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

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.

And the last one did more damage to the economy in the shortest period than any other PM I can remember

the next to last one dug her political grave by misreading the moment with Grenfell Tower, makes u think

Back when the UK had an opposition that actually opposed Tory nonsense.

it’s not like the Dems are any better at this point.

it turns out, according to the new york times, trump is a GENIUS.

"As outlandish and unworkable as Mr. Trump’s proposal on Tuesday may seem, it is “no less than an historic resetting of decades of received diplomatic wisdom,” said Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser. However unrealistic, he said, “it may force the sides to reconsider long-held positions, stir things up dramatically and lead to new openings.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/world/europe/trump-gaza-hamas-palestinians.html

Polite Kahanism, how lovely!

"As outlandish and unworkable as Mr. Trump’s proposal on Tuesday may seem, it is “no less than an historic resetting of decades of received diplomatic wisdom,” said Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser. However unrealistic, he said, “it may force the sides to reconsider long-held positions, stir things up dramatically and lead to new openings.”

My provocative assertion that the collected works of Shakespeare were actually written by me may force literary critics to reconsider long-held opinions, stir things up dramatically and lead to new openings.

This is such a joke

I read that NYT article first thing this morning and my head literally exploded. Picking up all the pieces has been a pain, need to remember to put on my craven-apologetics helmet.

Meanwhile, if your company ignores a union vote, fortunately you can appeal to the... oh wait.

https://wapo.st/4jMdrk3

I read that NYT article first thing this morning and my head literally exploded. Picking up all the pieces has been a pain, need to remember to put on my craven-apologetics helmet.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra),

Trump Wants to Turn Trump Into Rivera, Only Hamas Stands In Its Way

The party that finds all sorts of excuses to cling to their “tradition” is now the party of “stirring things up dramatically.”

Trump just called chuck schumer a “palestinian.” I think I am having a stroke

The nicest thing he could have said

I realize we're holding our umbrellas under this storm of shit falling on us, but let's avoid, please, the DO YOU KNOW WHAT TRUMP SAID NOW affliction of 2017-2018. Let's confine it to more cataclysmic news.

but let's avoid, please, the DO YOU KNOW WHAT TRUMP SAID NOW affliction of 2017-2018

otm

Xp Dan

There are no conservatives anymore because the world has changed to an extent where these types don’t want to conserve anything. They want to tear down the institutions they see as corrupt.

Marc Andreesen recently talked about how all the woke college grads were trying to “destroy” silicon valley companies from within. This is an absurd exaggeration. But not just that — it also is a projection of what they want to do, which is destroy civil society.

They as in these so called conservatives. Trump’s coalition.

Musk destroyed Twitter from within because it was full of intellectuals who made fun of him and now he’s teaming up with Trump to do the same thing to the Federal government, and for the same reasons

There are no conservatives anymore because the world has changed to an extent where these types don’t want to conserve anything. They want to tear down the institutions they see as corrupt.

I have opted for "right-wing radicals" since the W administration.

They want to conserve a poisoned realm for white men.

They’re not that radical. They absolutely want to preserve their wealth and the future wealth of their friends and they’re willing to wreck anything to do it but it’s in the service of consolidating power in the hands of those who already have it

xpost what he said

otm x 2, they are conservatives in the sense of conserving (and expanding) existing wealth and power. Which imo is always the most important meaning of "conservative," beyond and underneath any trappings of civility and custom.

This is good, from yet another outraged historian: https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-destruction

This bit in particular struck me, because this is essentially describing the private equity/vulture capitalism mindset, now applied to government:

The oligarchs have no plan to govern. They will take what they can, and disable the rest. The destruction is the point. They don’t want to control the existing order. They want disorder in which their relative power will grow.