The House manages to pass their draconian budget, 217-215. Massie votes no but probably because he thought the cuts were not draconian enough. My guess is that the Senate just goes supine and votes for the House budget on party lines or with 2-3 defectors (Vance as the tiebreaker) because having to deal with Democrats is a face worse than death
It looks like the results of the German election are going to be...the same unstable coalition with the CDU taking the Chancellorship instead of the SDU
Welp, Buffet took Berkshire Hathaway from a 14 percent cash position to a 33 percent cash position, this means he thinks the stock market will likely crash
The latest MUSK/DOGE emails seems to he going sideways. Some judges received it and maybe some politicians (I can't confirm the last part but Tina Smith wrote something about Musk not being the boss of her while calling it a Dick Boss Move)
"We’ve got a fascinating story unfolding with the new Musk email I reported on below. And yes, something can be fascinating while also being grave, dangerous and in its own way terrifying. Over the course of the evening top leadership at the FBI, the State Department, the VA, the Department of the Navy (to its civilian employees) and other parts of the government have explicitly instructed employees in their departments and agencies to ignore the email. Meanwhile the DOJ seems to be instructing its employees to follow it. (And yes, FBI is sort of under DOJ and that’s kind of weird but that’s where we are.)
It’s important to note that these emails are authorized or allowed if not directed by the President of the United States. And yet whole wings of the government are saying to ignore it. I mentioned to someone this evening that they’re treating a presidentially authorized email as some kind of insider threat. And this person says, we’re surprised that Trump is an insider threat? To which I said, yes, I’m surprised that his own appointees are doing so.
This is all a bit comical and also manages to be a certain degree of state disintegration we’re watching in real time. But it also seems clear that Musk has gotten a bit over his skis finally. We’ve been in this world of upside where a lone wolf is on a wilding spree through the federal government, clearly not operating at anyone’s direction but his own. And yet the President is at least okaying it all after the fact. And thus our system can’t really make sense of what’s happening. Yes, it’s almost all illegal even or in a sense especially if the President is authorizing it. But it’s also pretty clear that the elected President is in the backseat of this car if he’s in the car at all.
But here you have seemingly the first time where his own appointees are pushing back and in a fairly public way.
"Still, he said, “federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application of law and precedent — no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people.”
Judge Cooper said that he was denying the unions’ request that he block the Trump administration from continuing its downsizing efforts because the matter should be first addressed with the agency that adjudicates labor disputes between federal employee unions and management, known as the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
Judge Cooper noted that if the unions lose in that venue, they could resume their court battle through the federal court of appeals."
So Trump's neat trick here is to illegally destroy the ability of the admin bodies to hold hearings on his mass firings and then get goo goo dumb dumb judges who express sympathy and concern but state it is very important for procedure to be followed, rule of law and all that.
1. I think 70-80 percent of the reason Harris did not win was the general inflation/throw the bums out trend that swept elections all over the world. Occam's razor and all that.
1a. The rest was death by a thousand cuts and I think Israel/Palestine was more of a reason than DEI and I think Israel/Palestine was barely one of the cuts.
2. Even given that, she lost very narrowly given only months to campaign and received more votes than Biden in four swing states: NC, GA, NV, and one more than I am forgetting.
2a. Trump won those states but his super-power is always getting low-propensity Herrenvolkists out who vote for him and often only him. Hence, the fact that he was only able to flip one swing state Senate race (PA). OH, MT, and WV are red states.
3. To the extent, people are saying DEI caused them to vote for Trump, they are still doing the innuendo version of "No snowball chance in hell you are getting me to vote for the Black-Indian Lady...."
4. I think very online people talking about DEI being bad are a select group of cranky middle-aged white guys who hate that a black woman made them feel uncomfortable and potentially contemplate things that they preferred not to contemplate. Or some guys seem to act like DEI means that one day their daughter is going to stop being Daddy's Little Girl suddenly and come home with a girlfriend with a shaved head and combat fatigues and say "Sorry Daddy but DEI taught me that the revolution is here and you have to be put up against the wall. Suzy here is going to pull the trigger."
Basically, it is a bunch of people with an ax to grind and using this as an opportunity, also why did Biden have to appoint all those non-white people like Julie Su and Lina Khan, can't we just go back to the Clinton 90s when all these pesky social issues were kept on the table please? Instead of American citizens, we should think of ourselves as employees for America, Inc, completely dedicated to increasing the GDP/Quarterly profits. I, Very Serious Pundit Man, will act as HR cheerleader. Everything else is just a distraction against the goal of America, Inc."
Yes, some DEI stuff is the closest thing liberals have to the right-wing wingnut circuit but people have a moral responsibility to think with straight heads and if Musk is out there talking about how we need pain/great depression to bring about his third-rate Shadowrun/Curtis Yarvin fantasy and Trump is talking about mass deportations, a person has a responsibility to take this seriously and literally. I'm not going to let people off the hook if there response to this is "Yeah,but I had to go listen to a lecture on implicit bias and structural racism..."
Well, I don't know what to say to these people but it sure as hell looks like Musk wants a deep, deep recession or worse.
Musk is apparently high as a kite at CPAC while waving around a chainsaw and Grimes is begging online for his attention because one of their three kids is in medical crisis.
Hochul is not going to remove Adams but will install guardrails. The actual removal procedure is actually much more complicated than the internet has let on of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDapa0YSnVs&t=457s
Trump is announcing himself a king and one of his foot soldiers is trying to find ways to bring charges against Democrats who criticize him or any other Republican: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-appointed-prosecutor-kicks-operation-whirlwind-eyes-schumer-rcna192878
On the other hand, JB has an opportunity to troll Democrats and his neurons can't resist despite more pressing issues.
Like many Democratic women (or Democrats in general), I think she sees Trump as a person without any redeeming qualities.
1. In the call between Democratic Governors and Schumer/Jefferies, she apparently gave a variant of people need to FAFO in order to ensure they never vote for Trump again;
2. She takes abortion rights seriously as demonstrated by her stance in fighting against LA and TX.
3. She seems like she might be willing to do something about Adams because having Trump in control of NYC with Adams as his puppet-prefect it bad.
I think it is about further gutting agencies that are independent from the executive by statute. It could be about gutting the Federal Courts ability to decide on the Constitutionality of Executive Orders and starting the pretext for ignoring them if/when the Supreme Court rules against Trump.
Trump and Co are still very high on their own supply and today they "ended" congestion pricing in NYC while sending out a faux Time cover with Long Live the King and Trump wearing a crown.
Hochul is responding well but theatre criticism demands that people criticize Hochul's response
You are responding to a guy who would ban private equity and then give anyone but support staff lifetime totality bans from working in finance/banking/consulting, even if they are just right out of college and in the first hour of orientation.
This administration that is very concerned with Christians has deported an Iranian convert to Christianity to Panama where she is trapped in a hotel room. If she has to go back to Iran, she will be killed most likely.
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/24/2025”
The House manages to pass their draconian budget, 217-215. Massie votes no but probably because he thought the cuts were not draconian enough. My guess is that the Senate just goes supine and votes for the House budget on party lines or with 2-3 defectors (Vance as the tiebreaker) because having to deal with Democrats is a face worse than death
"
Marcon gives a master class in rebutting Trump, right in front of his face: https://bsky.app/profile/fospheans.bsky.social/post/3lixklvkyn22f
"
It looks like the results of the German election are going to be...the same unstable coalition with the CDU taking the Chancellorship instead of the SDU
"
Welp, Buffet took Berkshire Hathaway from a 14 percent cash position to a 33 percent cash position, this means he thinks the stock market will likely crash
"
Lee Zeldin goes for the deep cuts: https://bsky.app/profile/maxkennerly.bsky.social/post/3lixlyduyus2g
"
Spmeone hacked TV's at HUD with some really interesting AI graphics. Consider this your trigger warning
On “Open Mic for the week of 2/17/2025”
The latest MUSK/DOGE emails seems to he going sideways. Some judges received it and maybe some politicians (I can't confirm the last part but Tina Smith wrote something about Musk not being the boss of her while calling it a Dick Boss Move)
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/new-doge-musk-email-goes-seriously-sideways
"We’ve got a fascinating story unfolding with the new Musk email I reported on below. And yes, something can be fascinating while also being grave, dangerous and in its own way terrifying. Over the course of the evening top leadership at the FBI, the State Department, the VA, the Department of the Navy (to its civilian employees) and other parts of the government have explicitly instructed employees in their departments and agencies to ignore the email. Meanwhile the DOJ seems to be instructing its employees to follow it. (And yes, FBI is sort of under DOJ and that’s kind of weird but that’s where we are.)
It’s important to note that these emails are authorized or allowed if not directed by the President of the United States. And yet whole wings of the government are saying to ignore it. I mentioned to someone this evening that they’re treating a presidentially authorized email as some kind of insider threat. And this person says, we’re surprised that Trump is an insider threat? To which I said, yes, I’m surprised that his own appointees are doing so.
This is all a bit comical and also manages to be a certain degree of state disintegration we’re watching in real time. But it also seems clear that Musk has gotten a bit over his skis finally. We’ve been in this world of upside where a lone wolf is on a wilding spree through the federal government, clearly not operating at anyone’s direction but his own. And yet the President is at least okaying it all after the fact. And thus our system can’t really make sense of what’s happening. Yes, it’s almost all illegal even or in a sense especially if the President is authorizing it. But it’s also pretty clear that the elected President is in the backseat of this car if he’s in the car at all.
But here you have seemingly the first time where his own appointees are pushing back and in a fairly public way.
This will get weirder."
"
Your beloved contrarian is addicted to trolling as Musk is addicted to Ketamine.
"
Harris lost most of her votes in blue states.
She lost nearly 1.9 million votes in California and about 700K in New York, another 400K in NJ.
She still won all these states pretty easily. NJ was the closest and it was still nearly 52 percent for her.
In CA, Democrats managed to flip three House seats R to D despite shedding 1.9 million votes from Biden to Harris.
It seems to be more parochial-municipal issues being turned into ire at national Democrats and not DEI.
"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/us/politics/federal-worker-firings-trump-ruling.html
Lawyer brain will be the death of us all:
"Still, he said, “federal district judges are duty-bound to decide legal issues based on even-handed application of law and precedent — no matter the identity of the litigants or, regrettably at times, the consequences of their rulings for average people.”
Judge Cooper said that he was denying the unions’ request that he block the Trump administration from continuing its downsizing efforts because the matter should be first addressed with the agency that adjudicates labor disputes between federal employee unions and management, known as the Federal Labor Relations Authority.
Judge Cooper noted that if the unions lose in that venue, they could resume their court battle through the federal court of appeals."
So Trump's neat trick here is to illegally destroy the ability of the admin bodies to hold hearings on his mass firings and then get goo goo dumb dumb judges who express sympathy and concern but state it is very important for procedure to be followed, rule of law and all that.
"
I'll be blunt.
1. I think 70-80 percent of the reason Harris did not win was the general inflation/throw the bums out trend that swept elections all over the world. Occam's razor and all that.
1a. The rest was death by a thousand cuts and I think Israel/Palestine was more of a reason than DEI and I think Israel/Palestine was barely one of the cuts.
2. Even given that, she lost very narrowly given only months to campaign and received more votes than Biden in four swing states: NC, GA, NV, and one more than I am forgetting.
2a. Trump won those states but his super-power is always getting low-propensity Herrenvolkists out who vote for him and often only him. Hence, the fact that he was only able to flip one swing state Senate race (PA). OH, MT, and WV are red states.
3. To the extent, people are saying DEI caused them to vote for Trump, they are still doing the innuendo version of "No snowball chance in hell you are getting me to vote for the Black-Indian Lady...."
4. I think very online people talking about DEI being bad are a select group of cranky middle-aged white guys who hate that a black woman made them feel uncomfortable and potentially contemplate things that they preferred not to contemplate. Or some guys seem to act like DEI means that one day their daughter is going to stop being Daddy's Little Girl suddenly and come home with a girlfriend with a shaved head and combat fatigues and say "Sorry Daddy but DEI taught me that the revolution is here and you have to be put up against the wall. Suzy here is going to pull the trigger."
Basically, it is a bunch of people with an ax to grind and using this as an opportunity, also why did Biden have to appoint all those non-white people like Julie Su and Lina Khan, can't we just go back to the Clinton 90s when all these pesky social issues were kept on the table please? Instead of American citizens, we should think of ourselves as employees for America, Inc, completely dedicated to increasing the GDP/Quarterly profits. I, Very Serious Pundit Man, will act as HR cheerleader. Everything else is just a distraction against the goal of America, Inc."
Yes, some DEI stuff is the closest thing liberals have to the right-wing wingnut circuit but people have a moral responsibility to think with straight heads and if Musk is out there talking about how we need pain/great depression to bring about his third-rate Shadowrun/Curtis Yarvin fantasy and Trump is talking about mass deportations, a person has a responsibility to take this seriously and literally. I'm not going to let people off the hook if there response to this is "Yeah,but I had to go listen to a lecture on implicit bias and structural racism..."
Well, I don't know what to say to these people but it sure as hell looks like Musk wants a deep, deep recession or worse.
"
The fact that no one seems to have a sense of perspective in worrisome.
Does everyone else see what is going on in the United States right now? And we are saying "Well, Democrats have a DEI problem."
F###ing Flying Spaghetti Monster
"
Musk is apparently high as a kite at CPAC while waving around a chainsaw and Grimes is begging online for his attention because one of their three kids is in medical crisis.
"
Hochul is not going to remove Adams but will install guardrails. The actual removal procedure is actually much more complicated than the internet has let on of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDapa0YSnVs&t=457s
Start watching the explainer at the 6:30 mark
"
On the one hand,
Trump is announcing himself a king and one of his foot soldiers is trying to find ways to bring charges against Democrats who criticize him or any other Republican: https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-appointed-prosecutor-kicks-operation-whirlwind-eyes-schumer-rcna192878
On the other hand, JB has an opportunity to troll Democrats and his neurons can't resist despite more pressing issues.
"
It is all about Halibut Avenue
"
Like many Democratic women (or Democrats in general), I think she sees Trump as a person without any redeeming qualities.
1. In the call between Democratic Governors and Schumer/Jefferies, she apparently gave a variant of people need to FAFO in order to ensure they never vote for Trump again;
2. She takes abortion rights seriously as demonstrated by her stance in fighting against LA and TX.
3. She seems like she might be willing to do something about Adams because having Trump in control of NYC with Adams as his puppet-prefect it bad.
"
https://bsky.app/profile/joshuajfriedman.com/post/3likp45oxkk2n
A master class in how you respond to Trump
"
I think it is about further gutting agencies that are independent from the executive by statute. It could be about gutting the Federal Courts ability to decide on the Constitutionality of Executive Orders and starting the pretext for ignoring them if/when the Supreme Court rules against Trump.
Trump and Co are still very high on their own supply and today they "ended" congestion pricing in NYC while sending out a faux Time cover with Long Live the King and Trump wearing a crown.
Hochul is responding well but theatre criticism demands that people criticize Hochul's response
"
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2025/02/all-hail-the-king
1. Trump states he is ending congestion pricing in NYC;
2. Hochul says FU, we will see you in court.
3. Trump declares himself king on social media
"
https://bsky.app/profile/ryanjreilly.com/post/3lik4sbvu4c2n
U.S. Attorney Ed Martin to launch investigation into Schumer.
Horman has asked the DOJ to investigate AOC for using her free speech rights to advise people pulled over by ICE on their rights.
"
Also true.
You are responding to a guy who would ban private equity and then give anyone but support staff lifetime totality bans from working in finance/banking/consulting, even if they are just right out of college and in the first hour of orientation.
I'm not a neoliberal.
"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IPNda2HSC4
"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/world/americas/trump-migrant-deportation-panama.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
This administration that is very concerned with Christians has deported an Iranian convert to Christianity to Panama where she is trapped in a hotel room. If she has to go back to Iran, she will be killed most likely.
"
You can't have a welfare state without an administrative state
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.