He thinks you can put tariffs on illegal drug smugglers.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Good, but
Would have been nice if somebody could have blocked pretty much all of the idiot and sorely unqualified nominations that went through already.
Unfuckingbelievable
There's more than one way to kill an agency.
They'll do what they damn well please, and you can't even communicate with them, much less get any information from them, as your rights permit.
Desperate measures
Of course this affects women more than men.The speaker tried to use an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver to deny a bipartisan majority the chance to hold a vote on their proposal to allow new parents to vote remotely in the House.
NYT
So, they're going home for the week? It's only Tuesday. Nice work, guys.Johnson on Tuesday tried and failed to kill a bipartisan effort to change House rules so that lawmakers would temporarily be allowed to vote remotely after the birth of a child, suffering an embarrassing defeat that paralyzed the chamber and signaled that the proposal could soon be adopted.
[...]
Johnson tried an extraordinary use of the speaker’s power to prevent the House from even considering a measure backed by half its members. But nine Republicans refused to go along, instead dealing him a public rebuke that left him without a strategy for moving ahead.
After the vote, Mr. Johnson abruptly canceled votes for the rest of the week, sending members home and leaving legislative business unsettled. Under House rules, Republican leaders are required to bring the proxy voting resolution to a vote within two legislative days. But they appeared to be refusing to do anything else until the holdouts in their party cave, which they have shown no sign of doing. As Republicans left Washington for the week having passed no bills, it was not clear how or when the issue would be resolved.
[...]
It began over a year ago, when Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, began agitating for a change to House rules that would allow new mothers to designate a colleague to vote by proxy on their behalf for up to six weeks after giving birth.
JFC
I don't even know what this is all for. I assume this is about releasing the Kennedy documents, but JFC.
By the numbers
The Department of Veterans Affairs will slash more than 80,000 jobs under a major restructuring plan that the agency intends to carry out by August to meet President Donald Trump’s executive order for downsizing the federal government, according to an internal VA memo.
[...]
The Trump administration already imposed a hiring freeze and two rounds of layoffs in February that resulted in the loss of 5,000 jobs. Veterans, who are given preference in hiring, make up about one-third of federal employees.
[...]
The VA expanded staff by more than 60,000 to meet demand by veterans filing for benefits and health care following the legislation adoption in 2022. The legislation awarded disability compensation to veterans with illnesses connected to their exposure to hazardous materials while on active duty that included burn pits, radiation and industrial solvents.
“This memo makes [the administration’s] goal crystal clear: They want to roll back the PACT Act by cutting 80,000 jobs — including 20,000 veterans — while starving VA’s ability to meet increased demand in order to justify privatizing VA,” Blumenthal said.
Stars and Stripes
Trump 2.0 - We're the worst
How many times can I say "unbelievable" before I have to find a new word?
A British view of JD Vance
Not for the first time, JD Vance, America’s outspoken vice-president, has made a public fool of himself. He insisted on visiting Greenland despite unequivocal statements by the territory’s leaders and Denmark’s government that he was not invited and not welcome. Vance’s trip was confined to a remote Arctic base, where he briefly spoke to a few Americans. Plans to make a wider tour and speak to Greenlanders were cancelled – because Greenlanders did not want to speak to him.
[...]
Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory within the kingdom of Denmark. Election results this month showed the vast majority of local people back expanded self-rule or outright independence. They do not want to be Americans.
In a feeble attempt to justify what is, in effect, a Putin-style bid to seize another country’s sovereign territory, Vance claimed Denmark had failed to protect Greenland from Chinese and Russian threats – but did not produce any evidence. He also failed to explain why, if such dangers exist, the US, which like Denmark is a Nato member, has not honoured its legal obligation to develop a “collective capacity to resist armed attack” under the 1951 US-Denmark “Defence of Greenland” treaty.
[...]
Above all, the hubris, arrogance, amateurishness and irresponsibility [...] is truly shocking – and a chilling warning to the world.
Guardian
JD Vance is a despicable bucket of shit.
Doing something
Y Around 6:00 pm Central last evening...
He says Senator Chris Murphy has been there with him all night.
UPDATE 04:15 pm: He's still up and going strong. 20+ hours.
Booker, who until now had not stood out as one of POTUS 47’s more vocal critics, invoked the spirit of the late John Lewis, the legendary civil rights activist: “Tonight I rise with the intention of getting in some ’good trouble’ — I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.”
The New Jersey Democrat said it was time to scream out that Trump’s dictatorial habits are not normal, and his all-night monologue — technically not a filibuster, since it’s not tied to a specific piece of pending legislation — is the most powerful way for him to do that.
[...]
It’s not going to alter any trajectories on Capitol Hill, but that’s not the point. Booker is responding in the right way to core Democrats, and others, who are also screaming that this is not normal, and who are desperate for political leaders who share their sense of urgency. If Lewis were still here, he’d surely give a thumbs up to this modern-day outbreak of good trouble.
Philadelphia Inquirer
UPDATE 07:00 pm: Strom Thurmond held the record for speech length in the Senate since the Civil Rights Act he filibustered against at 24 hours and change. Cory Booker has broken that record and is still going at 25 hours.
UPDATE 4/2/25:
You can't win
You can't break even. And you can't get out of the game.
White nationalist residents, and perhaps one black "Uncle Tom". Yes, I know that's offensive. MAGAIt has taken nearly a decade for St. Louis’ Civilian Oversight Board to find the footing needed to effectively investigate police misconduct and give residents the tools to hold police accountable, says board member Keith Rose. The city established the board in the years following the Black Lives Matter protests in nearby Ferguson, where grassroots organizers amplified calls to end police violence. But the board faced obstacles at every turn, from legal battles with police unions to the police department’s refusal to cooperate with investigations.
“It feels like we only just now got to the place where we have a path to do the work, after delays from lawsuits and police noncooperation. It finally feels like the board is ready to do the work,” Rose told Bolts.
But the state of Missouri is poised to wreck community oversight over policing in St. Louis. Governor Mike Kehoe on Wednesday signed a bill that ends the city’s ability to run its own police department, transferring control to the GOP-run state government. Going forward, the department will be led by a board mostly appointed by the Republican governor.
[...]
There is a dark precedent for Missouri state officials seizing control of law enforcement in this city. On the eve of the Civil War, a secessionist governor took over the local police, worried that the city may otherwise resist his hopes of having Missouri join the Confederacy. He proceeded to pack the new state-run board with secessionist members.
[...]
This state control then remained in place for well over 150 years. Only in 2012 did 64 percent of Missourians approve a measure to let St. Louis, which has a large Black population, run its own police force. The new law overrides that reform, returning control to the state leadership, which is largely white.
[...]
In signing the bill on Wednesday, Kehoe argued that the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department will still be run locally because the commissioners he appoints will have to be residents of the city.
Bolts Magazine
Monday, March 31, 2025
Paving the way for Trump Tower Gaza
Because they are evil and they have the backing of the US.Hours after Hamas announced it had accepted a ceasefire plan, drafted by negotiation mediators from Egypt and Qatar, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out his plans on Sunday for what he called the “final stage” of his genocidal campaign in Gaza. “Hamas will lay down its weapons. Its leaders will be allowed to leave. We will see to the general security in the Gaza Strip and will allow the realization of the Trump plan for voluntary migration,” Netanyahu told his cabinet on Sunday, referring to President Donald Trump’s threat to seize Gaza and remove Palestinians from their land. “This is the plan. We are not hiding this and are ready to discuss it at any time.” Netanyahu also boasted, “We have an alliance with the greatest superpower in the world.” He later said the Israeli cabinet had voted in favor of intensifying the military assault on Gaza.
Hamas’s chief negotiator, Dr. Khalil al-Hayya, announced that Hamas had accepted a deal on Saturday put forward by Qatar and Egypt, the two main regional mediators. “We do not want anything new. We want to respect what was signed, what the guarantors guaranteed, and what the international community approved,” al-Hayya said.
[...]
Regarding the “Trump plan” for displacing Palestinians from Gaza, al-Hayya said, “It is impossible for us to accept humiliation and disgrace for our people. There will be no displacement or deportation.”
Israel said Saturday that it submitted a counter-proposal to the plan, saying in a statement from Netanyahu’s office that it did so “in full coordination with the US.”
[...]
On Monday morning, Israel issued forced displacement orders to almost the entire governorate of Rafah on Gaza’s border with Egypt—the only gateway Palestinians in the Strip have to a world beyond Israeli control. “The IDF is returning to fight with great force to eliminate the capabilities of terrorist organizations in these areas,” Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army’s Arabic spokesman, wrote on the social media site X. He included an image of a map directing thousands of Palestinians to immediately flee to Al Mawasi, an overcrowded makeshift displacement camp built on sand dunes and lacking basic necessities such as water and electricity.
Throughout the weekend, as Palestinians in Gaza observed the Eid al-Fitr holiday that ends the holy month of Ramadan, Israeli forces pummeled areas across the Gaza Strip in what local journalists described as some of the heaviest bombing of the past seventeen months.
[...]
At least fifty-three Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks on Sunday alone. An Israeli airstrike on displaced people in Khan Younis killed sixteen people, including nine children and three women, according to local medical officials. “They died in their Eid outfits,” a female relative of the victims told Al Jazeera Arabic. “Why did they do this to us?”
Drop Site
And if you protest this in the US, you will very likely be snatched from the streets and rendered to an El Salvador torture prison.As Israel continues its terror bombings of Gaza, evidence continues to mount that Israeli forces recently summarily executed more than a dozen aid workers from the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRCS) and local civil defense crews in Rafah on March 23. Israel initially stated that its forces fired on “suspicious vehicles” in the area, but later acknowledged its forces shot at an ambulance and other rescue vehicles.
[...]
The head of OCHA’s local office, Jonathan Whittall, said in a post on X that the missing workers were dispatched to rescue injured people when “all five ambulances and one fire-truck were struck, along with a UN vehicle that arrived later.” For five days after the incident, he said, Israel denied the UN the right to retrieve or aid the rescue workers. In one attempt to reach the site, Israeli forces opened fire on more civilians in the area, shooting one Palestinian woman in the head along with a man who tried to rescue her. [...] “On the first day of Eid, we returned and recovered the buried bodies of 8 PRCS, 6 Civil Defense and 1 UN staff. They were killed in their uniforms. Driving their clearly marked vehicles. Wearing their gloves. On their way to save lives. This should never have happened.” In all, fifteen bodies were recovered from the scene.
[...]
From the moment a “ceasefire” deal with Hamas was signed on January 17, Israel has systematically violated the agreement by continuing to kill Palestinians. While the delivery of food and medical supplies increased during the first 42-day phase of the deal, Israel largely blocked the delivery of tents, mobile homes, and construction equipment to the Strip and refused to negotiate the implementation of the second 42-day step of the deal. The second phase would have seen the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of all remaining Israeli captives. Instead, Israel announced a full-spectrum blockade of Gaza, barring any aid or food deliveries. Israel shut off the Strip’s remaining electrical supplies and then resumed the full scale war on March 18 with a series of massive strikes across Gaza that killed nearly 200 children in a matter of hours.
[...]
Netanyahu has maintained that Israel will only negotiate while continuing its military assault on Gaza and that no lasting deal will be achieved that does not ultimately result in the disarmament of Hamas and the expulsion of its leaders from the Strip. Neither of these demands were part of the ceasefire deal signed in January.
Musk money in Wisconsin
If Democrats ever get power again - and that's looking increasingly unlikely - the first thing they need to do is work on ways to reverse Citizens United.
SCOTUS on the horns of a dilemma
Nobody said they were smart.Roberts and his extremist compatriots on the Court face one serious problem: Trump also wants the justices to endorse his campaign against the authority and independence of the judiciary, potentially rendering the Court into a shameless stooge. As a result, the cost of the Supreme Court continuing to do Trump’s bidding may be to undermine the judicial power and authority that Republicans devoted so much effort to obtain.
Public Notice
We laughed and laughed.While much has been made of the delays in prosecuting Trump under Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland, the players that actually ensured Trump would not be held accountable for his assault on the nation’s democracy were the rightwing jurists on the nation’s highest court who effectively crippled Jack Smith’s prosecution through a combination of calculated delay and a ruling that undermined the rule of law.
First, the Court delayed its immunity ruling for months, and thereby held the Trump prosecution in abeyance. Trump’s initial assertion of immunity in October 2023 was rejected by the trial court in December of that year; but proceedings in the case remained entirely stayed until Trump’s immunity claim was heard and decided by higher courts, a process the Supreme Court chose to drag out, despite a plea from the prosecutor for expedited review.
[...]
Second, when the ruling belatedly arrived, it was an early Christmas gift for The Donald. Authored by Roberts, the decision not only made it a practical impossibility for Trump to be tried before the election, but also granted him a far broader ambit of immunity than his lawyers had initially even thought of asking for.
Roberts declared that a president enjoys “absolute” or “qualified” immunity from criminal prosecution for any action taken in his “official” capacity.
[...]
Roberts’s immunity ruling not only gutted much of Smith’s case against Trump, it also sent a clear message: If Trump won the election, he could freely engage in even more egregious crimes, secure in the assurance that he would never face criminal accountability.
[...]
Trump has followed the model of dictators and ruled by decree, issuing barrages of “executive orders” in which he has asserted the right to run roughshod not only over fundamental rights, but also to violate to separation of powers. With help from Elon Musk’s DOGE team, Trump is crippling institutions and programs whose existence is legally mandated and funded by Congress. [...] Trump is also using extortionate threats to force private persons, institutions (including universities and law firms), and states and localities to bend to his will.
[...]
As soon as judges began issuing rulings limiting Trump’s assaults on the Constitution, he and his cronies began threatening to impeach judges for ruling against Trump.
In response, Roberts released a statement solemnly declaring that "for more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision."
This was not the first time Roberts responded to Trump’s dismissals of judicial authority and legitimacy. In 2019, Roberts rebuked Trump’s attack on an “Obama judge” for enforcing the nation’s asylum laws by stating, “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”
Their own corruption is very much a factor.Roberts’s 2025 statement has already proven to be as ineffective as his 2019 one was. Rather than signaling any intention to back down, Trump shot back by declaring, "If Justice Roberts and the United States Supreme Court do not fix this toxic and unprecedented situation IMMEDIATELY, our Country is in very serious trouble!"
[...]
As Trumpers have racked up losses in the lower courts, they’ve begun demanding that Roberts and company immediately step in to give Trump license to continue forward with his power grab.
For example, the Court is now considering an “emergency” Trump challenge to a ruling staying his illegal effort to cancel millions of education grants because they are purportedly infected with “DEI” (that is, civil rights). Trump has also sought immediate Supreme Court review of whether trial judges properly issued nationwide injunctions against his patently illegal effort to erase birthright citizenship from the Constitution. And he just asked the Court to allow him to continue to send Venezuelans to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process, on the dubious pretext they are wartime enemies.
While it’s unclear what the Court will do in those cases, Trump has good reason to believe a majority of justices will be sympathetic to his dictatorial cause.
You had me until that last paragraph. They can always expect a future Democratic president (which may never happen again due to Republican cheating and corruption) to accept legal rulings. Dems do that.[A] majority of the Court may end up ruling that Trump is not only free to fire members of the National Labor Relations Board and Federal Trade Commission (as he has already done), but he could also take over direct control of the Federal Reserve Board and personally set interest rates.
[...]
[T]he Court’s own hard-fought seizure of power from the elected branches of government could well be out the window if Roberts and his colleagues accede to Trump’s current demands and give up any pretense of judicial adherence to the rule of law.
After all, how can the rightwing justices who control the Supreme Court expect a future president — particularly a Democratic one — to accept rulings limiting the exercise of their power from a Court that served as the judicial stooge of an aspiring dictator?
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