Feb 15, 2025

A Quick Meme


Trump has issued an Executive Order that stops the production of the penny? Really?
  • Bird flu has wiped out dozens of bald eagles, 20,000 ducks, and 20 million chickens - which continues to push egg prices up towards the rafters
  • We've got bird flu in the dairy herds, and now it's spread from Nevada into Arizona
  • There's a TB outbreak in Kansas that's the worst they've ever seen
  • The measles outbreak in Texas is in three counties now, and suspected in a 4th - and it's put a dozen or more kids in the hospital
  • People Flu is the worst it's been in 10 or 15 years: CDC estimates that there have been at least 24 million illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations, and 13,000 deaths from flu so far this season.
  • Aircraft are falling from the sky at a pace not seen since the 1920s
  • People in California, North Carolina and Florida are still having trouble getting help to recover from disasters
  • Congress critters can't get their heads outa their asses long enough to figure out a budget that doesn't fuck everybody but 0.1% of the population
  • China's coming for us in the Pacific
  • Russia's about to revive itself ...
But sure - let's put our efforts into something important like worrying about the penny.

This guy seems pretty fuckin' worthless. But hey - at least we're good and distracted form the whole Fascism Comes To America thing, right?

The Debt


Business Math


From the hallowed halls of
The Harvard Business School,
we see the divine wisdom of clear-eyed,
pragmatic capitalism
applied to the business
of running a government.

The total payroll of civilian government employees:
$271 billion per year

The cost of Republicans' tax cuts:
$400 billion per year

So we need to fire most of the people,
and borrow another $4 trillion.
That's what makes perfect sense to the plutocrats.

You Got Played


The budget is a morality statement - it prioritizes what they value.

Feb 14, 2025

Just A Day


For Valentine's Day February 14th, we choose to commemorate every single Black woman hundreds of years ago who was put into a jail cell with a male prisoner, ended up pregnant, and had their baby sold by the state, usually to prison officials.

We commemorate these unknown women because few people will ever know their names, as this country attempts to erase Black history because “woke” and “DEI” and “CRT hurts my fee-fees”.

“In Louisiana, Black women were put in cells with male prisoners and some became pregnant.
 
In 1848, legislators passed a new law declaring that all children born in the penitentiary of African American parents serving life sentences would be property of the state. The women would raise the kids until the age of ten, at which point the penitentiary would place an ad in the newspaper. Thirty days later, the children would be auctioned off on the courthouse steps 'cash on delivery.' The proceeds were used to fund schools for white children. . . many of [the Black children] were purchased by prison officials.”

Source: American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment by Shane Bauer

Today's Today

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❤️












Feb 13, 2025

Driving On


It has to be pretty obvious by now that everything Trump and Elon are doing is aimed at pushing towards that magic moment - The Constitutional Crisis.

I don't think we're there yet, but I can't deny we're practically on the brink. 

Trump's gang is attempting to line up as many issues as possible at the edge of the abyss so it would only take a fairly minor instigating incident to get enough people amped up - so it could all crash over the edge - seemingly as if it was inevitable and nobody's really to blame.

There could still be a Reichstag Fire, but if you have all the pieces in place, you don't really need it. In fact, you don't want that. You just pull the last lever, and all the other levers are activated, and away it goes, practically all by itself.

You want people to go fascist a little at a time, so it feels like a seduction instead of a rape.

Anyway, here's another step towards the edge. 


Fourth judge blocks Trump’s birthright executive order

A fourth federal judge blocked President Trump’s executive order to restrict birthright citizenship in the U.S., yet another blow to the president’s controversial idea.

In a pair of lawsuits, U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin agreed that a group of 19 states and the District of Columbia as well as nonprofit organizations were “exceedingly likely” to prevail on the merits of their claims against the Trump administration.

“It is difficult to imagine a government or public interest that could outweigh the harms established by the plaintiffs here,” Sorokin wrote. “Perhaps that is why the defendants have identified none. Instead, they point only to the Executive Branch’s discretion in matters of immigration.”

Sorokin argued that birthright citizenship is guaranteed by 14th Amendment in the Constitution and has been moved “beyond the bounds” of executive authority from the president.

The attorneys representing an anonymous mother and immigrant groups celebrated the judge’s decision.

“We are gratified by today’s ruling,” Oren Sellstrom, the litigation director for Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement. “Birthright citizenship is a sacred right granted by our Constitution, and the President cannot change that with the stroke of a pen.”

Hegseth responds to blowback from Ukraine, NATO remarks

On his first day back in the White House, Trump signed an executive order narrowing birthright citizenship by limiting the 14th Amendment’s birthright citizenship guarantee to exclude children born in the U.S. to parents without permanent legal status.

Sorokin’s ruling joins him with judges in several other states who have blocked Trump’s executive order.

Just days ago, a judge in New Hampshire granted an injunction. Two nearly identical injunctions were granted by two other judges, both criticizing the decision and protecting birthright citizenship across the country, at least temporarily.

The legal battle kicked off immediately after Trump signed the executive order. The original injunction, set forth by a judge appointed by former President Reagan, was set to expire when the two near-identical injunctions came in.

A 10th lawsuit was filed Thursday afternoon challenging Trump’s order, this time from the New York Immigration Coalition.

In his ruling, Sorokin pointed to the 1898 Supreme Court decision that allowed birthright citizenship and noted that the Trump administration could try to revisit that case, but it would have to be brought to the Supreme Court. Still, Sorokin said there have been no presidents in the past who have had issue with the more than a century-old ruling.

The judge slammed the Trump administration for not having a “legitimate interest” for the order and said it has not attempted to demonstrate how the continuation of birthright citizenship would harm the American public. The judge also pointed out that birthright stood under Trump’s first term.

The Trade War Escalates


Oy

And the hits keep right on a-rollin'.

This - plus The SAVE Act, plus some well-placed vigilante action - will practically guarantee MAGA wins almost across the board.

The only thing they'd have left to do would be to figure out a way to make it seem not-too-rigged so we don't end up with "victory" margins in the Putin/ Saddam range of 70 or 80 or 90%.



US Homeland Security says election security personnel placed on leave

Feb 11 (Reuters) - The Department of Homeland Security, as part of an evaluation of its election security mission, said on Tuesday that personnel focused on misinformation, disinformation and foreign influence operations aimed at U.S. elections have been placed on administrative leave.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is "undertaking an evaluation of how it has executed its election security mission with a particular focus on any work related to mis, dis and malinformation," agency spokesperson Rhonda Lawson said in a statement in response to a Reuters query.

Lawson did not immediately respond to questions about how many employees were placed on leave, if they would be reassigned or if they were permanently leaving the department.

Noem criticized the Biden administration's approach to homeland security, including efforts by DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, during her confirmation hearing on January 17. The agency had "gotten far off mission," she said.

The Wisdom Of Senior Women

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