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
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