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

And Fred B is back on our board too!

I, for one, Danish Øverlords, etc

"Stand Up for Science" marches organizing for March 7, website is down but probably getting DDoS'd or something.

https://bsky.app/profile/cdelawalla.bsky.social/post/3lhudvoxzy22u

okay I'm all for this plan

_LOS ANGELES - Thousands of Danish people have signed a "Denmarkification" petition to buy California from the U.S. in response to President Donald Trump's bid to acquire Greenland.

The online petition has garnered nearly 200,000 signatures from the Scandinavian country home to nearly 6 million people.

"Los Angeles? More like Løs Ångeles," the petition reads.

"Have you ever looked at a map and thought, 'You know what Denmark needs? More sunshine, palm trees, and roller skates.' Well, we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make that dream a reality," the campaign website reads. "Let's buy California from Donald Trump!"_

maria is going to another protest on presidents day at the state house in boston. another one of those 50 protests in 50 cities at 50 capitol buildings protests. maybe since its a holiday a lot of people will show up.

there was a good crowd at the last one she went to. just a week or two ago.

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/476108061_10162874476380908_9158430805087475708_n.jpg?stp=cp6_dst-jpg_tt6&_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=833d8c&_nc_ohc=VK-1r-IwqH8Q7kNvgEJtVWF&_nc_oc=Adj_ecvjLCwKC8ooCkXJCs2o-hSphs3yDy2cSLEJ40_FsrMqbVl92mgK8939DC1_oqCYkhEFeIW-bfELlGojcpMj&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&_nc_gid=Aj7NReatjiN0TOsYAkv1POc&oh=00_AYASVXBSwcI-w6pozEJeFg00iVErfM37QB7RHGZlPyXdMA&oe=67B1AC83

(of course nobody will probably be IN the state houses on a holiday but whatever...)

Ugh these people are so gross. Elon has retweeted Laura fucking Loomer doxxing the daughter of the judge who ordered the grant funding unfrozen. The daughter apparently works (worked?) at the Department of Education, so this is a big scandalous "conflict of interest" for the judge. The same playbook Trump used against the judge in his trial, this is naked intimidation of the judiciary.

It’s gross of course, but it does make me wonder why a different judge couldn’t have issued the order. Didn’t he see this coming?

why should judges be selective in that way?

IIRC the choice of judge is randomized rather than volunteer.

Also that’s not a real conflict of interest. Elon’s government contracts on the other hand.

It’s not remotely a conflict of interest, I bet a lot of federal judges have relatives who work for the federal government.

yeah, also the grants in question were going out to NGOs etc, not the Dept of Education

minor details, because inchoate anger can fasten onto anything based on the flimsiest pretext

So Elon & his junior human shield crashed an Oval Office presser...

https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lhwlkabon223

His name is X

more details about the moronic Trump water release here in CA, just water down the drain... he really is a stupid fuckface

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/11/california-water-trump

XP Posh & X

Nancy Mace .....

Oh yeah I wondered if anyone would post about that.

i mean I know we're supposed to believe women, and, if what she claimed was true, then it's obviously terrible and horrible, but I do wonder why she decided to make these claims on the House floor; she spent the lead up the Trump's election calling women who accused him of assault of lying; and now victims advocates are saying do not user her hotline. I personally think she is addicted to attention but at least she stopped accusing transwomen of being rapists for an hour.

My initial thought was I do not not want to have any thoughts about that and I assume others felt the same way

Looks like they're gearing up to target Wikipedia editors.

https://www.404media.co/wikipedia-prepares-for-increase-in-threats-to-us-editors-from-musk-and-his-allies/

yeah musk fucking hates wikipedia

Biden warned us about oligarchs... why didn't we listen?

Anyone watch this weird press conference?

why?

You have no reason to strain your mental health by exposing yourself to a diseased mind. Read the news story about it if you must.

Elon is wearing a baseball hat and winter coat in the oval office and has his toddler with him.

He speaks rapidly and makes a number of wild claims, like the fact that retirement paperwork is handled in a limestone mine and the speed of the mine elevator slows down the rate of retirement in the federal government.

He accuses unnamed high net worth government employees of embezzlement.

The mineshaft thing sounds like something he saw in a dream and is confusing with reality.

Three weeks in and we’ve already got Trump Apparatchiks in every department. Looks like today’s EO makes DOGE a shadow government embedded in every single department to keep watch and oversee hiring/firing.

The speed of all this is breathtaking.

It's almost like they had a playbook and people organized to implement it.

Apologies for smartassing. Rage and humor work better as coping mechanisms than abject despair.

this shit is infuriating, every single Dem should be primaried

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/12/democrats-jeffries-move-on-indivisible-trump

you're mad at fucking MoveOn, the most milquetoast fucking org?

They just think we should be respectful of our President. After all, he treats others with respect.

‪David Roberts‬ ✧@vo✧✧✧.w✧✧‬
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8h
My great fear is that, to the average semi-connected US news consumer, the last few weeks just looks like "Trump does a bunch of bold, decisive stuff that leaves his critics running around & squawking."

In the grocery store today I saw a USA Today with the headline "Trump Wants to Pitch the Penny." Back on my phone I decided to look at stenographer journalist Jake Sherman's Punchbowl News. Sherman has 431 K followers on X. His Punchbowl News runs an article, "Rough Days for Democrats in GOP-run Washington" that never mentions Musk or tax cuts for the rich but does say the following: “Average Americans aren’t going to get upset that federal workers are being laid off, not with a $1.9 trillion deficit and $36 trillion debt”

“While party activists want a re-run of the 2017 "Resistance" and anti-Trump movement, Democratic leadership knows this is a very different moment.”

Ugh

against my greater instincts I watched some of it and holy fucking hell Elon sounds cranked out, I genuinely wonder how much he's actually slept these last 5 years

like right now I don't think he could even pass that dumb cognitive test that Trump got

modafinil poisoning is my side bet

Mild annoyance of the day is people freaking out about Google and Apple maps changing to "Gulf of America." They're just doing what they always do, following the official name given by the local government. They did it when Obama renamed Denali, too. They're not "taking sides," they're just reflecting government actions.

Just wait til their kids come home with geography worksheets ...

NB I'm NOT defending the idiotic name change. But it happened, at least to whatever minimal degree the U.S. government can control such things.

yeah of the long list of horrors this doesn't consume me

it’s funny because according to the approval polls the gulf decision has been by far his least popular so far

Yeah I posted something similar about the Google Maps thing a couple weeks ago, tipsy. They're changing it not (simply).because Trump said so, but because the executive order resulted in the US Board of Geographic Names updating their database:
https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names/558730

Also it will still be Golfo de Mexico for users in Mexico.

here's something to actually get mad about:

A 71-year-old woman has died after her oxygen supply was cut off when the United States announced a freeze on aid funding.

Pe Kha Lau, a refugee from Myanmar living in a displacement camp in neighbouring Thailand, died four days after she was discharged from a USAID-funded healthcare facility operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

She is thought to be one of the first people to have died as a direct result of Washington’s decision to freeze all funding for aid projects for 90 days.

Her family told Reuters that she had frequently been sent to hospital in the last three years as she was dependent on a supply of oxygen, but was sent home after the IRC received a “stop-work” order in late January.

It doesn’t consume me because it will always be Gulf of Mexico, no matter what some fascist fuck says.

Yeah the name of the Sears Tower has been changed for years and only the dweebiest in Chicago call it the new name.

Mild annoyance of the day is people freaking out about Google and Apple maps changing to "Gulf of America."

Being in the UK I'm seeing 'Gulf Of Mexico (Gulf Of America)' which might be more annoying than just picking one or the other. Sheinbaum could've suggested the portmanteau 'Mexica' just to troll.

however, I do call a certain DC airport "Reagan" *shrug*