User-Supported News Commentary Hosted by Craig Crawford
Fraught and/or Bought
Wisconsin or Flori-dah
Attribution: Election Integrity by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com
Author: patd
“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad."
"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
View all posts by patd
45 thoughts on “Fraught and/or Bought”
colbert
President Trump plans to unveil his economy-killing tariffs in a splashy Rose Garden event fit for reality television, and he wants us to believe that climate change is going to be good for the world, while his administration is snatching people off the street and sending them to a prison in El Salvador without due process.
Cory Booker wrote himself into the Senate annals Tuesday, setting a new record for the chamber’s longest speech when he held the floor for more than 25 hours and surpassed the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 1957 filibuster against civil rights.
The New Jersey Democrat took the floor at 6:59 p.m. on Monday, saying he was doing so with the “intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able” in order to protest the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration.
At 7:18 p.m. Tuesday, he surpassed Thurmond’s 1957 speech, which lasted 24 hours and 18 minutes, according to the Senate historian. Booker yielded the floor at 8:05 p.m., adding 48 minutes to the record.
“Maybe my ego got caught up that maybe, maybe, just maybe, I could break this record of the man who tried to stop the rights upon which I stand,” Booker said. “I’m not here, though, because of his speech; I’m here despite his speech.”
[continues]
Then wear the cheese hat, if that will move them;
If you can write checks, write checks for them too,
Till they cry “Asshole, cheese-hatted, check-writing asshole,
your cars suck too.
While watching Senator Cory Booker holding the floor with a wonderfully long talk I was thinking back to when he first made the national stage. I cannot remember the exact date, maybe it will be worth looking up sometime. What I do remember is the usual stuff.
Will him being Black be a problem? He is so young, is he old enough to be nominated? What has he done, we never heard of him before? The usual stuff.
He was young, fresh and many people saw his potential. He is showing it today. Although now in his fifties he can inspire young people and old. Hopefully he gains power and can tell Sen Schumer to retire.
Could Dodo’s chaotic scheme with high tariffs, deep government employee cuts (thus adding to even higher unemployment stats) really be a devious way to get the fed reserve to cut interest rates due to the recession he seems hell bent on causing? next to tariffs and revenge, cut rates are his most favorite obsessions. Goldman Sachs Projects Three US Rate Cuts in 2025, Ups Recession Probability to 35%
I wonder what he feels like throwing $26million down a rat hole. I guess about the same way I feel about throwing away $2.70
sturge, he’ll write it off as business expense along with fanciful deductions in re X deal. would love to see his returns — creative masterpieces no doubt.
A cyber sleuth has posted on a prominent cybercrime forum what they claim is the largest social media data breach ever, which allegedly leaked information linked to more than 2.8 billion accounts on X, formerly Twitter.
This leak could enable widespread phishing and identity scams by correlating email addresses with detailed metadata, including usernames, tweet history, and location data. The breach would rank among the largest data exposures in history in terms of account volume, raising serious questions about internal controls at the platform and its handling of past and ongoing cybersecurity threats.
The data likely includes deactivated accounts, bots, spam accounts, and API-based profiles, which could explain the discrepancy between the number of leaked profiles and the current user base of X, estimated to be around 335 million globally.
*That’s cute, kinda like not everyone in the SSA database is actually getting a check and there is NO widespread fraud, as Elon & Donny’s DOGE demons claim.
X has not yet publicly acknowledged any data breach. The exposure comes just days after Elon Musk completed the transfer of X to his AI venture, which will become a major part of the site’s future.
*Because X is almost worthless, and he took out loans against TeSSla for it, and TeSSla stock is dropping so the loans were going to get called, so he had to make a unethical if not fraudulent transfer???
MuskRat’s investor call is 4/22. (Not on Hitler’s birthday? Huh.)
He’s going to Mars. There will be self-driving taxis. Watch, while pulls a rabbit out of his black, MAGAt hat. Such a charlatan. Liar. Grifter.
Vice President JD Vance will assume the role of finance chairman for the Republican National Committee — an unconventional move for a sitting vice president, but one that also places a top ally of President Trump within the party’s campaign wing ahead of the 2026 midterms.
*So, JD is going to buddy up yo every state Republican chair. What will that mean for state rules? Does it matter, or is JD just setting up himself for 2028? Everyone hates JD, the way everyone hates Elon, but they are not very self-aware, so…
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) is set to warn lawmakers about a “potential judicial coup d’etat” during a congressional hearing about overreaching federal judges on Tuesday, according to prepared remarks obtained by The Daily Wire.
“There is clearly a potential constitutional crisis involving the Judicial Branch’s effort to fully override the Legislative and Executive branches,” a draft of Gingrich’s remarks says. “Fifteen District Judges effectively seized control of various Executive Branch duties in the first six weeks of the current presidency through nationwide injunctions. This is potentially a judicial coup d’etat. It clearly violates the Constitution and more than 200 years of American history.”
*I could’ve sworn Gingrich was dead. He’s such a liar. The coup is what tRUMPutin/Elon/DOGE are doing, and RussoRepublicans in Congress are letting it happen.
meme #2…
oh, the irony that Strom’s filibuster record is broken by a guy his filibuster was trying to deny his civil rights. Strom is rolling over in his grave.
we’re letting a foreigner use Air Force One?
hellllooooo we’re being invaded and overthrown by foreign billionaires hellllooooo
An Idaho Republican has accused a GOP rival of harassment in an op-ed after he reported her farm to federal immigration authorities.
In January, Ryan Spoon, vice chair of the Republican Party in Ada County, publicly called for immigration raids on State Representative Stephanie Mickelsen’s farm, accusing her of employing undocumented workers.
Days later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrived at Mickelsen Farms, escalating political tensions and raising concerns about the impact of immigration enforcement on Idaho’s agriculture industry.
“Those who speak up with concerns that challenge certain views are quickly labeled as non-conservative and targeted for harassment,” Mickelsen wrote in an op-ed published in The Idaho Statesman.
*F-ing n@zis!
RIP Val Kilmer
he had a nice philosophy about death that he expressed in the bio-doc about him
on Amazon, worth a watch
“Those who speak up with concerns that challenge certain views are quickly labeled as non-conservative and targeted for harassment,” Mickelsen wrote in an op-ed published in The Idaho Statesman.”
DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Code Base in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
*NO!!! Call your Senators & Rep every day! 202-224-3121
A Capitol Hill hearing held to explore supposed government censorship under Joe Biden was based on a “fiction”, a leading expert on countering online disinformation told members of Congress on Tuesday.
Nina Jankowicz, head of the American Sunlight Project, a pro-democracy organization, went on the offensive at a House of Representatives foreign relations subcommittee meeting held to examine the existence of an alleged “censorship industrial complex”, which Republicans claim was established to stifle rightwing views on social media, rather than combat foreign propaganda, as officially stated.
Having been labeled a “spearhead” and “tsarina” of such efforts by the committee’s Republican chair, Bill Huizenga, Jankowicz – who briefly led the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation unit under the Biden administration – said the hearing was being held at a time when Donald Trump was attempting aggressive free speech restrictions.
“The premise of this hearing, the so called censorship industrial complex, is a fiction that has not only had profound impacts on my life and safety, but on our national security,”shesaid in her opening statement at a fractious hearing that exposed the width of the chasm between Republicans and Democrats on the issue.
“More alarmingly, this fiction is itself suppressing speech and stymieing critical research that protects our country.
“I want to acknowledge the irony that we’re having this discussion as we witness an assault on the first amendment we have not seen in decades. The Trump administration has directed far more egregious violations of our constitution than the imagined actions of the Biden administration on which this hearing is premised.”
Democrats lined up to denounce the hearing as “hypocrisy” and “waste of taxpayers’ money” in light of the Trump administration’s attempts to deport foreign students who had expressed pro-Palestinian views, moves that Jankowicz said violated the US constitution’s first amendment, which protects free speech.
Sydney Kamlager-Dove, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, said the hearing was “out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans.
“I’ve been to the state department, and I do have concerns about censorship – censorship of the employees who are terrified to say the wrong thing, to say anything, or have the wrong word in their job title and be terminated by an administration that publicly relishes punishing people for their speech,” she said. “If we want to talk about censorship, we should begin with Trump’s unprecedented assault on the first amendment and rule of law.”
Keith Self, a Republican representative from Texas, provoked anger among Democrats by appearing to liken the Biden administration’s anti-disinformation efforts to steps by the Nazi to construct public opinion in 1930s Germany.
“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels [the Nazi propaganda minister]: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ and I think that may be what we’re discussing here,” he said.
*A n@zi quoting a n@zi to try to claim others are n@zis.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Wednesday accused billionaire Elon Musk of sabotaging her constituents’ access to their Social Security benefits.
Writing on BlueSky, Warren revealed that she’s been “hearing from Social Security recipients in MA who’ve been marked as ‘not currently receiving payments,’ on the Social Security website” despite the fact that they have never been marked as such in the past.
According to experts who spoke with Wired, the effort to migrate the SSA’s database from the COBOL programming language to a more modern language such as Java.
Experts who spoke with Wired said that this kind of operation is fraught with peril and could trigger what the publication describes as a “system collapse” if not done with the utmost care.
*Pffft, their utmost care is to use generative AI. They aren’t smart and disciplined enough to do coding themselves. Donny’s DOGE demons are getting paid 6 figures to screw things up and steal data. Elon is making $8 million a DAY, per an oversight hearing.
Gingrich died in the 90’s right after Larry Flynt got ahold of that naughty VCR tape. At least that’s what I heard. He keeps trying to say he’s not dead, but we know better than that, eh?
BiD
-set unreasonable goal
-set everyone up for failure by that metric
-fire anyone you want since everyone failed
-get double productivity out of remaining workforce
rinse repeat, tech grind culture
New video on my cooking channel: Potato Power..
Hearing burps of folks who had VA disability pay deposited and immediately clawed back.
This, in addition to Senator Warren saying SS recipients are now marked as “not receiving benefits” in the SSA website.
This is some fried baloney, this administration and DOGE and congressional bootlickers!
Craig – There’s a diner somewhere in the Midwest that has a fried baloney sandwich for one of their daily specials.
Geez can’t Trump at least announce insane tariffs without a pack of lies. CNN fact checke Daniel Dale just ticked off a bunch. For starters we effectively pay no tariff to export milk to Canada. Everything he said about that was made up.
General consensus from those on the intertubes – whatever this is could easily be titled insanity. Bonkers, anti-American, with a constant stream of “where is russia?”. Stock market futures are aiming for Zero, a modern insanity level of stocks. The buyers of swasticars stock gave up and are letting the market place kill it. They can’t keep up with the sell orders.
Is this the doing of krasnov? Probably, but there are other inputs in to this terrible attack on the U.S.
meme #3….
OTAY folks – you are going to get a very short lesson in what de minimis is and is not. It is the term to cover something that is too small or low in value to charge a tariff, I am talking about import de minimis. It costs more to apply and collect the tariff than paid amount. You have a one thousand dollar wood sculpture, the tariff would be ten dollars; it costs forty dollars to collect ten dollars. So you let it go under de minimis. In a shipment there may be one hundred sculptures worth one hundred thousand dollars, the tariff is forty dollars each even though that totals forty thousand dollars. Each sculpture goes to a different person at separate addresses. The cost to get forty dollars from one thousand individuals is more than it is worth collecting.
The however is that if a company such as a national hobby store chain is buying one thousand of the sculptures it would be charged the tariff and it would be collected.
It is the shipment value that is de minimis.
I was involved in the creation of the modern (2020 era) de minimis for imports.
We knew there would be plenty of sellers, importers, buyers, shippers agents and others willing and eager to game the system. They do not want to pay shipping fees (carriers charge by the tariff codes too), agent fees, import fees, tariffs, storage fees and a lot of other fees built onto imports.
That thousand sculptures could easily be broken into small shipments, but we would catch those, we do have smart people and computers too. Try to use separate shipments to different world locations, yeah, that too. There are penalties to reduce the temptation to abuse the system.
So why are these on the stink level at the WH? I think due to the quantity involved. Someone, like an ignorant high schooler who does not understand international trade, tariffs and other important things that are part of normal life. Hundreds of thousands of imports show up in the U.S. everyday. Car parts from Canada and Mexico by train. Car parts from Asia and Europe show up by ship. Thousands by international shippers UPS, FedEx, DHL and airline freighters. International mail. Containers, and so much more.
So it is big. It is flashy. It is something mysterious to low level intelligence idiots. Yup, you got the attention of a demented, delusional, diseased senile moron. That is how you get chaos and idiocy.
Wall Street Journal Flags 4 Words From Donald Trump That Could Now Haunt The GOP
Trump last week dismissed concerns about the impact of his 25% tariffs on foreign-made autos by admitting, “I couldn’t care less” if they lead to higher prices for American consumers.
The numbers say anti-Tesla protests are working. So do Musk’s increasingly unhinged actions. Suggesting that George Soros and the founder of LinkedIn should be arrested after an old lady shouted at a car is one of the softest moments in recent American history. This is not the gesture of a man who is impervious to protests. It is the response of an oligarch who is being driven visibly insane by them.
Nearly choking up on national TV as you lament your falling stock price is weak shit. And it gets to the core of how Musk operates. In a particularly get-over-yourselves moment in January, Axiosdescribed Musk and Trump’s governing style as “masculine maximalism,” embodied by “tough-guy language, macho actions…and often unmoved by emotionalism, empathy or restraint.” But back on Earth, the Tesla boss can be better understood in schoolyard terms. He can dish it but he can’t take it.
On Friday, in the same interview in which he complained about his stock price, Musk promised Baier that the government would attempt to rein in the protests of his car company by “going after” Tesla critics.
He is just sort of waving his arms hysterically, like an emperor beckoning for the guards because his chicken is overdone, while pushing a theory that Democratic mega-donors including Reid Hoffman and George Soros are secretly responsible for funding “the organizations attacking me.” (Hoffman, the more outspoken of the two, has denied funding protestors, and told Musk on Twitter that he would “rather make shit up about me than fix your problems”; after this story was published, the Soros-founded Open Society Foundations issued a statement to Mother Jones stating that they “do not fund protesters or direct protests” and “condemn all acts of violence and any unlawful behavior.”)
For Democrats, Musk’s spiraling is an asset. He is both deeply unpopular and out of control; his response to opposition is to descend deeper into the paranoia that got him there. In Wisconsin, he responded to accusations that he was attempting to buy a state supreme court race by offering seven-figure checks to voters; accusing Soros of planting protestors at his events; and rambling on stage about ending the Federal Reserve. The race, he promised last week, in words that have never before been uttered about a state supreme court race, would “affect the entire destiny of humanity.” Musk made the election a referendum on himself, turnout surged, and the Democrat won in a landslide.
He throws a fit when things don’t go his way. He wilts. This is someone who can be beat. In another context you might call this terminal inability to take a punch a “glass jaw.” The term “keyboard warrior” comes to mind. But I can think of another word for something that’s so ostentatious and in-your-face except for when it needs to be—a symbol of decadence and insecurity and deregulation that boasts bulletproof toughness, but which breaks into pieces at the first sign of stress.
*Everything tRUMPsky touches, dies.
So Mika came up with a good one yesterday, which I was unable to post because of like work. Regarding co-president, Ellen, chainsaws, cheese, heads, and checks. I like it.
I am watching Meidas Touch and House minority leader Jerrries is being interviewed. Something is very off. He keeps talking about repub/magat “Pain point” and never answering a single question from the sympathetic interviewer. Softball questions are not answered, just back to the “pain point” talking point.
I thought he was going to be a kick a speaker and now minority leader. He is not. He is in the same room as Sen. Schumer. sigh. We need responses. We need push back. We do not need bland talking points about how crummy the rupub/magats are.
BB – Agreed. Jeffries & Schumer are cut from the same monotonous cloth. AOC, Crockett, and Raskin have more intensity than Jeffries.
They need to get to the core issue: Income inequality.
That will stop some of the left /right stuff, and get folks looking up/down.
Then, they need some workable solutions that folks can understand; nothing wonky.
*SFB forgot to impose tariffs on Russia. Oopsky.
Our local news reports car dealerships are adding a separate line for Trump’s tariff to MSRP stickers on the lot. They should put his name on it.
EU president live now: “if you take on one of us, you take on all of us”
colbert
President Trump plans to unveil his economy-killing tariffs in a splashy Rose Garden event fit for reality television, and he wants us to believe that climate change is going to be good for the world, while his administration is snatching people off the street and sending them to a prison in El Salvador without due process.
bravo Sen. Booker!!!
So long, Strom: Cory Booker breaks Thurmond’s Senate record with 25-hour speech – POLITICO
Then wear the cheese hat, if that will move them;
If you can write checks, write checks for them too,
Till they cry “Asshole, cheese-hatted, check-writing asshole,
your cars suck too.
While watching Senator Cory Booker holding the floor with a wonderfully long talk I was thinking back to when he first made the national stage. I cannot remember the exact date, maybe it will be worth looking up sometime. What I do remember is the usual stuff.
Will him being Black be a problem? He is so young, is he old enough to be nominated? What has he done, we never heard of him before? The usual stuff.
He was young, fresh and many people saw his potential. He is showing it today. Although now in his fifties he can inspire young people and old. Hopefully he gains power and can tell Sen Schumer to retire.
BB, he’s more than qualified. wiki on Booker:
Could Dodo’s chaotic scheme with high tariffs, deep government employee cuts (thus adding to even higher unemployment stats) really be a devious way to get the fed reserve to cut interest rates due to the recession he seems hell bent on causing? next to tariffs and revenge, cut rates are his most favorite obsessions.
Goldman Sachs Projects Three US Rate Cuts in 2025, Ups Recession Probability to 35%
Marlette in FL
https://cdn.creators.com/588/391042/391042_image.jpg
I wonder what he feels like throwing $26million down a rat hole. I guess about the same way I feel about throwing away $2.70
sturge, he’ll write it off as business expense along with fanciful deductions in re X deal. would love to see his returns — creative masterpieces no doubt.
today’s meme…
Wonder if I can write off that $2.70…….
Ma ga saga, eh?
https://www.newsweek.com/twitter-x-elon-musk-data-breach-2054012
A cyber sleuth has posted on a prominent cybercrime forum what they claim is the largest social media data breach ever, which allegedly leaked information linked to more than 2.8 billion accounts on X, formerly Twitter.
This leak could enable widespread phishing and identity scams by correlating email addresses with detailed metadata, including usernames, tweet history, and location data. The breach would rank among the largest data exposures in history in terms of account volume, raising serious questions about internal controls at the platform and its handling of past and ongoing cybersecurity threats.
The data likely includes deactivated accounts, bots, spam accounts, and API-based profiles, which could explain the discrepancy between the number of leaked profiles and the current user base of X, estimated to be around 335 million globally.
*That’s cute, kinda like not everyone in the SSA database is actually getting a check and there is NO widespread fraud, as Elon & Donny’s DOGE demons claim.
X has not yet publicly acknowledged any data breach. The exposure comes just days after Elon Musk completed the transfer of X to his AI venture, which will become a major part of the site’s future.
*Because X is almost worthless, and he took out loans against TeSSla for it, and TeSSla stock is dropping so the loans were going to get called, so he had to make a unethical if not fraudulent transfer???
MuskRat’s investor call is 4/22. (Not on Hitler’s birthday? Huh.)
He’s going to Mars. There will be self-driving taxis. Watch, while pulls a rabbit out of his black, MAGAt hat. Such a charlatan. Liar. Grifter.
https://www.npr.org/2025/03/18/nx-s1-5332228/vice-president-vance-republican-national-committee
Vice President JD Vance will assume the role of finance chairman for the Republican National Committee — an unconventional move for a sitting vice president, but one that also places a top ally of President Trump within the party’s campaign wing ahead of the 2026 midterms.
*So, JD is going to buddy up yo every state Republican chair. What will that mean for state rules? Does it matter, or is JD just setting up himself for 2028? Everyone hates JD, the way everyone hates Elon, but they are not very self-aware, so…
https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-newt-gingrich-to-warn-lawmakers-about-coup-detat-by-federal-judges
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) is set to warn lawmakers about a “potential judicial coup d’etat” during a congressional hearing about overreaching federal judges on Tuesday, according to prepared remarks obtained by The Daily Wire.
“There is clearly a potential constitutional crisis involving the Judicial Branch’s effort to fully override the Legislative and Executive branches,” a draft of Gingrich’s remarks says. “Fifteen District Judges effectively seized control of various Executive Branch duties in the first six weeks of the current presidency through nationwide injunctions. This is potentially a judicial coup d’etat. It clearly violates the Constitution and more than 200 years of American history.”
*I could’ve sworn Gingrich was dead. He’s such a liar. The coup is what tRUMPutin/Elon/DOGE are doing, and RussoRepublicans in Congress are letting it happen.
meme #2…
oh, the irony that Strom’s filibuster record is broken by a guy his filibuster was trying to deny his civil rights. Strom is rolling over in his grave.
we’re letting a foreigner use Air Force One?
hellllooooo we’re being invaded and overthrown by foreign billionaires hellllooooo
https://www.newsweek.com/republican-calls-ice-gop-rival-idaho-farm-2053021
Republican Calls ICE on GOP Rival’s Farm
An Idaho Republican has accused a GOP rival of harassment in an op-ed after he reported her farm to federal immigration authorities.
In January, Ryan Spoon, vice chair of the Republican Party in Ada County, publicly called for immigration raids on State Representative Stephanie Mickelsen’s farm, accusing her of employing undocumented workers.
Days later, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrived at Mickelsen Farms, escalating political tensions and raising concerns about the impact of immigration enforcement on Idaho’s agriculture industry.
“Those who speak up with concerns that challenge certain views are quickly labeled as non-conservative and targeted for harassment,” Mickelsen wrote in an op-ed published in The Idaho Statesman.
*F-ing n@zis!
RIP Val Kilmer
he had a nice philosophy about death that he expressed in the bio-doc about him
on Amazon, worth a watch
“Those who speak up with concerns that challenge certain views are quickly labeled as non-conservative and targeted for harassment,” Mickelsen wrote in an op-ed published in The Idaho Statesman.”
lol joins the nazis, surprised they are nazis
https://www.wired.com/story/doge-rebuild-social-security-administration-cobol-benefits/
DOGE Plans to Rebuild SSA Code Base in Months, Risking Benefits and System Collapse
Social Security systems contain tens of millions of lines of code written in COBOL, an archaic programming language. Safely rewriting that code would take years—DOGE wants it done in months.
*NO!!! Call your Senators & Rep every day! 202-224-3121
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/capitol-hill-hearing-biden-censorship-trump
A Capitol Hill hearing held to explore supposed government censorship under Joe Biden was based on a “fiction”, a leading expert on countering online disinformation told members of Congress on Tuesday.
Nina Jankowicz, head of the American Sunlight Project, a pro-democracy organization, went on the offensive at a House of Representatives foreign relations subcommittee meeting held to examine the existence of an alleged “censorship industrial complex”, which Republicans claim was established to stifle rightwing views on social media, rather than combat foreign propaganda, as officially stated.
Having been labeled a “spearhead” and “tsarina” of such efforts by the committee’s Republican chair, Bill Huizenga, Jankowicz – who briefly led the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation unit under the Biden administration – said the hearing was being held at a time when Donald Trump was attempting aggressive free speech restrictions.
“The premise of this hearing, the so called censorship industrial complex, is a fiction that has not only had profound impacts on my life and safety, but on our national security,”she said in her opening statement at a fractious hearing that exposed the width of the chasm between Republicans and Democrats on the issue.
“More alarmingly, this fiction is itself suppressing speech and stymieing critical research that protects our country.
“I want to acknowledge the irony that we’re having this discussion as we witness an assault on the first amendment we have not seen in decades. The Trump administration has directed far more egregious violations of our constitution than the imagined actions of the Biden administration on which this hearing is premised.”
Democrats lined up to denounce the hearing as “hypocrisy” and “waste of taxpayers’ money” in light of the Trump administration’s attempts to deport foreign students who had expressed pro-Palestinian views, moves that Jankowicz said violated the US constitution’s first amendment, which protects free speech.
Sydney Kamlager-Dove, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, said the hearing was “out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans.
“I’ve been to the state department, and I do have concerns about censorship – censorship of the employees who are terrified to say the wrong thing, to say anything, or have the wrong word in their job title and be terminated by an administration that publicly relishes punishing people for their speech,” she said. “If we want to talk about censorship, we should begin with Trump’s unprecedented assault on the first amendment and rule of law.”
Keith Self, a Republican representative from Texas, provoked anger among Democrats by appearing to liken the Biden administration’s anti-disinformation efforts to steps by the Nazi to construct public opinion in 1930s Germany.
“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels [the Nazi propaganda minister]: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ and I think that may be what we’re discussing here,” he said.
*A n@zi quoting a n@zi to try to claim others are n@zis.
https://www.rawstory.com/elon-musk-social-security-2671661960/
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Wednesday accused billionaire Elon Musk of sabotaging her constituents’ access to their Social Security benefits.
Writing on BlueSky, Warren revealed that she’s been “hearing from Social Security recipients in MA who’ve been marked as ‘not currently receiving payments,’ on the Social Security website” despite the fact that they have never been marked as such in the past.
It’s unclear why beneficiaries would suddenly start receiving messages telling them that they are not receiving their payments, although Wired reported recently that many insiders at the Social Security Administration have been alarmed by a Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency project to completely rebuild the codebase used by the Social Security Administration in a matter of mere months.
According to experts who spoke with Wired, the effort to migrate the SSA’s database from the COBOL programming language to a more modern language such as Java.
Experts who spoke with Wired said that this kind of operation is fraught with peril and could trigger what the publication describes as a “system collapse” if not done with the utmost care.
*Pffft, their utmost care is to use generative AI. They aren’t smart and disciplined enough to do coding themselves. Donny’s DOGE demons are getting paid 6 figures to screw things up and steal data. Elon is making $8 million a DAY, per an oversight hearing.
Gingrich died in the 90’s right after Larry Flynt got ahold of that naughty VCR tape. At least that’s what I heard. He keeps trying to say he’s not dead, but we know better than that, eh?
BiD
-set unreasonable goal
-set everyone up for failure by that metric
-fire anyone you want since everyone failed
-get double productivity out of remaining workforce
rinse repeat, tech grind culture
New video on my cooking channel: Potato Power..
Hearing burps of folks who had VA disability pay deposited and immediately clawed back.
This, in addition to Senator Warren saying SS recipients are now marked as “not receiving benefits” in the SSA website.
This is some fried baloney, this administration and DOGE and congressional bootlickers!
Craig – There’s a diner somewhere in the Midwest that has a fried baloney sandwich for one of their daily specials.
Geez can’t Trump at least announce insane tariffs without a pack of lies. CNN fact checke Daniel Dale just ticked off a bunch. For starters we effectively pay no tariff to export milk to Canada. Everything he said about that was made up.
General consensus from those on the intertubes – whatever this is could easily be titled insanity. Bonkers, anti-American, with a constant stream of “where is russia?”. Stock market futures are aiming for Zero, a modern insanity level of stocks. The buyers of swasticars stock gave up and are letting the market place kill it. They can’t keep up with the sell orders.
Is this the doing of krasnov? Probably, but there are other inputs in to this terrible attack on the U.S.
meme #3….
OTAY folks – you are going to get a very short lesson in what de minimis is and is not. It is the term to cover something that is too small or low in value to charge a tariff, I am talking about import de minimis. It costs more to apply and collect the tariff than paid amount. You have a one thousand dollar wood sculpture, the tariff would be ten dollars; it costs forty dollars to collect ten dollars. So you let it go under de minimis. In a shipment there may be one hundred sculptures worth one hundred thousand dollars, the tariff is forty dollars each even though that totals forty thousand dollars. Each sculpture goes to a different person at separate addresses. The cost to get forty dollars from one thousand individuals is more than it is worth collecting.
The however is that if a company such as a national hobby store chain is buying one thousand of the sculptures it would be charged the tariff and it would be collected.
It is the shipment value that is de minimis.
I was involved in the creation of the modern (2020 era) de minimis for imports.
We knew there would be plenty of sellers, importers, buyers, shippers agents and others willing and eager to game the system. They do not want to pay shipping fees (carriers charge by the tariff codes too), agent fees, import fees, tariffs, storage fees and a lot of other fees built onto imports.
That thousand sculptures could easily be broken into small shipments, but we would catch those, we do have smart people and computers too. Try to use separate shipments to different world locations, yeah, that too. There are penalties to reduce the temptation to abuse the system.
So why are these on the stink level at the WH? I think due to the quantity involved. Someone, like an ignorant high schooler who does not understand international trade, tariffs and other important things that are part of normal life. Hundreds of thousands of imports show up in the U.S. everyday. Car parts from Canada and Mexico by train. Car parts from Asia and Europe show up by ship. Thousands by international shippers UPS, FedEx, DHL and airline freighters. International mail. Containers, and so much more.
So it is big. It is flashy. It is something mysterious to low level intelligence idiots. Yup, you got the attention of a demented, delusional, diseased senile moron. That is how you get chaos and idiocy.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/wall-street-journal-trump-quote_n_67ecfb57e4b0b937ab8ef2f0
Wall Street Journal Flags 4 Words From Donald Trump That Could Now Haunt The GOP
Trump last week dismissed concerns about the impact of his 25% tariffs on foreign-made autos by admitting, “I couldn’t care less” if they lead to higher prices for American consumers.
Elon Musk Can’t Take the Heat
The numbers say anti-Tesla protests are working. So do Musk’s increasingly unhinged actions.
Suggesting that George Soros and the founder of LinkedIn should be arrested after an old lady shouted at a car is one of the softest moments in recent American history. This is not the gesture of a man who is impervious to protests. It is the response of an oligarch who is being driven visibly insane by them.
Nearly choking up on national TV as you lament your falling stock price is weak shit. And it gets to the core of how Musk operates. In a particularly get-over-yourselves moment in January, Axiosdescribed Musk and Trump’s governing style as “masculine maximalism,” embodied by “tough-guy language, macho actions…and often unmoved by emotionalism, empathy or restraint.” But back on Earth, the Tesla boss can be better understood in schoolyard terms. He can dish it but he can’t take it.
On Friday, in the same interview in which he complained about his stock price, Musk promised Baier that the government would attempt to rein in the protests of his car company by “going after” Tesla critics.
He is just sort of waving his arms hysterically, like an emperor beckoning for the guards because his chicken is overdone, while pushing a theory that Democratic mega-donors including Reid Hoffman and George Soros are secretly responsible for funding “the organizations attacking me.” (Hoffman, the more outspoken of the two, has denied funding protestors, and told Musk on Twitter that he would “rather make shit up about me than fix your problems”; after this story was published, the Soros-founded Open Society Foundations issued a statement to Mother Jones stating that they “do not fund protesters or direct protests” and “condemn all acts of violence and any unlawful behavior.”)
For Democrats, Musk’s spiraling is an asset. He is both deeply unpopular and out of control; his response to opposition is to descend deeper into the paranoia that got him there. In Wisconsin, he responded to accusations that he was attempting to buy a state supreme court race by offering seven-figure checks to voters; accusing Soros of planting protestors at his events; and rambling on stage about ending the Federal Reserve. The race, he promised last week, in words that have never before been uttered about a state supreme court race, would “affect the entire destiny of humanity.” Musk made the election a referendum on himself, turnout surged, and the Democrat won in a landslide.
He throws a fit when things don’t go his way. He wilts. This is someone who can be beat. In another context you might call this terminal inability to take a punch a “glass jaw.” The term “keyboard warrior” comes to mind. But I can think of another word for something that’s so ostentatious and in-your-face except for when it needs to be—a symbol of decadence and insecurity and deregulation that boasts bulletproof toughness, but which breaks into pieces at the first sign of stress.
*Everything tRUMPsky touches, dies.
So Mika came up with a good one yesterday, which I was unable to post because of like work. Regarding co-president, Ellen, chainsaws, cheese, heads, and checks. I like it.
Renee, for you.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=4XdzEV13E7g&si=2BzjEHFYKdvs-wFa
I am watching Meidas Touch and House minority leader Jerrries is being interviewed. Something is very off. He keeps talking about repub/magat “Pain point” and never answering a single question from the sympathetic interviewer. Softball questions are not answered, just back to the “pain point” talking point.
I thought he was going to be a kick a speaker and now minority leader. He is not. He is in the same room as Sen. Schumer. sigh. We need responses. We need push back. We do not need bland talking points about how crummy the rupub/magats are.
BB – Agreed. Jeffries & Schumer are cut from the same monotonous cloth. AOC, Crockett, and Raskin have more intensity than Jeffries.
They need to get to the core issue: Income inequality.
That will stop some of the left /right stuff, and get folks looking up/down.
Then, they need some workable solutions that folks can understand; nothing wonky.
*SFB forgot to impose tariffs on Russia. Oopsky.
Our local news reports car dealerships are adding a separate line for Trump’s tariff to MSRP stickers on the lot. They should put his name on it.
EU president live now: “if you take on one of us, you take on all of us”
NEW THREAD by our fearless leader