I wonder if Lockheed Martin is starting to regret that $1 Million bribe.
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Mural of Anthony Fauci removed from NIH campus
Source is Jeff’s daily chips wrapper, so archive link:
https://archive.ph/Xke6H
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Statement from one of the 10 democrats, Gary Peters from my state. Does any of this make sense?
They already have unchecked power.
Under a normal administration, a government shutdown would be devastating to families in Michigan and across the country who count on federal programs for health care, veterans’ benefits, and small business loans. Shutdowns are also incredibly damaging, the last shutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion. Make no mistake, a shutdown under President Trump right now would be catastrophic.
A government shutdown would give President Trump, Elon Musk, and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought unchecked power to continue their illegal campaign of dismantling agencies that provide services Americans need. In a shutdown, the President and OMB have ultimate control over which parts of the government stay open and which workers stay on the job - and know their decisions would not be in the best interests of the American people.
In a shutdown, the Trump Administration would be emboldened to deem countless more federal workers as non-essential, making those civil servants prime targets for future rounds of mass layoffs. This action will make our country less safe and make it much harder for Americans to access programs they count on.
When the first Trump Administration shut down the government, they repeatedly broke the law. This time, they would take it even further. A shutdown would also give them free rein to keep some agencies closed indefinitely - including the Department of Education, Environmental Protection Agency, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more.
This is a difficult choice, but with the deadline quickly approaching, I believe Congress must do its most basic job to keep the lights on. I voted to move this process forward and give the Senate a chance to take a vote so that agencies remain open and providing services, independent watchdogs can stay on the job, and Democrats can keep fighting in both Congress and in the courts to stop Republican tax cuts for billionaires and President Trump’s harmful agenda.
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It really seems like an impossible situation.
Dems filibuster and the government shuts down. House is already in recess. Things will get much worse very rapidly, and Dems will get all the blame for it even though intellectually we all know R’s did absolutely nothing in a bipartisan way to get Dems on board.
Unlike R’s, D’s aren’t in the business of pathologically punishing their constituents when they don’t get their way, and realize that shutting down the government will absolutely get people killed.
It’s just a CR, not a new budget. D’s probably think they will have more political capital if they save it for budget negotiations vs blowing it all now by forcing a shutdown. There’s also the next debt ceiling fight that will happen soon as well. (ETA I realize the CR is not clean and has lots of despicable shit in it.)
I hate everything about this. It’s not responsible governing, it’s not helping the people, and it’s just kicking the can down the road for a much bigger fight to come.
I feel like this was clearly a calculated decision and there was no way to come out of this on the other end looking good no matter what happened.
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Also Trump had several Trump-branded (and Trump organization-managed) projects in Canada, that went bust during his first term, and apparently he now blames the Canadian government (or at least certain people in it) for this, despite the fact that the failures were all his*. He’s been stewing over this for years now, and though Trump was pretty horrible about Canada during his first term, he hasn’t got anyone holding him back now, and he’s clearly suffered serious cognitive decline (that’s causing old grudges to take on new weight).
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/trump-tower-goes-bust-canada-214412/
*Seriously the whole Toronto Trump Tower thing was a hilarious farce from beginning to end. E.g. his first business partner was “a fugitive who had been convicted of bankruptcy fraud and embezzlement” and was eventually replaced by a guy who simply had no experience in real estate development (and who ended up embroiled in lawsuits with investors, buyers, and Trump himself). They were charging Manhattan level prices, there was all sorts of fraud against buyers, etc. Then Trump ran for office, which rendered the Trump brand too toxic, the final nail in the coffins of the Toronto and Vancouver hotels.
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So, Trump II is a kind of vendettacracy? A retribution autocracy…
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Yeah, that does seem to be what we’ve got now, at least from Trump himself. Trump’s whole “politics of grievance” turns out to not just be about his voters (and his appeal to them), but all his policies as well. I think with the cognitive decline, that’s basically what consumers him now. I’m not sure there’s room for anything else. Every time I see video clips of him, regardless of the context in which they were made (or what he should have been talking about), it’s him talking about some weird, often petty grievance, and some policy (or desire for policy) based on that. It’s all about people who have been mean to him (e.g. just contradicted him, asked a question he didn’t like, etc.), people helping those who are mean to him, people/countries he imagined slighting him in some way, etc. all being punished.
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I don’t even remember, was it ever anything else? How much of what he’s done wasn’t built around spiting Obama who made fun of him, spiting wind turbines like they put around his golf course, spiting non-whites like the clients in that lawsuit forever ago…
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His “airing of grievances” makes it like every day is Festivus, but if that holiday also included “bearing false witness” as one of its central concepts.
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yoink!
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Balancing the budget is easy. Just mark everyone as dead and cut pensioners’ payments.
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Maybe not, but at least he previously pretended he was doing what he was doing for some vaguely high-minded reasons.
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I do wonder how much of Trump’s plan just coincidentally matches up with Elon’s grandfather’s, and how much is actually Elon whispering in Trump’s ear…
map link: Technocracy, Inc. and the Technate of America - Rare & Antique Maps
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