He wrote back today, today!, explaining his February 25th vote for the budget framework, about which I asked nothing, mentioned nothing.
But what I did ask about went entirely unaddressed.
This is called being without representation.
What a moron.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
I wrote to my Congressman John Moolenaar last week about today's continuing resolution vote
House Freedom Caucus caves completely to King Ludwig and Prince Elon, House votes 217-213-2 to continue spending at Biden levels through the end of fiscal year 2025
Two seats remain vacant due to Trump appointments and one is newly vacant due to sudden death.
Republican Massie voted Nay and Democrat Golden of Maine voted Yea. Republican Moore of North Carolina and Democrat Grijalva did not vote.
The bill moves to the Senate.
The Republican controlled House dares Senate Democrats to vote Nay and has gone on vacation until March 24th.
The government will close down on Friday at midnight if the Senate fails to pass the measure.
60 votes are needed in the Senate where the Republicans are in the majority with 53 seats.
House narrowly passes six-month funding bill as shutdown deadline nears
Roll Call 70 | Bill Number: H. R. 1968
Ed Kilgore: Senate Democrats have no choice on the dirty continuing spending resolution if it passes the House, have only one filibuster to use in 2025, and now's the time
Johnson added conservative sweeteners to the CR, which isn’t “clean” (i.e., a simple extension of current funding levels for everything) as advertised, but instead adds immediate money for defense and mass deportation, and cuts domestic spending by $13 billion. House Democrats already inclined to vote “no” on the CR because it contains no language forcing the executive branch to actually spend the money appropriated (which would restrict the power of DOGE or OMB to unilaterally “freeze” spending, cancel grants or contracts, or fire personnel) now have even less motivation to keep the government open. ...
To kill the CR, Democrats would have to launch a filibuster, and in that
circumstance it would be much easier for Republicans to blame the
Donkey Party for shutting down the federal government, despite the clear
intention of the Trump administration to keep gutting the government if
it remains open. If just seven Senate Democrats choose to join
Republicans (or all but Rand Paul, who is demanding deeper cuts; he’s
effectively matched with Democrat John Fetterman, who’s vowed to vote to avoid a shutdown), the CR will pass.
If Senate Democrats are put to the challenge and subsequently cave, they will have more than likely forfeited any real Democratic leverage for the remainder of 2025 beyond stirring up public unhappiness with Trump 2.0. Appropriations aside, most of Trump’s legislative agenda will be enacted via a gigantic budget reconciliation bill that cannot be filibustered. So the decision not to deploy a filibuster on the one crucial occasion it is available will represent an admission of powerlessness that won’t make rank-and-file Democrats happy. ...
More.
Mad King Ludwig declares war on Representative Thomas Massie (KY-4), one of only two Republicans remaining with the gumption to oppose the proposed continuing spending resolution
The other Republican opponent of the CR is Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He won his 2022 Senate race with 61.8% of the vote and won't need to stand for re-election until 2028 when Trump is history.
Massie is unafraid. He's been there, done that, and is still standing:
Monday, March 10, 2025
War is the father of everything awful
War is the father of debt, and of the Navy Seal barbarians in Congress who know how to destroy but not how to build:
... a lethal band of expert killers ... the current generation of ex-SEALs, who mostly came of fighting age during the Gulf War and the war on terror, have eagerly embraced a more combative style of politics — one that favors partisan warfare, legislative brinksmanship and an open embrace of Trump. ... it draws on the combativeness at the heart of what several of the members called the SEALs’ “warrior mentality”: the sense the SEALs will do whatever it takes — short of opposing Trump outright — to achieve their objective. ... they see the objective of their mission as tearing down an irreparably broken system rather than working within that system to pass bills. Judged by this metric, the former SEALs have been diligent foot soldiers in the MAGA movement, especially insofar as they have green-lit the Trump administration’s more aggressive efforts to extend his authority over independent agencies created by Congress and concentrate policy making power in the executive branch. ...
More.
Ontario's Doug Ford slaps 25% tariff on electricity bound for Minnesota, Michigan, and New York, threatens total cut-off
... “I will not hesitate to increase this charge. If the United State escalates, I will not hesitate to shut the electricity off completely,” Ontario Premier Doug Ford said at a news conference in Toronto. “Believe me when I say I do not want to do this. I feel terrible for the American people who didn’t start this trade war. It’s one person who is responsible, it’s President Trump.” ...
Quebec is also considering taking similar measures with electricity exports to the U.S. ...
Ford estimated it will add about CA$100 ($69) a month to the bills of each American affected. “It needs to end. Until these tariffs are off the table, until the threat of tariffs is gone for good, Ontario will not relent,” Ford said. ...
Ford’s Progressive Conservative government just won reelection by standing up for Canada against Trump. ...
Andrew Sullivan: The point is the abuse, whether it's Canada's Trudeau, Mexico's Sheinbaum, Germany's Scholz, Ukraine's Zelensky, or the S&P 500
Trump doesn't really believe in the tariffs, that they'll do anything one way or another. They are simply the readiest instruments which demonstrate his power, and the daily reminder to all and sundry that he is the king, Mad King Ludwig II of Bavaria reincarnate.
Trump says he’s not even looking at stock market, tariffs will make U.S. ‘very strong’
So long, Trump bump: Tech stocks wipe out last of post-election gains
... Bartiromo interjected: “That’s not clarity.” ...
... Canada and Mexico are best understood as the baby in the
playpen [whom Trump pelted with stones when he was five or six]. Trump himself re-negotiated a trade agreement with both in his
first term. Have they violated that deal? No. Have they refused to
cooperate on fentanyl and illegal migrants? No. Has Mexico reduced the
pressure on the Southern border to almost nothing. Dramatically. Is
there anything they can or could do to please Trump? No. The point
is the abuse. And like all abusers, Trump constantly shifts what he is
demanding, gaslights, threatens, charms, attacks … so that you begin to
realize there is nothing you can do except wait for his mood to change.
Welcome to monarchy. ...
Sunday, March 9, 2025
Andrew Sullivan throws the title of a recent book by Hillarycon Rod Dreher in his face, who is now at the heart of this new authoritarian Trump presidency through his friendship with J. D. Vance
Dreher has succumbed to the abuse of Trump. He lives by lies. He thinks Zelenskyy was the bad guy in the Oval Office.
Sullivan has not succumbed to our "sociopathic president":
... What the world saw last Friday was the same, central Trump dynamic: the leader of a smaller democracy that has withstood three years of brutal attack by a far larger dictatorship ... was still publicly humiliated, because he dared air his concern of no security guarantees against Russia. “Just say thank you,” Vance harangued him. “Have you said thank you once?” I cannot recall any visiting head of state who has ever, ever been thrown out of the White House the way Zelensky was. Why? Because he did not submit.
... The challenge for liberals of all stripes is a familiar one in dystopian democracies and rigid dictatorships: Live not by lies. Keep your grip on reality. Avoid the propaganda now washing down on you like torrential rain. Find a refuge, as I did on Wednesday — a place where eternal truths remain, or where free thinking can endure (Spinoza is a role model, which is why the Dishcast discusses him this week).
Avoid hysteria, which Trump wants and exploits. But avoid also being co-opted by a single one of his lies, to see clearly, and to speak simply. Read those you disagree with; get off most social media; choose doubt over certainty; restraint over impulse; resist this authoritarian and irrational moment by refocusing above all on the simple truth, as best as you can, and fighting all those on both extremes trying to annihilate it. ...
Here.
It's a magnificent essay which everyone should read.
Rod Dreher was a Hillarycon in 2016 because of, wait for it, The Madness of King Donald. And so was J. D. Vance.
Tesla has become real unpopular all of a sudden, what could the reason be?
... Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, more than a dozen violent or destructive acts have been directed at Tesla facilities, according to court documents, surveillance photographs, police records and local media reports reviewed by The Washington Post. ...
More.
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Friday, March 7, 2025
A few GOP senators are not happy with Trump on Ukraine
Republicans press Trump to resume military, intelligence aid to Ukraine
... Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) ...
... Susan Collins (R-Maine) ...
... One Republican senator who requested anonymity called the threat to deport thousands of Ukrainian refugees excessively “punitive.” ...
... Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), a member of the Armed Services Committee, said he doesn’t support the decision to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine. “I disagree with it,” he said. ...
Republican Bill Huizenga (MI-4) is pissed off by all the people calling his office to complain lol, doubts all the in-coming is legitimate
Michigan Republican congressman would prefer it if people stopped calling his office
... he wants constituents to stop calling his office, claiming that inquires shared directly on his website would “legitimize” who is from his district. ...
Meanwhile in the real world full time employment as a percentage of population fell for a seventh consecutive month in Feb 2025 to 48.88% from 50.26% in July 2024
That's the worst February reading since 47.51% in Feb 2021.
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Marco Rubio changes his forehead for Ash Wednesday
 |
A Russian "Grad" rocket launcher crosses the Kakhovka dam in March 2023 |
Internal polling must be really bad: Trump tries to reign in Elon Musk, or at least appear to be doing so
... The president’s message represents the first significant move to narrow Musk’s mandate. According to Trump’s new guidance, DOGE and its staff should play an advisory role — but Cabinet secretaries should make final decisions on personnel, policy and the pacing of implementation. ...
Trump plunges to -8 from +6 in Rasmussen Trump Approval Index
42% now strongly disapprove vs. 34% on January 23rd.
The House Freedom Caucus' Chip Roy, attacked by Trump in the past, is folding like a house of cards, will support yet another continuing resolution authorizing spending through September 30th
In shift, hard-line conservatives signal openness to stopgap to avert shutdown
... For years, members of the House Freedom Caucus have been predictable “no” votes on stopgaps and other spending measures that do not codify their priorities, railing against leaders for failing to approve appropriations bills on time.
But now, many of those members — happy with how the Trump
administration and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is taking a
sledgehammer to the federal government — are being atypically
cooperative and signaling support for Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.)
plan to pass a largely clean continuing resolution (CR) until Sept. 30,
the end of the fiscal year. Trump endorsed the full-year CR last week.
“My bottom line is: It’s a step forward, again, based on the word that we’re being given from the White House, that they will continue to do the work, that the president supports it and wants it, I’m comfortable,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a deficit hawk who is part of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. ...
These bumblebrains really don't get it.
Elon Musk and DOGE have usurped the role of Congress and have made the Congress irrelevant by accomplishing what they never do.
They should just pack it in. Or maybe DOGE should just eliminate them.
After all, they can't list any accomplishments, can they?
Judge John McConnell blocks Trump's freeze on federal grants and loans, citing the executive's usurpation of Congress' power of the purse
A second federal judge indefinitely blocked President Trump’s blanket freeze on federal grants and loans, saying the administration “put itself above Congress.”
U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s preliminary injunction in favor of Democratic state attorneys general adds to a near-identical block imposed by a federal judge in the nation’s capital late last month.
Both lawsuits commenced after Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a now-rescinded memo that instructed federal agencies to pause grants and loans, a sweeping freeze that covered trillions of dollars of federal spending.
Under McConnell’s order, the Trump administration is indefinitely prohibited from implementing an across-the-board funding freeze under a different name. Agencies can still limit funding access on an individualized basis under applicable laws and regulations.
“The Executive’s categorical freeze of appropriated and obligated funds fundamentally undermines the distinct constitutional roles of each branch of our government,” wrote McConnell, an appointee of former President Obama.
More.
Our servile GOP senators, who have been completely by-passed by DOGE, try to tell Elon Musk that he can't do that lol, now have to ask pretty please from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles
What an absolutely contemptible lot.
GOP senators tell Musk DOGE actions will require their votes
Republican senators told tech billionaire Elon Musk at a closed-door meeting Wednesday that his aggressive moves to shrink the federal government will need a vote on Capitol Hill, sending a clear message that he needs to respect Congress’s power of the purse. ...
Paul and other Republican senators said Musk appeared open to the idea but didn’t seem to expect DOGE’s cuts and workforce reductions would need to come back to Congress for ultimate approval. ...
GOP lawmakers say Musk’s failure to brief them in advance about impending cuts and funding freezes — or to respond to their questions and concerns about actions taken by DOGE — reflected his belief that he thought the administration could largely bypass them by simply impounding funds lawfully appropriated by Congress. ...
Several GOP senators vented their frustrations over Musk’s operating
style — especially his team’s failure to respond promptly to their
concerns — at a meeting last week with White House chief of staff Susie
Wiles.
Wiles told frustrated senators they should contact her directly with their concerns over funding freezes and reductions in force pushed by Musk and his team of young engineers.
Sources familiar with Wednesday’s meeting said the GOP senators who complained about Musk and his methods last week were much more cordial when they met with him face-to-face in the wood-empaneled Mansfield Room just off the Senate floor. ...
Twilight Zone: Republican Senate fascists tell dictator Trump to drop dead, CHIPS Act won't be repealed
Republican lawmakers on Wednesday said President Trump’s call for Congress to “get rid of” the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided $52 billion for the domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry, is dead on arrival on Capitol Hill. ...
“I think reconstituting domestic manufacturing of advanced semiconductors is a national security and economic imperative,” said Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), who was one of 17 Senate Republicans who voted for the law.
Cornyn noted that “the whole purpose of this was national security.”
“Because if there’s a disruption between Asia or Taiwan, to be more specific, and the United States, we would plunge into a depression and we wouldn’t be able to build advanced weapons or aircraft like the F-35,” he said.
The Texas senator said “the idea” for the law came from the first Trump administration, particularly then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“I understand the president suggesting maybe there’s a better way to do this than use tax dollars as incentives … but I think the original bill was responsible [for] this trend [to bring] much greater investment here in the United States,” he added.
He said he’s open to “tweaks around the edges” but explained “the program that Congress passed — that money is essentially spent.”
More.
Putin launches ballistic missile at hotel in Zelenskyy's hometown, kills four after Trump turns off warning technology
... Ukraine's air force reported 112 drones and two missiles launched into the country overnight, with 68 drones shot down and 43 lost in flight.
The air force reported damage in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
In Dnipropetrovsk, a ballistic missile hit a hotel in the city of Kryvyi Rih -- Zelenskyy's hometown.
"A ballistic missile struck an ordinary hotel," the president wrote on social media. Four people were killed with more than 30 others injured, he added. The attack came shortly after a group of foreign humanitarian volunteers checked into the hotel, Zelenskyy said. None were hurt.
Sources told ABC News that two U.S. citizens were among the volunteers who survived the strike, working for the Charity fund Freedom Trust and Ukraine Relief organization. ...
U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine had allowed Kyiv to give warnings to targeted areas ahead of Russian drone and missile strikes, tracking Russian aircraft taking off, drones being launched and missiles being fired. ...
Paper tiger misses deadline, tells Hamas he really means it this time as he gives billions to Israel but hangs Ukraine out to dry
... Last month Trump called on Hamas
to release the hostages by Feb. 15 or "all hell is going to breakout."
That deadline came and went. This time, Trump is describing his
ultimatum as the "last warning!" ...
“I have just met with your former hostages whose
lives you have destroyed," Trump added. "This is your last warning! For
the leadership, now is the time to leave Gaza, while you still have a
chance.” ...
The Trump Administration has already approved nearly $12 billion in major foreign military sales to Israel, according to the State Department’s website. ...
Hamas still is holding 59 hostages in Gaza, many of whom are believed to be dead. ...
More.
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Polling from Rasmussen Reports shows Trump taking a nosedive after Friday's disastrous crucifixion of Zelenskyy in the Oval Office
Rasmussen Reports Trump Approval Index tanked to -5 on Fri Feb 28th & as low as -7 on Tue in the wake of the disastrous Oval Office meeting with Zelenskyy. People don't like seeing ugly from POTUS & VPOTUS. Massive damage control by surrogates all weekend has failed so far.
Defying every norm, Trump is negotiating directly with terrorists again (no, not the ones in Moscow)
US holding secret talks with Hamas on release of Gaza hostages, 'Post' confirms
... US special envoy for hostage affairs Adam Boehler ... met with senior Hamas officials in Doha, Qatar, several times. These meetings, first reported by Barak Ravid on Axios, mark the first known direct dialogue between Hamas and the US administration since the US designated Hamas as a terrorist organization in 1997.
Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contact with groups that Washington lists as foreign terrorist organizations. ...
The White House said Boehler has the authority to negotiate directly with Hamas.
“When it comes to the negotiations that you’re referring to, first of all, the special envoy who’s engaged in those negotiations does have the authority,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. ...
Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contact with groups that Washington lists as foreign terrorist organizations.Such talks run counter to long-standing US policy against direct contact with groups that Washington lists as foreign terrorist organizations.
The Paper Tiger is back, but he makes you call him and grovel
Trump grants automakers one-month exemption from tariffs
... Spokespeople with the three companies as well as other automakers did not immediately respond for comment on the delay, which comes only a day after the tariffs went into effect.
Leavitt said the president is “open” to hearing requests from other industries seeking exemptions as well.
Leavitt also confirmed the “Big 3” Detroit automakers requested the Tuesday call with Trump, who mentioned it during his address to Congress later in the day. ...
Since Donald Trump wants to move the goalposts for counting the costs of his tax cuts and for calculating GDP, let's use his dumb ass unemployment rate from 2015 from now on, shall we?
Donald Trump had one of the worst annual dumb ass unemployment rates in history in 2020: 38.25%.
Every president between Carter and Obama did better than he did.
Get off your ass you losers and get to work.
Imbeciles Trump and Musk claim millions over the age of 100 get Social Security when it is 89,106 people in December 2024 lol
Trump loves Whoppers.
Smell the farts of nothing has changed.
In 2015 Trump used Rush Limbaugh Math and came up with 42% unemployed lol. "Not in labor force" is not a measure of unemployment.
These Social Security claims are loonier than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris saying 200 million and more had already died of COVID in the United States during their campaign for president-vice president in 2020. Joe corrected himself eventually. Trump and Musk WILL NOT.
... The [Social Security] issue has been repeatedly identified by inspectors general at the agency, but the Social Security Administration has argued that updating old records was costly and unnecessary.
Per the agency’s online records, just 89,106 people — not tens of millions — over the age of 99 received retirement benefits in December 2024, out of the more than 70 million people who receive benefits each year.
It’s a “humiliating mistake for anyone else to make, but they’re doubling and tripling down on it,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank that addresses government spending. ...
More.
Meanwhile the US population 65 years old and older was only about 59 million in 2023. Hello.
Supreme Court rules 5-4 against Trump that USAID payments ordered by Judge Amir Ali must be made
A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to let President Donald Trump’s administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government as the Republican president moves to pull the plug on American humanitarian projects around the world.
Handing a setback to Trump, the court in a 5-4 decision upheld Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work.
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision.
The order by Ali, who is presiding over an ongoing legal challenge to Trump’s policy, had originally given the administration until February 26 to disburse the funding, which it has said totaled nearly $2 billion that could take weeks to pay in full.
Chief Justice John Roberts
paused that order hours before the midnight deadline to give the Supreme
Court additional time to consider the administration’s more formal
request to block Ali’s ruling. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative
majority includes three justices Trump appointed during his first
presidential term. ...
The Trump administration had kept the disputed payments largely frozen despite a temporary restraining order from Ali that they be released, and multiple subsequent orders that the administration comply. Ali’s February 25 enforcement order at issue before the Supreme Court applied to payment for work done by foreign aid groups before February 13, when the judge issued his temporary restraining order. ...
More.
Reagan Democrat, who turned Republican in 1985 but remained an immigration liberal, Lincoln Diaz-Balart has died of cancer at 70
Former Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart dead at 70: Former south Florida congressman fought Fidel Castro regime
... The Diaz-Balart brothers hail from a prominent family of
prerevolutionary politicians who fled Cuba when Fidel Castro took power.
Their grandfather, father and uncle served in Cuba’s House before the family fled to the United States in 1959, the year of the revolution, when Lincoln was 5.
His father’s sister was married to Castro in the late 1940s and early 1950s, but they divorced and a falling-out between the families ensued. ...
May he rest in peace.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)