Turning On The Giant Faucet Of Bullshit - US Politics February 2025

Norm Ornstein has a good list of ways Senators in particular can fuck shit up within the bounds of decorum.

Senate Democrats need to use every tool at their disposal to throw wrenches into the works of the plans of Trump, Musk, and their GOP cultists in Congress. Doing so will also underscore how serious the threat is to our system, thereby forcing media to cover it. Here are some of the ways to use the rules to delay and discomfit the GOP majority; no easy action or votes.

Insist that the Journal of the Senate be read at the onset of every day’s business, soaking up time otherwise spent on legislating.

Deny unanimous consent to every action. The Senate operates by unanimous consent, and getting around it is time-consuming and uncomfortable.

Refuse to allow committees to meet when the Senate is doing business on the floor.

This is the relevant portion of Senate Rule 26: A committee may not meet (or continue a meeting in progress) on any day (1) after the Senate has been in session for two hours, or (2) after 2:00 p.m. when the Senate is in session. The Senate routinely waives this rule via unanimous consent. Deny it.

In Rule 14, there is a requirement that every bill is to be read in full three times before passage. That is routinely waived to include only reading a summary. Require the full reading, especially with omnibus bills.

Use the filibuster on every bill and confirmation. Draw a page from the Mitch McConnell playbook; raise the bar to 60 on legislation and use all the delays that can come with filibusters on confirmations. It is a regular misconception that filibusters have been taken away from confirmations. In fact, the cloture barrier has been moved from 60 to a simple majority. But even if these confirmations can pass ultimately, they can be delayed significantly by exploiting the rules.

Use the hold to block many if not most confirmations. A hold is simply a senator indicating he or she will deny unanimous consent to move forward on a confirmation, but it has been respected for many decades as a norm blocking action. Holds are no longer anonymous, but that is not a barrier. This something applied more than once by Senate Republicans during the Biden presidency; it was not just Tommy Tuberville and military promotions. Rand Paul, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, among others, used blanket holds to protest Biden policies or just to gum up the works. Kudos to Hawaii’s Brian Schatz for showing how it is done, with today’s blanket hold on State Department nominees over the hostile takeover of AID. It should be done by others for Treasury, Justice, Defense, Education, and other departments.

xp - Yeah, probably, but really all they can do right now is make some noise and try to gum up the works a little, so it's better than sitting quietly.

Good luck!

But in interviews on Wednesday, several Arab and Muslim American leaders or activists who voted for Mr. Trump stood by him. Some doubted that he would follow through on his Gaza proposal while also crediting him for the recent cease-fire, a product of collaboration between the current and previous administrations.

Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich., a Democrat who endorsed Mr. Trump last year, said on Wednesday that he did not believe the United States was prepared to force Palestinians out of Gaza.

“It’s all just talk,” Mr. Ghalib said as he waited for a call from the White House.

And Rabiul Chowdhury, a founder of Muslims for Trump, was willing to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt, seeing him as a strong negotiator.

“Democrats and extreme left are trying to kind of use this to ignite our community, but we’re not falling for that trap — they’re still the worst in our eyes,” Mr. Chowdhury said. “We are finding our alliances through MAGA folks.”

There are many areas, he added, “where MAGAs and the Muslims align.”

the condo/casinofication of gaza is pure hogwash, I'll agree with that

the idea that Donald Trump is president of the united states is also hogwash but here we are

there are internal documents from the Israeli government with similar proposals iirc

I don’t trust my instincts anymore about what is just talk and what is a serious threat.

Not a bad strategem.

Sometimes it's the small things that help you get through the day, Daily Beast headline:

Mitch McConnell, 82, Taken Away in Wheelchair After Falling Twice

too bad he didn't fall into Musk's wood chipper

No, make it slow and painful

I know there's a lot to absorb right now but in case you're wondering, the FCC is up to bad shit too.

https://reason.com/2025/02/05/how-the-fccs-warrior-for-free-speech-became-our-censor-in-chief/

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/05/cia-reported-buyouts-workforce-donald-trump-administration

Wild style

This reminds me of when kanye west bought that architecturally significant house in malibu and ordered that all the wires and plumbing be ripped out of it for no clear reason, just an artistic instinct

I don’t trust my instincts anymore about what is just talk and what is a serious threat.

― treeship 2, Wednesday, February 5, 2025 3:59 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Same

Like take this cia thing. It’s insane.

Mayor Amer Ghalib of Hamtramck, Mich., a Democrat

the same piece of shit who prohibited Pride flags in Hamtramck

I live in hell:

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/miami/news/lt-governor-jeanette-nunez-expected-to-be-named-interim-fiu-president/

It feels like some kind of national suicide. And Biden idiotically not dropping out, preventing us from putting forward a strong candidate, feels like complicity.

Biden-as-Fisher-King a very distressing aspect of all of this

I know there's a lot to absorb right now but in case you're wondering, the FCC is up to bad shit too.

I appreciate the care in this, tipsy. Probably a good time for me to find a line between the doomposting thread and this one. Actually it would be a good time to not look at the internet altogether but I seem unable to do that

I don't buy the complicity of Biden.. it seems clear to me now that Harris was just not the candidate for this election cycle
No, it wasn't a blowout but with hindsight, it seems like the return of Trump was almost an inevitability.. pains me to say that

It would not have hurt to have had a more normal nomination process — one that wasn’t beset by a scandal about Biden’s team hiding his condition. These were all completely avoidable marks against the democrats.

I agree with that

That it wasn't a blowout - that it was close (much closer than it was presented last November) - makes it feel like stupid mistakes might have doomed the world to this.

But who knows, and maybe it doesn't matter. Bring on the White Horse Prophecy.

I'm on team doesn't matter. But if the circumstances of last year recur (senescent president, egomaniacal toddler with cultlike hold on a large chunk of voters distributed just so, decent but imperfect backup candidate, events and economic conditions as they were) the lesson is um learned, I guess?

imo it does matter that the national democratic party stands for so little that they were unable to convince enough people to keep these nihilist wreckers out. a lot of people knew this flavour of chaos was coming but the democrats could not get them to look beyond whatever ancillary financial benefits they'd deluded themselves were coming their way and that's a problem. mammon is king and it's not good enough to say, hey we are the superior judges of mammon distribution

Seems like the first woman to lead the U.S. will be a brutal Thatcherite, not a brat person of color from Oakland

That wasn’t why she lost. She would have won if it wasn’t for the bungled handoff. In my opinion. She lost because she stood for the Biden admin in people’s eyes. What she did in her position was fine but it was too late.

There is another piece to all this though. Their strategy seemed to be to jail Trump. So they should have made sure they did it! The federal investigations should have started way earlier! They put him in this position where he could gain sympathy by saying he was a victim of lawfare.

can we please not do this shit again

relitigation?

i have zero interest in relitigation or even recrimination i'm all about action babe let's fire the DNC into the sun and move on

the idea that any of them feels like they can show their face is amazing. has shame disappeared entirely from public life? time to bring it back imo

These are the dems we have at present; which is it - they should be doing more, or they should hide in shame and slink off to die in the shadows while the maga set romps?

I forget. How many times does a dog walk in tight circles before it lies down to sleep?

oh they’ve done enough

you guys are gonna hurt your stomachs. remember to breathe. maybe a little exercise. a light salad. 4 bottles of bordeaux.

can't afford the bordeaux - tariffs!

Sometimes it's the small things that help you get through the day, Daily Beast headline:

Mitch McConnell, 82, Taken Away in Wheelchair After Falling Twice
― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, 5 February 2025 22:03 (yesterday) link

Who wants to do the honors?

https://media.tenor.com/f7oKF5fw0QgAAAAM/mac-and-me-wheel-chair.gif

A conservative nonprofit has posted the names and photos of more than 50 federal workers on what it is calling a “watch list” related to diversity, equity and inclusion, asking President Trump to fire them.

The group says the workers named in its “D.E.I. bureaucrat watch list” supported diversity, criticized Mr. Trump on social media or made donations to Democrats. Many of the targets are Black workers at health agencies.

The list was compiled by the American Accountability Foundation, a small right-wing nonprofit that was founded in 2020 to oppose Biden administration policies and nominees. Since Mr. Trump’s election, the group has stepped up its targeting of specific federal workers — some of them career employees with little power — that it believes oppose his agenda.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/05/us/politics/dei-watchlist-federal-health-workers-cdc-nih.html?unlocked_article_code=1.u04.Wi1m.591oND903C86&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

what in the everloving fuck is this shit

He said that his group had identified them by looking at political donations to Democrats, and by looking at social media posts. He said he had not reached out to the workers to verify the information he published, or even to determine if they still worked for the government.

“I’m busy; I’ve got a lot of stuff to do,” Mr. Jones said.

If you ever wondered what it was like to live through McCarthyism ...

This whole "experiencing in real time the worst episodes of history" is not a good feeling.

100%

it's not quite the same when you already know though

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said President Trump’s idea to take over the Gaza Strip is “provocative” but it’s “part of the conversation.”

Fetterman, who has been a staunch ally of Israel in its war against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, appeared to be open to considering the plan when speaking with Jewish Insider.

“It’s a provocative part of the conversation, but it’s part of the conversation, and that’s where we are,” Fetterman said. “The Palestinians have refused, or they’ve been unwilling to deliver a government that provided security and economic development for themselves.”

“They allowed 10/7 to occur, and now Gaza has to be rebuilt,” he continued,

"What's in it for me?" — a provocative and cool part of our national conversation about aiding and abetting genocide.

The tone and approach of that NYT article is reprehensible.

Seriously, I just woke up and am now fully fucking awake.

It’s like “hey, they’re targeting these people, but, whatever”

Seems like the first woman to lead the U.S. will be a brutal Thatcherite, not a brat person of color from Oakland

We've had three women Prime Ministers in the UK, all of them right wing, and the current leader of the Tories, a woman of colour, is more right wing than any of them.