979576.png

You guys don't have to like the Democrats but surely there are more important things going on right now like a looming massive trade war which could cripple the economy, Musk's young edgelords being given carte blanche over critical information and systems, at least one of whom might not be an American citizen and many just graduated high school.

Is litigating the 2024 election with snark really the thing to do now?

One of Musk's shock troops is a 19 year old who goes by Big Balls: https://bsky.app/profile/kevinmkruse.bsky.social/post/3lh7upwp5j22y

Wired has identified some of the edgelords helping Musk destroy everything: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-government-young-engineers/

Elon Musk, a non-elected, non-appointed head of a non-existent government department, apparently on behest or suggestion of Michael Flynn has labeled payments to Lutheran Social Services as "illegal" and stopped them.

Lutheran Social Services is the largest employer in South Dakota and mainly operates senior homes. This was probably Medicare and Medicaid money.

Yes. There is a possibility that no one could have beaten Trump in 2024 and this aligns with global trends.

COVID and the post-COVID inflation surges have produced "throw the bums" out elections around the world. This has happened to center-left and center-right governments. Basically, almost anyone or party who was in charge of government in 2021 had big issues in their next elections.

If anything, the Democratic Party did much better compared to others. The Tories lost 251 seats in their July 2024 election. The LDP lost 68 seats.

https://apnews.com/article/global-elections-2024-incumbents-defeated-c80fbd4e667de86fe08aac025b333f95

And it looks like Trump should be taken seriously and literally on Greenland too:

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb8e18a624c8253d9343816a7443e5b4725f3027af51f4c8a820c3059cce735f.jpg

Trump is apparently hell bent on making Canada the 51st state: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/GiyVs3ZWUAAyDnV.jpg

Canadian Bacon as a Grecian Tragedy. Joy!!!

Yes she obviously wasn't good enough but it could be that no one was good enough because "throw the bums" out has been a global phenomenon over the past few years and this is a very silly hypothetical because it allows anyone to say anything to prove their priors.

I'm generally not a fan of hypotheticals for this reason.

Anyway, Jaybird would rather make a trolling remark about a routine action like the DNC choosing their new head instead of:

1. Acknowledging that Musk getting his people in total control of payments, OPM, and GSA is very, very bad;

2. Democrats as the minority party do not have magical mystical powers to stop all of this.

It's immature and it is not good analysis. I don't see why I should accept it as Jaybird just being a big old contrarian.

I don't think being a contrarian is an admirable trait and I dispute his assertion that Harris was a bad candidate or choice and his constant trolling on trans issues is juvenile and as others pointed out, assumes a whole lot of facts not in evidence.

It's Captain Contrarian Lacks a Moral Compass

Musk, an unelected person in charge of a non-existing program is locking government workers out of computer systems at a US agency: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/

"The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.

"We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said. "That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."

Officials affected by the move can still log on and access functions such as email but can no longer see the massive datasets that cover every facet of the federal workforce.
Musk, OPM, representatives of the new team, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
OPM has sent out memos that eschew the normal dry wording of government missives as it encourages civil servants to consider buyout offers to quit and take a vacation to a "dream destination."
Don Moynihan, a professor at the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan, said the actions inside OPM raised concerns about congressional oversight at the agency and how Trump and Musk view the federal bureaucracy.
"This makes it much harder for anyone outside Musk's inner circle at OPM to know what's going on," Moynihan said."

The bring down costs President: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/01/30/us/president-trump-news