Recent Comments

1. about 10 hours ago on La Cucaracha

   I vote for the big stick.

2. about 10 hours ago on Prickly City

   Speaking of losing a chance to BE in control of something:

   “The WH withdrew NY Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination for UN ambassador, because it needs her to stay in office to secure the House GOP’s narrow majority. She was a quick pick of Trump’s after he won in November but never got to a confirmation vote, and now never will. Stefanik entered the House as a sober-minded legislator a decade ago, only to [go MAGA] for career advancement. Then she finally got the call-up and easily would have been confirmed in the Senate. Now she has to continue splitting her time between the icy Adirondacks and DC to provide another vote for tax cuts and quotidian messaging bills to protect gasoline-powered dishwashers. The decision is also a Republican acknowledgment of its majority’s precarity. This is a district that Stefanik won by 24 points and Trump by 21 in November. But given Democrats’ coalition of apoplectic college-educated voting addicts, the off-calendar special election in NY’s North Country would have been a competitive race. A loss in the special election wouldn’t just have cost Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson a critical vote. It would’ve been a watershed moment sending Republicans spiraling about their impending midterm doom, making it even harder to corral votes for Trump’s agenda. Stefanik should’ve quit the House two weeks ago and forced her own confirmation vote. Instead, it’ll be at least another couple of years of ribbon cuttings outside frigid rec centers.” [Slate, 3/29/25]

   FAFO, baby. You got what you voted for, Elise. ENJOY!

3. about 10 hours ago on Luann

   Pretty much.

4. about 13 hours ago on Luann

   IIRC, a term from “Ms.” Magazine – when how she was being treated would dawn on a woman. And she’d respond, not just ignore it or hope it would go away.

5. 1 day ago on Prickly City

   “Beneath the smugness of Ron DeSantis, at Florida leading the nation in immigration enforcement lies something of a conundrum: how to fill the essential jobs of the scores of immigrant workers targeted for deportation.

   The answer, according to Florida lawmakers, is the state’s schoolchildren, who as young as 14 could soon be allowed to work overnight shifts without a break – even on school nights.

   A bill that progressed this week through the Republican-dominated state senate seeks to remove numerous existing protections for teenage workers, and allow them, in the Florida governor’s words, to step into the shoes of immigrants who supply Florida’s tourism and agriculture industries with “dirt cheap labor”.

   “What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? That’s how it used to be when I was growing up,” DeSantis said at an immigration forum with Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, in Sarasota last week." [The Guardian, 3/29/25]

   Yeah, I can just imagine how many children in white, Republican families, and especially those of Florida Republican legislators, will be doing these jobs. And considering DeSantis made it to the LLWS as a young ballplayer, methinks he was not working overnight shifts anywhere in his youth…

6. 2 days ago on Prickly City

   “The Trump administration abruptly pulled funding last week for a research grant meant to protect pregnant women from domestic violence because it was categorized as a “DEI” study.

   The National Institute of Health grant funded a two-year project to create a training program for early career clinicians to measure intimate partner violence and pregnancy. The leading cause of death among pregnant and postpartum women in the U.S. is homicide by an abusive partner. Perinatal women are more than twice as likely to be murdered than to die from sepsis, hypertensive disorders or hemorrhage.[Huffington Post, 3/27/25]

   Also: "President Donald Trump has ordered federal officials to scour monuments, memorials and statues to remove language he says may “inappropriately disparage Americans,” as part of his efforts to fight DEI and foster what he argues is necessary national patriotism.

   Trump and other conservatives have railed against what they see as in appropriate focus by national parks and other historical site on America’s history of enslavement, land theft and discrimination. Trump argues such focus perpetuates “a false reconstruction of American history” and that the sites should instead be promoting American exceptionalism." [USAToday 3/26/25] (Translation: He wants WHITEWASHING of our history.)

   Wouldn’t it be simpler for Dear Leader to just state that any attention to women/minorities/LGBTQ persons – any focus aside from WHITE HETEROSEXUAL MALES is now “DEI” and hereby forbidden?

7. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   Re: the “attack plan” leak, here’s where we are now per the Administration:

   It was a small mistake, it doesn’t matter.

   It was a deliberate setup by the Atlantic or SOMEONE to smear Dear Leader and Hegseth.

   Meanwhile, “President Donald Trump distanced himself from the Signal chat scandal; when asked if he still believes that the information shared was not classified. “Well, that’s what I’ve heard. I don’t know. I’m not sure, you have to ask the various people involved.” [CNN, 3/26/25] Remember Harry Truman and “The Buck Stops Here?” With Dear Leader, it’s the BUS stops here, so he can throw someone under it.

   But another take is popping up: "Why are Trump officials using Signal for their communications instead of formal, traceable channels? The answer seems clear — to avoid transparency. Signal offers end-to-end encryption and doesn’t store messages on its servers, which makes it nearly impossible for the public or investigators to access those chats. Unlike formal emails or documented communications, Signal conversations can’t be retrieved through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

   That’s not just a technical loophole – it’s a deliberate choice to avoid accountability. Most official government communications, by law, are subject to FOIA because the public has a right to know how decisions are made. But when officials move to platforms designed to leave no trace, it raises serious questions about what they’re trying to hide — and why." [Alt Natl Park Service, 3/25/25]

8. 3 days ago on Prickly City

   Actually, the Draft League is there now and the games are pretty darn good. But I still hate the Yankees for pulling the AA franchise and moving it elsewhere in NJ for a “better demographic” (read: the polite euphemism for whiter neighborhood).

9. 4 days ago on Prickly City

   Apparently our TV star Defense Secretary went on to share the details and timing of the strikes in “extraordinary detail”:

   “That information, according to The Atlantic, was received “two hours before the scheduled start of the bombing of Houthi positions.”

   “If this information—particularly the exact times American aircraft were taking off for Yemen—had fallen into the wrong hands in that crucial two-hour period, American pilots and other American personnel could have been exposed to even greater danger than they ordinarily would face,” Goldberg and Harris wrote.” [CNN, 3/26/25]

   Yep, they FAFO’d “bigly.” They assumed they could sweep this under the rug, just claim “fake news,” or bully the reporter into dropping the story by claiming it wasn’t true. They were dead WRONG.

   Time for Dear Leader to cut his losses and send party boy Hegseth back to the minors, namely Fox. And while you’re at it, send Waltz and Gabbard out the door with him (although Waltz is likely the one who will meet the underside of the bus).

   Wonder how happy Tulsi is about switching parties now…

10. 5 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

    For the record – among those who voted in 2024, 49.8% voted for Trump vs 48.3% voted for Harris. And a heck of a lot of voters sat this one out.