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

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*

"Gulf of America previously known as Gulf of Mexico" has a nice ring to it.

Totally messes up the rhyme scheme of patriotic 1950s novelty hit "The Battle of New Orleans."

FKA Gulf of Mexico

Meaningless 5 second protest, but I googled "gulf of mexico" and when it came up as "gulf of america", I clicked the tree dots and reported it as incorrect information.

Pointless and petty, but hey, it took five seconds and anything that grinds the gears even the tiniest bit of these collaborating fucks.

but it's not incorrect information

But it is incorrect information.

OK, well, agree to disagree!

Gulf Of Drexciya

I’m reporting the “United States” when it should properly be “Bonerland”

who are you really sticking it to by reporting it to google

i know we all feel powerless here but

It took like 4 seconds and I don't think I'm "sticking it" to anyone, just a petty thing that made me feel a tiny bit better. Don't worry, it still left me with plenty of time for the other, more meaningful things I'm doing.

Christ.

oh that's nothing:

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) introduced a new bill this week aiming to rename Greenland to “Red, White, and Blueland,” as President Trump seeks to acquire the island territory.

The legislation, called the “Red, White, and Blueland Act of 2025,” directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to oversee the implementation of the name change and to ensure official documentation and maps refer to Greenland by its updated name.

The legislation also authorizes Trump to enter into negotiations with Denmark “to purchase or otherwise acquire Greenland.”

“America is back and will soon be bigger than ever with the addition of Red, White, and Blueland,” Carter said in a statement Tuesday, after introducing the legislation.

checked to see how my former employer is handling it:

"Britannica is retaining the name Gulf of Mexico in maps, while noting in articles that it can also be called the Gulf of America. This recognizes that the gulf is not U.S. territory and has been internationally known as the Gulf of Mexico since the 16th century."

interesting bc it usually adheres to the US Board on Geographic Names, but maybe they just don't want to change the maps if there's a chance the name will eventually be reverted

It's not easy being Red, White and Blue

why am I arguing with randos on Bluesky about this

I guess I'd wonder why you seem so invested in making sure people understand that 'Gulf of America' is "correct", but I'm past caring about the whole dumb thing and I regret even making my post earlier.

It was a tiny, petty thing on my part and never imagined it, of all things, would be something that got piled on but ilx is so weird these days so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

as a professional fact-checker, I guess I'm not ready to abandon the US Board on Geographic Names as an authoritative source

I guess if Trump signs an executive order saying that 3 comes after 1 then Google would be correct by telling Americans that the order of numbers is 1,3,2,4,5...

jon you're not getting piled on

i'm sorry for being kind of a dick? maybe? earlier. i just think we probably need to do things that are not focusing very hard on the very stupidest thing on earth rn

as a trans woman uniquely targeted by many executive orders in the past two weeks i do not give a fuck about what the gulf's name is. just my thing

Definitely, I've already made some calls and written some emails to reps this morning, just felt like one more tiny thing.

President Keyes, that's not an equivalent example, unless there is a U.S. government agency on numerical order and Google has a longstanding policy of presenting information about numerical order in accordance with what that agency officially recognizes and approves.

“America is back and will soon be bigger than ever with the addition of Red, White, and Blueland,” Carter said in a statement Tuesday, after introducing the legislation.

If we have to have fascism does it have to be so cringe?

On changing the name of the gulf back, I wouldn't expect that. Which Democrat is going to come into office and change it? I think this will be what the U.S. calls it from now on.

"President Keyes" going to need to rethink his entirely earnest example there...

xp I think you're probably right, I'm just trying to imagine Brit@nnica's rationale.

Trump may deprive us of life, liberty, and happiness, but he'll have to pry our pedantry out of our cold dead hands.