Saturday, June 14, 2025
Grand Old Police Blotter
Republican in South Carolina arrested over distribution of child sexual abuse materialRJ May, who used screen name ‘joebidennnn69’, charged with 10 counts and ordered to remain jailed until his trial
Assassination
Away from the computer at the moment (phone only), but a Minnesota state rep (Melissa Hortman) and her husband were killed and a state senator was also shot. Democrats.
Protest
There's an element of "HOW DARE THEY TREAT A SENATOR LIKE THAT?" which is valid, but also suggests it's OK for them to treat others like that. The right lesson is that if they are treating a senator like that, they are treating everyone else like that. The genius brain lesson is that almost all "violence" at protests is caused by law enforcement.I encourage everyone to consider attending one of the many demonstrations planned for tomorrow across the country. Show up. Demand accountability. Peacefully protest. Find the rally closest to you: NoKings.org
— Alex Padilla (@alex-padilla4ca.bsky.social) June 13, 2025 at 9:29 PM
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Most elected Dems hate protest because they think it's unpoular and they know "Jake Tapper" will make them responsible for everything that happens. A not-usual-suspect telling people to go protest is a positive development, in the "Is Our Senators Learning?" sense.
Friday, June 13, 2025
Good Luck, Austin
Tesla’s driverless “robotaxis” could launch in Austin as soon as June 22. But a demo in Austin today showed a Tesla, manually driven to test its Full Self-Driving system, failed to stop for a child-sized dummy at a school bus—and hit it. @cbsaustin pic.twitter.com/RskFc6fjKC
— Abigail Velez (@velez_tx) June 12, 2025
People Gotta Eat
The 4,000 California National Guard soldiers who President Donald Trump surged into Los Angeles remain unpaid due to delays in issuing official activation orders, leaving compensation and benefits in limbo."Legal limbo" could mean a lot of things, lads, better be careful!
According to more than a dozen Guardsmen across four units who spoke to Military.com, none has received formal activation orders, the critical paperwork that not only authorizes their duty status, but also unlocks pay, Tricare health benefits and eligibility for Department of Veterans Affairs services. Without those orders, troops remain in a legal and administrative limbo.
Just Do
Don't monologue your cunning plans to convince voters to vote for you in order to impress journalists. Just do it!
Alpha Energy
It is 2004... It is 2006... It is 2012... It is 2026...
Democrats’ newest approach to win back voters is a fresh embrace of the nation’s oldest symbol.
Two days ahead of Flag Day, when President Donald Trump’s military parade will run through the streets of Washington, Democratic Reps. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) fanned out Thursday afternoon to give a gift to their colleagues to unite them.
Of course with added Alpha Energy Swears:
It’s a message that a beleaguered party hopes resonates in the 90 percent of counties that shifted to Republicans last November. Or, as Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) put it earlier this year, it’s time for Democrats to “fucking retake the flag.”
Scoops From The Past
I regularly think about this scoop from Newsweek, in 2004.
(Iran has no border with Israel and they did not have menacing tanks at this nonexistent border)
Real Men Go To Tehran
Years ago I was invited to an event at the Center for America Progress. It was a Bush State of the Union speech watching event. I believe it was the infamous Manimal speech. Anyway, I was on a panel with Sam Seder and a couple of other people. We did some Q&A, made some jokes during the speech, etc.
One of the questions put to the panel was something like, "What's your greatest fear/concern [in politics, not zombies or whatever]?"
I think my answer was "President Brownback." One of my copanelists (not Sam Seder and also not someone whose normal beat was "foreign policy") said, "nuclear Iran."
This was 19 years ago.
Anyway.
As far as I know, this person is no longer in The Discourse, so no need to name them (plus this is from memory and I don't like attributing things to people by name from memory).
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Self-Preservation
Seems Bad
I'm sure California has some state laws about attempts to overthrow the government. Maybe it's time for Newsom to start dusting those off. Maybe it's time for Chuck to grind the Senate to a halt... hahaha whatever.Kristi Noem: "We are not going away. We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city." Sen. Alex Padilla is then forcibly removed!
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) June 12, 2025 at 7:06 PM
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Alpha Energy
“We know the Lions are going to the Super Bowl this year because they have a good defense and a good offense, right?” Slotkin, referring to Detroit’s NFL team, told an audience of roughly 400 people at a town hall forum.She keeps saying how tough she is without actually doing it.
“So we have to be able to do both,” Slotkin added. “We have a strong defense, but then you’ve got to have a vision, an alternative vision, to what is being provided to us every day. And that is the charge of the next generation of leaders in the Democratic Party.”
She also has thrown herself into advocating for a robust takedown of the president’s agenda.Can we see it? No.
“I wrote a war plan,” the former CIA analyst and Pentagon aide told her audience here last week, “of how to contain and defeat Trump — a 17-page PowerPoint.”
Lansing — U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat from Holly, told a crowd in mid-Michigan Friday night that her party owes the public an "alternative vision" for the country's future and she's developing a plan she hopes to unveil in the coming weeks.Soon! Can't fucking wait.
"I wrote a war plan of how to contain and defeat Trump, a 17-page PowerPoint ... just like ... I used to do at the Pentagon," said Slotkin, who previously worked in national security. "We used to do war planning.She thinks making PowerPoints in the Pentagon makes her a fighting troop.
"And it's about being rigorous and ruthless about our priorities. Part of the plan is about having an alternative vision."
Slotkin said that the vision will be about protecting the middle class and dealing with artificial intelligence's impact on the economy and education. It will also detail what Democrats would do if they had control of Washington, D.C., she said.
There is always a chance my cynicism will be proven to be misguided!
It's Tariff Day, Again
Or maybe not!
Trump said Wednesday he would be willing to extend a July 8 deadline for finishing trade talks with countries before higher U.S. levies take effect, but that the extensions may not be necessary.“I would, but I don’t think we’re going to have that necessity. We made a great deal with China,” Trump told reporters. “We’re dealing with Japan, we’re dealing with South Korea. We’re dealing with a lot of them. So we’re going to be sending letters out, in about a week and a half, two weeks, to countries, telling them what the deal is, like I did with EU.”
And the big beautiful deal with China just takes us back to where we were.
It remains unclear whether the truce will hold — or crumble like one struck in May did. Even if the agreement does prove durable, its big accomplishment appears to be merely returning the countries to a status quo from several months ago, before President Trump provoked tensions with China in early April by ramping up tariffs on goods it produces.I was amused that this story fronts the critics. I'm not saying that's bad practice, just highlighting that it is a choice.
I Guess He Got Some Phone Calls
He's inclined to believe it because he's a big racist, and inclined to be happy to deport lots of brown people for the same reason, but I do think Miller's been feeding him nonsense about millions of criminals for years.
