I'm going to buy more eggs so we don't ruin out.

I think I'll buy a new bag that looks like a regular duffle/suitcase, but has hidden straps so you can carry it as a backpack.

Filson is having a sale.

Just tell them to hold the sale until I declutter my house. I might already have something suitable.

I've never been uneasy about flying, but I have this new feeling that past performance isn't much guarantee of future results. Is this just old age? It might just be old age rather than awareness of newly yawning accountability holes.

I was about to send you a guest post on the experience so far of federal employees, based in part on the experience of a very close relative who is on (in a rather anodyne division). Minivet gets a lot of it in the part on bullying Federal employees.

A lot of fairly unclear communications and anticipatory dread. her division head wrote a vey carefully worded email* saying there was a lot of info coming from all sorts of source, some legit and verified but not everything you see reported is correct. Also noted that most of the communications contained stuff really directed to various levels of management and they were still working to figure out what they needed to do.

Not great. They are in a mostly technical role, but one of the favorite things they had done could be cast as some kind of DEI/minority outreach, and they were almost hoping it could be made to disappear. And it really was just a nice little historical thing they happened on serendipitously and that involved a black family.

*I can imagine how long it took to write that email.

I just saw this article about GOP plans for spending cuts. Obviously any of these would likely be modified during the legislative process but it was concening . . .

House Republican committee chairs pitched in a private meeting what could add up to between $2.5 trillion and $3 trillion of spending cuts and budget savings to fund Republicans' reconciliation package -- which would include massive tax cuts.

We got our hands on the presentations that House committee chairs made during a closed-door Republican conference meeting this week.

They lay out a road map of where the GOP's hunt for spending cuts is heading right now. The options range from more than a dozen possibilities from curtailing student loan programs to large-scale Medicaid cuts to new immigration-related fees.

The universe of options is wide, but the GOP may need this scale of cuts to satisfy the Republican conference's deficit hawks. Plus, reconciliation rules don't allow for bills that increase deficits after 10 years, so anything that goes beyond that budget window would have to be offset.

Including

- The Education and Workforce panel believes it has up to $500 billion in cuts, largely through targeting student loans. Options include lowering the amount that can be obtained in student loans, or the "aggregate borrowing limit," along with restrictions on loan eligibility for non-citizens. Caps on the public service loan forgiveness program are another option, as is repealing the SAVE repayment plan. Colleges paying fees for unpaid loans came up too. Taken together, this is all part of a broad GOP offensive against a Biden-era initiative designed to help younger Americans faced with huge student loan debt, especially minority students.

- The House Agriculture Committee is targeting between $100 billion and $250 billion in cuts. Some would impact SNAP, aka food stamps. Mandating states pay more for SNAP benefits with a cost-share requirement, changing the Thrifty Food Plan process and expanding work requirements were among the options. Democrats are already panning proposals to cut spending on social safety net programs to pay for tax cuts.

Does anyone have an opinion on who should be DNC chair? My heart says Wikler, but Martin may be fine. I'll try to advocate with my local Dem committee if it's worth pushing for.

Stepping back. It is clear that if Rs go along (and so far they are, mostly enthusiastically) and they get electoral reinforcement (mid-terms, and particularly 2028 presidential) that this will mark a fundamental change in the governance of the US for the foreseeable future. Exactly how big is not clear, but a historically significant change in the internal workings. How far it goes in terms of changes in elections and the like, I'm not sure. Even without electoral success it will be significant, but the real lock in will happen if Rs stay in power.

All of this flatters Trump but really serves the wishes of the many right wing interests.

I hate that I am here for this, and part of it.

People can nitpick the impact of individual changes, but the overall direction is clear.

And most of our institutions are adapting their ;little asses off.

I guess hammering on the inevitable fuckups along the way and unpopular parts is what we have to work with.

Routine health communications and reports not going out. Like weekly boring stuff.

And I will increasingly not believe what they say. And in that I may be part of the problem.

5: The Boeing thing worries me. I mostly fly Southwest.

I get at least one "eDepartment Notices" daily, emails with links, usually well over 6 of them, mostly anodyne stuff I happily ignore. 20 minutes ago I got a third for today. It only had two links. The first just said "Return to In-Person Work." I haven't been able to open it despite many attempts, but a coworker sent me a screenshot. It has the phrase "100 percent in-office attendance." If that applies to us - which isn't clear, which of course is part of the point - that would be a lot stricter than the requirement was before the pandemic. Which is likewise of course the point.

8: I would want to know how well Wikler gets along with Black leaders and constituents in Milwaukee. I've followed him on twitter for a couple of years now, and he's upbeat and focused in the off-years as well as election years. He's been good at communicating about how one step leads to the next, and what Dems in the state need to do to get where they want to be. Under his leadership, Wisconsin Democrats seem to have done well with revitalizing county organizations in rural areas and improving Democratic margins there.

But Wisconsin is 80% white, and that's really different from the party at the national level, as we all know. So how has be done in working with the constituencies in Wisconsin that are not white?

Same questions for Martin, too, I suppose, but I don't really know anything about him.

Another "stop everything" edict - foreign aid, with the exception of military aid for Israel & Egypt. So Ukraine is twisting.

14: I think we need to rebuild the Party as an organizing entity, and I just don't know who is best set up to do that.

Republican conference's deficit hawks. (from the article excerpt above)

Can we stop pretending this is a meaningful constituency rather than convenient cover for cutting whatever they want cut?

Yes.

Can we stop pretending this is a meaningful constituency rather than convenient cover for cutting whatever they want cut?

Given the narrow margins in the house; I think that is a meaningful group (it doesn't mean they'll get what they want, but Republican deficit hawks will be part of the legislative negotiation -- and may make things difficult for the administration).

I'm saying their stated motivations shouldn't be taken seriously, not that they don't pretend to be deficit hawks.

I'm having a panic attack about reports and rumors of random ICE scoop ups in blue states. Like, if we don't have our passports with us, aren't we all vulnerable to this *right now*?

I'm having a panic attack about reports and rumors of random ICE scoop ups in blue states. Like, if we don't have our passports with us, aren't we all vulnerable to this *right now*?

Things aren't good now. I'm sorry.

Late night purge of IGs. WaPo says 12, NYT 17. Apparently against the law. However, in the wake of Immunity decision, laws constraining presidential behavior serm rather toothless. Illegal, but not really enforceable.

I stand strongly by 9. And for R compliance see Hegseth (of the three R , I only think Murkowski would have voted against if her vote "mattered." Also see removal of Mike Turner as House Intel chair (and I think from the committee altogether).

Demented criminal president with nearly full backing of a feral political party unmoored from the truth.

And yes, these are basically just public diary entries on my part. Magical cope thinking that if I write them out loud I will feel marginally better. But, alas.

At least we got cheap eggs.

(The "but her emails" of 2024.)

My parents called last night and were very worried about my cheekily-named local politics blog. (ie it uses the word Marxist in the title.) They want me to shut it down and go dark for four years. Getting doxxed is always possible, but I can't see a reason I'm actually in imminent danger. I made the case that if the scapegoating started to feel more McCarthy-era, I'd have some advance notice that the winds were shifting. I would shut it down if danger felt closer, but right now, vulnerable people are in far more danger than I am. Am I missing anything about the current climate?

Don't comply in advance! You're a nice middle-class white lady, no one's coming after you first.

Which is exactly what you were thinking already, but you're right and your parents are wrong.

Agree with LB, but of course, your choice.

Many in government are making different choices (the "danger" is of course actually closer for them).

"A video describing the exploits of the [Tuskegee Airmen], who flew combat sorties during World War II, has been removed from the instructional curriculum for new recruits at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, the hub of Air Force basic training.The memo said a video on the Tuskegee Airmen, a second video titled "Breaking Barriers" and a third about the Women Airforce Service Pilots who supported the war effort during World War II had been excised from a course on "airmindedness.'"

As Eric Columbus said on Bluesky:
Nothing Trump has ordered requires such ghastly steps. But it's inevitable that (1) normal people will do this stuff because they fear Trump & co., and (2) bad people will do this stuff because they love doing it and/or love Trump.

Ok, good - appreciate the validation!

It really felt like I was 19 again, getting pressure to stay pre-med from my parents. It got very repetitive, and eventually I said, "I think I hear Grandma calling, I gotta go." The joke being that Grandma was the most relentless nag ever, and also died seven years ago.

I'm on the board of a non-profit that does considerable business with the federal government. We're subject to whatever emerges from the DEI EO. I'd say that nearly all of my fellow board members are committed to DEI principles at the marrow level: at first blush, though, not so much of that is in our public facing documents.

DEI was outlawed in this shitty state two years ago, as we are a laboratory for fascism. It has definitely pushed Heebie U in a more progressive direction, since we can still DEI and we leaned into it. This has been a nice silver lining.

Press out there being totally freaking normal: (actual CNN article by Stephen Collinson)

On the fourth day, President Donald Trump set out to impose his will on the globe. Rapt European elites watched Trump beam virtually into the Swiss alpine village of Davos Thursday, in a metaphor for a world that is taking in his testosterone-fueled return to power with fearful fascination.

The set-up was perfect for the president. On a giant screen, the ultimate outsider literally towered over his scolded audience of bankers, financiers, business titans, NGO leaders, political bigwigs and diplomats. The appearance at the World Economic Forum was Trump's latest hyper-confident move to reshape America's destiny after a frenetic week of executive actions and stunning, freewheeling news conferences.

I've never heard of that author? A Trumpffirmative action hire?

There was only supposed to be one question mark in 35.

How far it goes in terms of changes in elections and the like, I'm not sure. Even without electoral success it will be significant, but the real lock in will happen if Rs stay in power.

My biggest worry re: the next election is that they'll be successful in pushing enough propaganda across enough channels that they won't take the blame for everything they're going to make worse.

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?

https://www.axios.com/2025/01/25/trump-israel-bomb-shipment-hold-gaza

Nobody was cheated on that. People either knew and wanted it or allowed themselves to be fooled so they could do something they knew was awful.

I'm gonna move that link to the longer-running Trump-Biden Israel/Palestine slugfest instead, so this discussion can go elsewhere.

Also: Ile, how are you doing? We could actually try to get a Bay Area meetup together, tbh -- might be good?

21: Ile, I was listening to a podcast the other day that involved a discussion with an immigration attorney. (I believe it was Opening Arguments episode 1116, "Triaging all the Horrible"). From memory, he said that while they are seeing a lot of fear and uncertainty among their clients, as far as he can tell right now, ICE is basically doing mostly the same stuff they were doing under Biden, they are just publicizing it more. He mentioned something like they just played up how they had deported 300 immigrants in a single day, but in fact the average for the most recent full month under Biden was something like 280/day. That doesn't mean that Trump doesn't want to do more, or that he won't do more once he can ramp up the budget for ICE, but for now it's mostly trying to project the illusion of strength and inevitability.

Did anyone see this weird tweet from Hakeem Jeffries? I can't access X anymore on my devices. I think I refused to update the terms of service. Basically it says, "Presidents come and go, but God is on the throne forever." What is that! Especially when we have an absolute maniac in charge.

41: I looked and found that tweet just as you described.

35: I've never heard of that author? A Trumpffirmative action hire?

Not that I can see*, which is kind of worse. US media is just going to adopt language they deem as appropriate for this "muscular presidency" (an NYT headline). See the framing of the Columbia(sic) tiff in US vs. most non-US media outlets. Just a slight ratchetting up of the a trend with its roots in coverage of Reagan's "Morning in America."

*A Brit who seemed to have worked at Agence France-Presse. prior articles look failry anodyne, but did not look closely.

41: What's weird about it? I mean, it's super Christian in a way I find alien, but lots of people are and looks as if Jeffries is one of them.

Maybe he's praying for Trump's death? Probably not.

Yeah I saw that getting a lot of shit on Bluesky for allegedly epitomizing the weakness of Dem response to events. The thing itself I find rather mundane, but I think people would not focus on it so much if they saw it as in addition to a focused* and aggressive Dem response which they do not see. So I think people are pouncing on everything as "inadequate." Speaking of which, is there a rule that losing Presidential candidates must completely disappear? Maybe that is how it always generally been, or has it been worse with HRC and Harris? If Harris were the standard-bearer for Dems you would think she would still be out there saying stuff. Maybe I'm full of shit on this one.

*This is where tha RW media/pundit industrial complex is of such benefit to Rs. They generally quickly establish talking points and mostly hammer away in unison and the pols pick it up. D response seems fragmented and specific to the policy and specific constituent concerns of individual D politicians. There has been *some* robust push back on the IG firings** but it should be a full-throated roar and it does not seem to be.

**Two things on those:
1) Noted that Trump did *not* fire media's fave "non-partisan" IG, DOJ IG Horowitz (sp?). In fact Trump singled him out saying he liked his report on Comey (a hatchet job they used to justify his firing). Grassley has always been big backer of Horowitz and despite Horowitz's seeming straight shooter bonafides, if you look at his record he has stalled and gone very lightly on everything that shows up Rs, and been very aggressive in things that aid Rs like the rushed and shameful stuff on McCabe they used to shitcan him the day before his pension kicked in. (McCabe did settle a lawsuit.) An actual effective "deep state" mole. The kind of stuff that has titlted the government in favor of R governance for decades.

2) I had to laugh at Susan Collins say she did not "understand" why Trump fired the IGs since he wanted to root out inefficiency and corruption. Just risible.

Speaking of which, is there a rule that losing Presidential candidates must completely disappear? Maybe that is how it always generally been, or has it been worse with HRC and Harris? If Harris were the standard-bearer for Dems you would think she would still be out there saying stuff.

Idk, but they're both female, which I think makes it harder to continue to assert that you still are the standard-bearer.

What did John Kerry do in 2004?

I am trying to recall what Gore/Kerry did in the year or so after the lost. I do think there may be a bit of added "shame" in losing to the demented criminal. But Yeah, gender probably playing some role. I don't expect here to be *the* standard bearer, but act as if you are someone important to the party and movement; it just seems like conceding something.

Romney and McCain were definitely more visible post-defeat, but of course they still held office.

Harris is running for CA Governor, right?

History suggests she'll lose in a shocker, and then somehow stage a comeback to become president, commit some crimes, and then resign.

Gore seems to have kept his head down after the election until late 2002, when he started making speeches against the Iraq war, and subsequently against other Bush policies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore#Second_presidential_run_(2000)

Starting NLT May 2005, based on the first archiving date of his PAC's website, Kerry raised a lot of money for Democratic candidates in the 2006 elections on an anti-Iraq War platform - and he was of course still a Senator as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry#Subsequent_presidential-election_activities

Since Nixon, it's been a rule that once you were a major party candidate for President and lost then you were done in politics. Trump found a loophole in the rule, by refusing to ever admit he lost .

50: No, she hasn't decided yet, she's publicly mulling.

Publically mulling *is* running. Otherwise you'd just be privately mulling.

It's a stage of running, part of assessing her potential. What info she gathers in this phase could easily make her turn elsewhere.

The problem with his statement is that it treats Trump like a legitimate, normal president who isn't planning on staying.

I cannot believe we re-elected this fucking turd. Why would we do such a thing.

Sometimes I doubt our commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Apparently Google planning to show Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America for us dumbshits in the US of A. Just deleted the app from my phone.

Are we not entertained!?

Where you Knew "Don't be evil" was going to end up all along.

I would love it if he vindictively renamed the Gulf of California the Gulf of Mexico and said it was because California has too many immigrants.

All the other services will probably do the same in the end...

US-based ones anyway.

A close friend went to work for Google around the end of 2003, and I vividly remember them remarking on the "Don't be evil" line shortly thereafter: "The minute you see that, you just know they're going to do a lot of evil."

Basically it says, "Presidents come and go, but God is on the throne forever."

I sometimes have to explain that I am not a New Atheist, even though I often sound like one. This sweet, profound statement from Jeffries identifies the locus of my departure from the New Atheism.

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and their ilk are correct about the (lack of) factual basis for theism, but they entirely fail to grasp that certain types of spiritual expression are both valuable and factually unassailable.

The Bible is okay, and I get why people are into it, but my own sacred text is the Lord of the Rings. Tolkein describes the experience of Sam Gamgee, trudging through the wasteland of Mordor in a moment of near-despair.

Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.

Jeffries and Tolkein are expressing an identical sentiment, and the fact that the House minority leader offered this in religious shorthand is to his credit.

And now, in the spirit of random association, I find myself wondering if Tolkein took inspiration from Robert Frost's meditation on a star:

And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.

I keep seeing politicians' responses saying things like "these cuts hurt people in red states too" but in the perverse world of doing whatever you can get away with, isn't there an incentive to see how far you can go in terms of hurting people in the places that are least likely to vote against you no matter what you do?

Just how many constitutional crises are we on right now?

And this, from James Palmer over at Bluesky:

increasingly convinced that they're going to Liz Truss the economy, but in a system that is incapable of removing the Truss.

||

"They're feasting on the dead bodies of Ogoni people and dancing on the grave of [executed environmentalist] Ken Saro-Wiwa. There is blood in the oil of Ogoniland."

That Jeffries tweet is like something my grandmother would mutter to herself about something she saw on the news. Which is fine when you are not the Speaker of the House.

70: Yes, exactly!

It's good if politicians talk in ways your grandmother would! That's how you appeal to the people!

72: To me it just sounds so fatalistic and passive, like "Everything happens for a reason". Something good will come of this. It's kind of like "Thoughts and prayers." I'm actually a Christian, so I'll say that right now I'm praying about what I am called to do, ie. asking how I can use my talents most effectively in a way that resonates with what I enjoy, now - in this moment - to fight.

I keep thinking of Nerv's motto in Evangelion: "God's in His Heaven, All's right with the World"

Aaaaand just found out that the international fellow I'm supposed to be hosting next month is canceled due to one of the EOs. Or I should say, "indefinitely postponed." Hours of work, a criminal background check, a visit from federal subcontractors to check that my guest room is suitable, and now this enormously complex three-week fellowship program is totally upended.

I'm only a host, so the impact to me is minimal. I feel so bad for the organizers and the fellows.

Scrolling the reports on what is going on feels like "the fog of war." Lots of reports, little idea what in hindsight will have been trivial and what important, and none of the news is good or happy or anything we should be thinking about in normal times.

My former graduate student, just hired a couple weeks ago by the Fish and Wildlife Service for a job she'd have been great at, just had her job offer rescinded.

75 would you mind being a little more specific about which EO was the cause? I have students here who are excited about doing their half semester residency in NY who I've been advising, I hate to think it will be cancelled because of this bs

Attempt at a national ban on 18-and-under trans healthcare just dropped. Presumably we get an injunction in short order but they're using everything in the toolkit: defunding hospitals, turning the DOJ on individual doctors. Most of the language is restricted to "children" as defined in the order but some of it appears to apply to anybody. The weaponization of existing "female genital mutilation" laws is inspired.

"Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and their ilk are correct about the (lack of) factual basis for theism, but they entirely fail to grasp that certain types of spiritual expression are both valuable and factually unassailable."

I think you are arguing with the Dawkins in your head here. The actual Dawkins doesn't think like this at all.

I submit that, in the context of Jeffries' quote and the like, the fact that God doesn't exist is no more relevant than the fact that Sam Gamgee doesn't exist. Dawkins, as best as I can reckon, finds that view unacceptable.