I'm going to be annoying and ask again about Tulsi Gabbard. I'm just not sure how to begin casually researching "are the rumors that figure X is a Russian asset actually true and what is the evidence?" without spending way too much time on it. Advice on the meta-question of how to look this shit up is also welcome. I'm sorry!
I'm finding Gaetz darkly hilarious. Very dark, but also very hilarious.
Sort of like The Onion buying Infowars.
Clinton said Gabbard was a Russian asset years ago. I've never felt the need to doubt Clinton on something like that.
How much would it suck to be Mike Lee right now?
It matches with her parroting Russian foreign policy lines as far back as 2019 (on Syria).
Also, who facilitated her 2017 meeting with Assad?
RFK Jr. to HHS. This one is more scary than absurd, though it is that too.
Look at all these accountability sinks.
Some of my best friends are humans who use services and want health.
It's a reasonably big threat to my job. I've kind of priced-in this risk already. We've been scaling back.
I personally too have preferences that are going unheeded, federally.
Someone on X just said Trump'll put Cliven Bundy for Interior. Sounds right.
Everything is on-topic in an "... etc" thread, so let me pose a completely pointless question. Do you think either 2000 Al Gore or 2004 John Kerry could have beaten Trump? If so, under what circumstances? If not, how do you think they would have performed? (This is where my mind has been going lately thinking about Democratic candidates and gender.) You can decide whether this question is also "could Trump have won in 2000 or 2004?" or not.
Nope. Maybe? nope. I think Trump is more popular than W.
On the narrow topic, border stuff:
Trump announced on Sunday night that [Tom "they ain't seen shit yet"] Homan would serve as a White House "border czar" overseeing security and immigration enforcement. Vice President-elect JD Vance on Monday appeared to confirm that Stephen Miller, architect of Trump's restrictive first-term immigration agenda, would return as deputy chief of staff for policy, assuring the issue will remain central.
Links from here.
It'll be interesting to see the range of reactions when Trump chumps start realizing that they did indeed vote for concentration camps, more e. Coli outbreaks and $17 zucchinis.
I think they knew they voted for concentration camps.
16: I've been thinking about the (similar) question of whether a Walz/Harris ticket would have performed better than Harris/Walz. I don't think I'm a good judge, but I don't think that would have changed the result.
21: Yeah. The U.S. is running full speed at a brick wall. We just don't know where will hit first.
18: [Tom "they ain't seen shit yet"] Homan
NYT just ran an Astead Herndon interview of Homan from some time back for "The Run Up" but not aired back then. I know, would matter not a whit, but maybe nice to provide that info during the actual "run up."
Mike Huckabee on his new role: "I believe the scripture. Genesis 12: Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side, not the curse side."
25: He should take a glance at Amos and Hosea some time.
21: now I remember how much time I spent trying to gauge the strategy and planning involved in leaks to the press, and just how many there were, during the first term. That was pretty tedious. My naive reaction to the news, though, goes without saying ("sorry, everyone").
Also Genesis 12 doesn't say anything remotely like that.
It does contain God saying something like that to Abraham when he moves from Haran into Canaan, but it's very clearly about Abraham's offspring as a people and not about their claim to the land.
||
When asked if the government was considering the merger, Rosneft spokesman Mikhail Leontiev said: "How would we know? They are entirely free-spirited individuals. The scope of their imagination defies comprehension."|>
Mike Huckabee on his new role: "I believe the scripture. Genesis 12: Those who bless Israel will be blessed, those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side, not the curse side."
Not voting to stop this is definitely going to send a very clear message to Kamala Harris (who is going to win in a blowout).
29: That's right! It amazes me when someone like Huckabee who supposedly takes the Scriptures so seriously, misquotes the Bible. Genesis 12 doesn't say "Israel" at all.
32: And since the people that we need to bless and not curse are the offspring of Abraham, that could plausibly be interpreted to include the children of Hagar and the children of Esau.
||Who says that science has no answer to the existensial angst of the human condition?
NYT headline Humans Are Divided and Unhappy. What Better Time to Contact Alien Life? ||
I'd been avoiding the JCC because they played CNN in the weight room. But apparently I wasn't the only one. They now show ESPN.
I am begging if anyone comes across any evidence whatsoever that Tulsi has followed her Dad and converted oel Gibson style Catholicism pleeeeeeeeeeease tell me so I get certain Hindus in my life to shut up about this silver lininh.
I told my husband about the rumors but called it el Brooks style Catholicism and he was like...."that sounds...like it might be a good thing?"
"Mel Brooks-style Catholicism" would be a great pitch for the Onion-owned Infowars, 100%.
37: They were both at the Last Supper.
I just say a license plate "BE GENTL". It's probably a dentist lacking in imagination, but it could be a sex thing. Or, given where it was parked, light antisemitism.
It amazes me when someone like Huckabee who supposedly takes the Scriptures so seriously, misquotes the Bible. Genesis 12 doesn't say "Israel" at all.
The funniest part is that there's tons of stuff in the Bible about Israel's claim to the land, just not in the specific part he cited.
I am begging if anyone comes across any evidence whatsoever that Tulsi has followed her Dad and converted oel Gibson style Catholicism pleeeeeeeeeeease tell me so I get certain Hindus in my life to shut up about this silver lininh.
"Hindu" is a euphemism for her lifelong membership in a straight-up cult that's vaguely Hare Krishna-adjacent.
They don't usually put it that way.
My favorite Hindu-adjacent cult is the one where the reach into your chest to grab your heart and they go by the most direct path through the body to your heart if you're a man, but if you have tits, they are respectful enough to try to pull out your heart without damaging your breasts.
Some kind of Aztec-Hindu mashup thing where cows are sacred but captured enemies are fair game?
She got married to Spielberg a bit after that, so maybe that was it?
42 yeah, I know all the background. I'm just super frustrated and clutching at straws.
42 yeah, I know all the background. I'm just super frustrated and clutching at straws.
I am begging if anyone comes across any evidence whatsoever that Tulsi has followed her Dad and converted oel Gibson style Catholicism pleeeeeeeeeeease tell me so I get certain Hindus in my life to shut up about this silver lininh.
I knew about the cult thing, but I'm shocked I didn't know until today Tulsi Gabbard is, as far as anyone says, 100% white. I thought she was half white or something. I guess it's the Hawaiian tan plus the first name that made me think that?
To the substance of 36, I think if that's happened it's unlikely to be publicized as her being nominally Hindu gives her an in with the BJP networks.
I just learned that Carol Channing was not white. Which really surprised me.
49
According to Wikipedia she's part Samoan?
Yeah, the wikipedia reference seems to be to an episode of Finding Your Roots (season 5, episode 6), so who knows. (Do people fact-check that show?)
"Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his Secretary of State pick and others," says Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel for Secretary of State. Rubio said earlier this year he would not call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy "every element" of Hamas. "These people are vicious animals," he adds...
He has picked Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, who called the UN a "cesspool of antisemitism" for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza, to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations.
Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), says Muslim voters had hoped Trump would choose cabinet officials who work toward peace, and there was no sign of that.
"We are very disappointed," he said. "It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement."
Nazarko says the community would continue pressing to make its voices heard after rallying votes to help Trump win. "At least we're on the map."
At least we're on the map.
Did Muslim votes actually swing Michigan or any other of the swing states?
56: AJ and I were talking about that last night, because I was looking for definitive data. AJ says that Dearborn and other majority Muslim cities went Trump, and it was a large part of why he lost. When I looked pre-election, it didn't seem like Muslim voters were actually a very large percentage of the overall electorate (0.8%, maybe?). Last I looked, Trump won MI by about 80K votes, but the share that was Muslim was about 22K. It's true that Dearborn went for Trump, as did Hamtramck, but I'm not sure you can pin the loss of the state on Muslim voters/Gaza policy in any meaningful way.
That said, I'm utterly shocked that Muslim communities could vote for him after the "Muslim ban" and protests, specifically in Detroit since it's such a big international airport, but I guess the memory hole is a deep one. I could understand staying home in protest, but an affirmative vote for THAT, I'm just confused.
56: Michigan had a margin of about 80,000 votes, so I think it's possible.
"At least we're on the map."
Not for long, if Trump and Netanyahu have their way.
57: AIMHB, I really can't see a bright line between a habitual Democrat deciding to send a message by abstaining (understandable, sympathetic), a habitual Democrat abstaining and persuading another habitual Democrat to abstain as well (understandable, sympathetic), and a habitual Democrat deciding to send a message by voting Republican (incomprehensibly ludicrous).
In the first case you're reducing the Democratic candidate's margin by one vote; in the second and third cases, by two. In all three cases you're increasing the chance of the Republican winning.
(The article said "Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins". So not the only factor - how could it be? - but one of them.)
Alright, I think that's a different story there. We should refrain from talking nonsense.
https://www.alonzojunkmovers.com/junk-removal-palmdale-ca
Apparently the real election was the friends, and indeed enemies, we made along the way
In the days following the 2024 election, a cadre of pundits have been eager to call the uncommitted voters' impact on the presidential race both a failure and a significant factor in Vice-President Kamala Harris's loss. Despite those contradicting analyses, the movement's success lies not in its voter count, but rather in the clarity it offered voters, even those who changed their minds and chose to vote for Harris in the end.
Now that's some Cope.
When I looked pre-election, it didn't seem like Muslim voters were actually a very large percentage of the overall electorate (0.8%, maybe?). Last I looked, Trump won MI by about 80K votes, but the share that was Muslim was about 22K.
Doesn't Michigan have a lot of non-Muslim Arabs though? Let me check.
2.1% Arab. That's population not electorate though.
Using PUMS data and only using the first of 2 recorded ancestries:
Total population of Michigan: 1.84% Arab (broadly defined)
Citizen population: 1.71%
Adult citizen population: 1.54%
Michigan's only one state and wouldn't have swung the election, but yes the change in the Arab vote was enough to swing Michigan. Probably the only state though.
You know, though, none of those people bother me more than Netanyahu saying a ceasefire will be his gift to Trump for the inauguration. It's not even close.
Netanyahu actively worked to get Trump elected, likely because they share so many interests: cruelty, graft, and staying out of prison. They're both filth.
"the movement's success lies not in its voter count, but rather in the clarity it offered voters,"
Wasn't it Corbyn who responded to his defeat by saying that he had lost the election but won the argument?
You know, though, none of those people bother me more than Netanyahu
I dunno, actually. This could be a personal psychological difference, but the existence of selfishly evil men and women doesn't bother me in that sense. I don't like them and I wish they weren't evil, and I think they need to be opposed, but that's it.
It's like the existence of hurricanes or diphtheria. "I want to invade this country and steal their stuff for my own benefit because I desire a great deal of power and wealth" - OK. I understand that. "I wish to subjugate and immiserate the blacks because then I and my fellow whites will be able to lead lives of idle luxury" - sure, I can see how that would work out well for you.
I mean, I hope you lose, and it would be nice if we or at least someone stopped you doing it, but at least what you're doing makes sense.
But people who support evil through sheer stupidity, short-sightedness and self-delusion, against their own best interests, they really bother me.
Same here which is why I find it bafflingly inexplicable why Harris refused to put a dimes' worth of difference between Biden's policies and hers (on any matter whatsoever) or had the likes of Liz Cheney, Richie Torres, and Bill Clinton - who spoke about how Israel had the right to the lands of Judea and Samaria ffs, campaigning for her in Michigan. It was like she was trying to all she could to actively lose the state.
Bill Clinton - who spoke about how Israel had the right to the lands of Judea and Samaria ffs
What did he say?
72: The Clinton thing was absurd.
On foreign policy, I think she did not want to undermine Biden.
On domestic policy, they were probably aligned. It was Manchun who blocked some of the best stuff.
She should have had a better answer to the question though.
73: feel that there are too many deaths in Gaza and are angey, but the Jewish people were there before Islam even existed. Barry linked to the video somewhere. His phrasing was pretty tone deaf.
Addressing a crowd, he said "you feel". Barry understands the referebces more than I do. But even without all if the context it was dismissive of humanitarian concerns and offensive.
I mean, maybe we watched different speeches or something? But at no point did he say that Israel had the right to the West Bank. He said that Likud thinks it has a right to the West Bank. The context was an entire passage about how there are two parties in Israel, Likud and Labor, from the start of the state - from Ben Gurion's days - and Likud wants to take the WB and Labor doesn't. And then he went on to say that both Israel and Palestine need to seek a peaceful solution and both sides - the Israeli side and the Palestinian side - need to be convinced that they can't "murder their way out of this".
Here's the YouTube of the entire speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtHjn3xut7Y
His remarks on the Middle East start at minute 34 and run to about minute 41.
Perhaps I missed the bit where he said "Israel has a right to Judaea and Samaria" - if so, where should I look on that tape?
His phrasing was pretty tone deaf.
Ah, right. So it's one of those things where he didn't actually say it but we all know what it means.
You know what I think happened? I think he said the phrase "Judaea and Samaria" which is what Likud calls the West Bank, and everyone lost their minds, because saying the magic words is the most important thing (see also "Obama is weak because he won't use the phrase RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORIST").
They had good effective surrogates who would have been thrilled to campaign for them and were dying to be asked but gotta have Bill around for some stupid reason, also why they couldn't make anything out of the Trump - Epstein thing
Richie Torres and Liz Cheney too? I think the Arab-American community was able to read the signals correctly, that the Harris campaign didn't give a damn about them and their relatives back in Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon when it would have been very easy to signal that things would change in a positive direction while still keeping Israel supporters on board. They didn't even try and what they did do just showed contempt.
I think the Arab-American community was able to read the signals correctly
"Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his Secretary of State pick and others," says Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump. Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.
Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel for Secretary of State. Rubio said earlier this year he would not call for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy "every element" of Hamas. "These people are vicious animals," he adds...
He has picked Republican Representative Elise Stefanik, who called the UN a "cesspool of antisemitism" for its condemnation of deaths in Gaza, to serve as US ambassador to the United Nations.
Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network (AMEEN), says Muslim voters had hoped Trump would choose cabinet officials who work toward peace, and there was no sign of that.
"We are very disappointed," he said. "It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement."
Nazarko says the community would continue pressing to make its voices heard after rallying votes to help Trump win. "At least we're on the map."
Richie Torres and Liz Cheney too?
I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that neither of these people made a campaign speech for Harris in which they said that "Israel has a right to the lands of Judaea and Samaria" either, any more than Bill Clinton did.
Didn't even try doesn't seem supportable to me. You can find all sorts of statements from Harris calling for a cease fire; recognizing a Palestinian right to self-determination; regretting the deathtoll, and so on. You can say that it wasn't enough, but calling that not even an attempt seems indefensible.
I think most Arab-American voters stayed home, left the top spot blank, or voted for Stein (?!). I really wonder how many voted for Trump who were not already inclined to vote for Trump. A few no doubt but those people in 82 seem much more akin to Trump supporting Latinos than Gaza protest voters. Would be interesting to see some actual good polling on this though.
Beyond his entrepreneurial ventures, Rabiul is deeply engaged in various boards and community initiatives. He is the Founder of the Muslim Aid Initiative (MAI) and currently serves as the AAPI Commissioner to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro
Lmao
77: I decided to break my usual rule of never actually listening to politicians speech to get to the truth of this. Of course ajay is right that Clinton did not say that Israel has a right to the lands of Judea and Samaria. He did bring up as somehow relevant that during the time of King David there was a Jewish state including both Judea and Samaria (my understanding is that the archeological evidence does not support this, but even if it did, when else is what was going on in a place 2,500 years ago considered to be of any significance). He mostly still seemed bitter about Arafat rejecting the peace proposal back when he was President. And his understanding of Israeli politics was also still stuck in the past -- Labor has 4 seats in the Knesset now -- the 2-party dominance Clinton talked about has been gone for about 20 years. Anyway, it was a terrible speech.
82: I think this FB post of Nazarko's is interesting, as it identifies him as a former intern of the Albanian foreign ministry(!): https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3199069206809758&id=177821655601210&set=a.177833748933334
Anyway, it was a terrible speech.
I haven't listened to the speech; I believe that it wasn't good. I have a hard time believing it had much impact on the election.
Perhaps I'm still marinating in the bad mood of election night, but in 2016 it was easy to say that it was so close anything could have made the difference (The Comey letter, The Clinton Campaign, A different selection for Vice President . . . ). This year it feels close, but I'm not sure what would have made the difference.
Part of why I say that is that it really felt like the last two weeks were, on balance*, quite good for the Harris campaign, and that they were going into election day with tailwinds, and it still didn't matter.
* Depressingly, I think the McDonald's photo op was good for Trump.
87: this man is, charitably, a deeply confused individual.
Of course ajay is right that Clinton did not say that Israel has a right to the lands of Judea and Samaria.
Post-truth world, though, innit. It doesn't matter what Clinton said because very few people were in the room to hear it and very few others can be bothered to listen to the recordings. It matters what people tell other people who trust them that Clinton said. If you're told, repeatedly, by lots of people you trust in your social media microworld, that Clinton said Israel should annexe the West Bank, then you believe that. That becomes your truth. Your truth, in the sense that it belongs to you. You feel a sense of ownership and even loyalty to it, because it's been told you by your friends, and so questioning whether it's true is questioning your friends' honesty, and that feels bad.
And if someone says "I've watched the speech, he never said that" your reaction is not "oh, good, that would have been a terrible thing to say", but "yeah but no but it was a terrible speech and what about Liz Cheney".
87: this man is, charitably, a deeply confused individual.
Of course ajay is right that Clinton did not say that Israel has a right to the lands of Judea and Samaria.
Post-truth world, though, innit. It doesn't matter what Clinton said because very few people were in the room to hear it and very few others can be bothered to listen to the recordings. It matters what people tell other people who trust them that Clinton said. If you're told, repeatedly, by lots of people you trust in your social media microworld, that Clinton said Israel should annexe the West Bank, then you believe that. That becomes your truth. Your truth, in the sense that it belongs to you. You feel a sense of ownership and even loyalty to it, because it's been told you by your friends, and so questioning whether it's true is questioning your friends' honesty, and that feels bad.
And if someone says "I've watched the speech, he never said that" your reaction is not "oh, good, that would have been a terrible thing to say", but "yeah but no but it was a terrible speech and what about Liz Cheney".
Liz Cheney supported Harris despite their massive differences on foreign policy (and other matters). If voters were unable to process that fact, well, we can just add that to the long list of obvious facts that got similar treatment in this election.
92: I'm not going to listen to the speech, but invoking "Judea and Samaria" in the modern context is highly suggestive. I'm unable to come up with a narrative where that wasn't a direct slap at the Palestinian people -- and specifically those located in the West Bank. Maybe Bill said, "Some people refer to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria, but that's reprehensible bullshit." I'm guessing that's not what he said.
But hey, maybe Clinton's next move will be to expand the Democratic base by invoking the Confederate States of America.
If that's your idea of a good speech to give in Michigan where he justifies the mass death in Gaza and repeats canards about human shields I don't know what to tell you
The problem used to be that the MSM did a horribly shitty job of covering candidates fairly.
Now it is still the case that the MSM does a horribly shitty job of covering candidates fairly, but that's no longer the problem, because most voters are not getting their impressions of candidates from the MSM anymore.
91: I agree that the Clinton speech probably did not have much impact.
92: You're right, that "Bill Clinton who spoke about how Israel had the right to the lands of Judea and Samaria" is an inaccurate description, and Barry should apologize to former President Clinton. I knew that this had to be an exaggeration because Clinton has been a big supporter of a 2-state solution forever.
95: This is correct -- Clinton took the Israeli side and was lecturing the Palestineans why they were wrong. It's the kind of speech a politician gives that is meant to show that he has the courage to go in front of an interest group and tell them the opposite of what they want to hear.
He's still chasing that Sister Souljah high
||
NMM to Vic Flick, guitarist of the iconic James Bond theme
|>
The context was an entire passage about how there are two parties in Israel, Likud and Labor, from the start of the state - from Ben Gurion's days - and Likud wants to take the WB and Labor doesn't.
All else aside, as peep noted this is a completely inaccurate account of both the history and the current state of Israeli politics.
He did bring up as somehow relevant that during the time of King David there was a Jewish state including both Judea and Samaria (my understanding is that the archeological evidence does not support this, but even if it did, when else is what was going on in a place 2,500 years ago considered to be of any significance).
This is not necessarily facially inaccurate but it's at least misleading and anachronistic to use the terms "Judea and Samaria" for the period of David. "Judah and Israel" is the terminology used in the Bible. Archaeological evidence for this period is pretty limited. There is later evidence that there was a king named "David" but exactly what his kingdom included and how it relates to later, better-documented states is unclear.
It's pretty clear that David was a descent of Beren and Lúthien.
Further to 101, it is more or less accurate as a description of Israeli politics during Clinton's own presidency. Sounds like he hasn't updated his take on Israel since then, but it's been 25 years! A lot has changed!
Back on the appointments topic, he just announced Dr. Oz to run CMS.
He is literally just appointing people he's seen on TV. It's wild.
It's like CharleyCarp says: for a lot of people, politics is something that happens on TV. Like our president-elect.
I really want him to appoint a fictional character now.
Hannibal Lecter for CDC is the obvious move.
105: Jesus. I was just in a meeting at work where someone asked thoughts on the Trump admin and concerns. Basically, won't affect commercial. The state is invested in the MassHealth ACO, and you never know with Medicare. I guess the last Trump administration introduced a well-regarded chronic kidney disease program. But wow, there's even a cartoon of PCPs annoyed when they are asked about something Dr. Oz said.
Oh. That's my Medicare which I don't have yet.
111: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services*.
One of the most intimidating bureaucracies in existence imo. The previous appointee, Seema Verma, had worked with Indiana Medicaid so was able to do some smart-evil stuff. My mind is reeling at this pick, but he won't come up with what she did. He might even end up deeply snowed.
*Fun fact: when the top two white guys were figuring out a rebrand in the Bush administration, they were converging on "CMMS" and one of them said "I'm going to forever run those two M's together if we name it that, let's just make it CMS and save time."
Seema Verma was a POS.
She filed a request to get HHS to cover $47,000 worth of property allegedly stolen from an SUV she had rented while on a work trip in San Francisco. According to HuffPost "The items...included a $5900 Ivanka Trump-brand pendant and a $325 moisturizer." She got $2,852.40.
MPOW keeps talking excitedly about a federal thing (about scientific research) that might be under the radar enough to survive but I suspect will get canceled or reversed. It's not political on the face of it but does have some connection to corporate profits.
The craziest thing about these appointments is that they're not to minor positions that don't matter much or that have largely symbolic meaning. These are real jobs managing massive and hugely important bureaucracies and he's giving them to the most absurd people.
I am imagining the senior civil service trying to wrap their heads around communicating with these appointees.
I'd like to think it'd start with some 100 hours of mind-numbing informational training, but they likely wouldn't sit through it.
Just to start, they need to have binged all of Yes, [Prime] Minister by Christmas. Certainly far from all applicable but getting into the right mindset.
Won't they just retire and go into consulting.
Did Vince McMahon get something. Am not finding it, but saw where he did?
There are credible sexual assault accusations against him, so he's qualified.
Not announced yet, but Linda McMahon "expected" for Sec. of Education.
I am imagining the senior civil service trying to wrap their heads around communicating with these appointees.
I fully expect Trump to actually try to implement the Project 2025 ideas about getting rid of civil servants. E.g.:
They would reinstate Schedule F, which seeks to reclassify any career federal employee whose job is in any way connected to federal policy. This new classification politicizes the civil service, allowing the administration to hire and fire for political reasons. More than 500,000 employees could be affected and lose their work protections as they intend to use authority that's already in the law to target jobs they say are "of a confidential, policy-determining, policymaking or policy-advocating character". There are 508,000 Grade 13-15 jobs in the federal government, and the number they will convert is unknown.
A more detailed look at Trump's Schedule F proposal.
Isn't Dr. Oz smart enough to hire a competent assistant that will do all the actual work?
124: If by "competent assistant" you mean 25-year-old groyper? Certainly.
The schedule F thing was even being talked about before the 2020 election.
But gosh, you know, Trump disavowed the Project 2025 stuff during the campaign.
Maybe Susie Wiles will remind him to stick to his promises in this regard.
Who could have guessed he was lying? Maybe there will be a massive drumbeat of relentless media coverage of that unquestionable lie.
Fuck my seneator so hard:
I asked John Fetterman about Trump talking about cuts to Medicare and Medicaid when he nominated Dr Oz to lead CMS. Fetterman said "Well, cutting waste and fraud that I think that's a good thing, right?" Adding "And if you can make it more efficient, then I'm not going to vote against that."
Fetterman was better than this when he was originally elected right?
Well this is a fabulously stupid idea. My guess is that they want to cut sociology but the numbers are just too big. So, by my count, all of humanities, all of social science, most of the sciences, and a decent chunk of business is no longer needed. Fortunately there are never tech recessions and everyone who majors in engineering gets engineering degrees, so there are no downsides. Only rich kids should get the chance to study their interests, which is the populist position.
"If that's your idea of a good speech to give in Michigan where he justifies the mass death in Gaza and repeats canards about human shields"
Did he say that before he said the bit about how Israel had a right to annexe the West Bank, or after it? Because I'm going to check the recording again.
113.last: can you clarify? Does CMS stand for something racist? I'm afraid i just think of it as Content Management System.
135: checked the recording and neither of those things are on it! He doesn't justify mass killings in Gaza.
As for "canards about human shields" - those aren't canards, because a canard is a damaging falsehood. What he said was a damaging truth. Hamas really does use civilians as human shields. If you disagree, take it up with the UN, whose Secretary General agrees with me.
But post-truth age, innit?
It's there in the first part of 113: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The last part of 113 is an anecdote explaining why it isn't CMMS.
82 shows how the "never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" crack gets continued into the next generation. There wasn't a dime's worth of difference between the two candidates -- there were many dollars' worth of difference. And it's not like this was secret knowledge; the Trump campaign basically said these leopards are going to eat your particular faces. So.
116-118 Do the cabinet appointees have agendas, or will they be content to be figureheads? The Pentagon, institutionally, is 100% going to attempt to roll the sexually assaulting Crusader boy, assuming that he even gets in. I mean, they try to roll basically every president (except maybe Joe, who had seen it all before), and they are totally going to do it again.
[It occurs to me that the Trump restoration is even worse than the Bourbon restoration: he learned nothing and he remembered nothing.]
Anyway, Yes, Minister is absolutely the way to go, as is the 100-hour training. Bore the Secretary to death, send them out on pretty photo opportunities, route their pet projects into bureaucratic bogs, and get on with what you were doing before. If somehow the Rs manage to turf out a bunch of senior civil servants, they'll get to come back as consultants and charge twice as much to make sure things keep running. The power of private enterprise!
138.1: yes, I get that, but I thought there was some significance to this being a decision taken by white guys?
Fellow white guy, I have no idea. Or whether either CMS or CMMS has meanings beyond our pale ken.
137 about the 34:35 minute mark in and for about two minutes on for the justification of the ongoing genocide.
"Human shields" along with Hamas C&C centers which seem to be under every single hospital and tent (no longer a problem, as the hospitals are almost all destroyed and tents are no longer allowed, despite winter fast approaching) is an overused rhetorical ploy said without evidence to justify the targeting of civilians. OTOH the IDF use of Palestinian human shields is far better documented, many of whom were subsequently summarily executed in the field.
That just went over like gangbusters in Michigan
141: so to summarise where we're at: at no point does Clinton say that Israel has a right to Judaea and Samaria.
Hamas does use civilians as human shields (loads of evidence linked from this page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_human_shields_by_Hamas so it isn't really on to say it's used without evidence). So saying so is not a canard. Without a doubt it is used by Israel to explain a lot of civilian casualties, including in cases where it isn't true.
As for justifying genocide:
His actual words from 34:35 are:
"I understand why young Palestinian- and Arab-Americans in Michigan think too many people have died since. I get that. But if you lived in one of those kibbutzim in Israel right next to Gaza where the people there were the most pro-friendship with Palestine, the most pro-two state solution of any of the Israeli communities were the ones right next to Gaza, and Hamas butchered them. And so then the people who criticise it are essentially saying "yeah, but look how many people you've killed in retaliation. So how many is enough to kill them to punish them for the terrible things they did?" That all sounds nice until you realise, what if it was your family and you haven't done anything but support a homeland for the Palestinians, and one day they come for you and slaughter the people in your village. You would say, well, you have to forgive me but I'm not keeping score that way. It isn't how many we've had to kill, because Hamas makes sure they're shielded by civilians. They'll force you to kill civilians if you want to defend yourself."
It isn't well expressed but he is explicitly saying that it's wrong to think of the war as an act of retaliatory mass killing, and that is not the way Israel is thinking of it.
What's happening is (he is saying) self-defence, and it includes a lot of civilian deaths because of Hamas' use of human shields.
Now, he doesn't mention that Israeli soldiers are deliberately killing civilians, and that this is also a war crime. He should mention that because it's true. He should also mention that, for a lot of Israelis including soldiers, there is without a doubt a feeling that the war is an act of revenge against Gaza as a whole, not just an act of self-defence against Hamas. I have no doubt that this is true and that it explains a lot of the war crimes on the Israeli side.
But he is not justifying genocide.
144.1 I'm used to higher standards from Wikipedia than to actually cite John Spencer (self-described urban warfare expert who was advising Ukrainians to throw paint filled balloons at the optics on Russian AFVs at the beginning of their invasion in early 2022, much to the horror of anyone who'd served in armored units).
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-military-human-shields.html
I'm used to higher standards from Wikipedia than to actually cite John Spencer
Maybe ignore John Spencer, then, and focus on the citations to the Secretary General of the United Nations, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, and the governments of the US, Britain, France, and Germany.
And you know why you should do that?
Because the wiki article does not cite John Spencer as saying that Hamas are using human shields! I clicked through to the actual source cited (I keep doing that! It's literally one weird trick that allows you to find stuff out!) and the phrase "human shield" does not appear. He talks about Hamas using LOAC-protected sites like mosques as cover, and about the difficulty of tunnel fighting. He doesn't talk about human shields.
Did you mean to include those links, by the way? Because one of them, the CNN one, says "Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilians in Gaza as human shields, embedding military infrastructure in civilian areas - allegations Hamas has denied. There is ample evidence for it: weapons located inside homes, tunnels dug beneath residential neighborhoods and rockets fired from those same neighborhoods in the densely packed territory."
"Ample evidence" for Hamas using civilians as human shields, according to CNN.
I guess one could add that as a source to the wiki article as well!
I was sitting this out because of so many reasons, but the quoted bit in 144 is pretty nauseating!!
It would have been totally appropriate in the first month after 10/7. But not much longer.
It was a bad speech and he shouldn't have given it.
Stop arguing that I should personally kill Palestinian children. I just don't think I should.
yeah, but look how many people you've killed in retaliation. So how many is enough to kill them to punish them for the terrible things they did?
Reprisals are a nazi thing. Bill Clinton is objectively pro-nazi.
That's not a supportable reading, Spike. It's a bad speech, but the language you're quoting isn't advocating for reprisals, it's speaking for an imaginary interlocutor who's saying that "considered as reprisals, the Israeli response is disproportionate." And then responding to that by characterizing the response not as reprisals but as self-defense.
Characterizing reprisals as self-defense doesn't make them not reprisals.
Um, Moby, I think Spike uses "he/him" pronouns, not "it".
The coffee places aren't even open.