IHeartBadCode

I’m pretty Liberal but:

Republicans lack a clear mandate

Is utter bullshit. Republicans were handed very clear victories. Narrow, but clear. All western democracies sent a clear message, the current state of affairs is not good. Every western NATO country that had elections unseated the incumbent government.

Trump’s plans for deportations, ending birthright citizenship, political retribution, and tariffs

This is Trump’s fluff that the powers that be will entertain until they hold up more pressing priorities for the Republican party. My take on each one is:

• Deportations — That’s going to happen. They’ve played the blame game too long on it. But it’s likely that the admin will find it’s Elian Gonzalez moment, wave that as victory and then put the whole thing in the rear view. As “the worse case” has serious economic effects that won’t fly high among the others in the party without some Congressional stomach for expanded H-2A, which detracts from more pressing concerns for them.
• Ending birthright citizenship — That’s not happening. It is stupid that we’re even talking about this. Denaturalization, maybe, but nixing the 14th Amendment? No. The momentum isn’t there, people have bigger fish to fry.
• Political Retribution — The people he’s targeting aren’t idiots and have access to a wide variety of legal counsel. Trump’s under the impression that it’ll cause them the same amount of headache he had in 2021 to 2024, but the reality is Trump picks shitty lawyers because only shitty lawyers want to represent Trump. Trump routinely doesn’t pay people and that’s made his legal issues magnify by 10,000 fold. Everyone else doesn’t have nearly the same headaches Trump has with legal affairs and it’s mostly because Trump stiffs people. Other people actually pay their lawyers.
• Tariffs — I mean it’s likely to happen. It’ll be a FAFO moment for Trump for sure. But if it gets out of hand, his party might be able to reach concessions with Democrats to end any declaration of an emergency Trump tries to use to authorize the tariffs without Congress. It’s going to suck, and I will absolutely enjoy the schadenfreude that comes from it but not really enjoy the jacked up prices of things, but I mean things suck as is. So if it get twice as bad as it is now, I’ll only care about half as much as I do now. We all just refuse to address the crux of the issues with inflation so we’ll just keep on, keeping on. All of us are too busy blaming political people for inflation to really solve the issue, so maybe in another ten years or so everyone will finally chill the fuck out and we can work on the actual issues. But I’m not holding out hope.

There’s likely to be backlash as voters realize the gap between what they wanted and what Trump plans to deliver.

That’s almost a given. It’s one of the reasons Republicans are trying to get their ducks in a row for the 119th Congress. But with the narrow majority in the House, it will only take one or two asshats from the Freedom Caucus to fuck it up. And I absolutely feel that they’re going to do their usual asshattery at least once during the session. Mike Johnson isn’t some visionary, he does well to plan his lunch for the day. With all the to-dos the GOP has, it’s going to run into the too much water going down a narrow drain issue.

It’s one of the reasons the transition team is trying to break things out into sole EO, requiring law, and direction. It’s also the reason Trump doesn’t want to deal with the 300 day window on his appointments. He wants them hitting the road right away. People want to think Trump wants recess to avoid hearings. Trump just wants recess appointments so that they can get to work on day one, avoiding the hearings is a nice bonus. They have a lot of things they want to get through and it only goes so fast and they’re pretty much betting on midterms being hard to them.

But all that said, THIS:

Republicans lack a clear mandate

Is utter trash. They swept the fucking floor. Us Democrats need to take the L, look around, and figure a path for midterms to make a wide enough push in both chambers. But it ain’t going to happen just running around and yelling “TRUMP BAD! TRUMP BAD!” Democrats need to provide a clear policy agenda that is easy to articulate.

Javier Milei’s plan to privatize the Paraguay-Paraná waterway

maniacal laughter GODDAMN! Woo! That fucking Libertarian paradise comes at you fast. Man, Milei is in over his fucking head and the depth of it is slowly dawning on him at about the pace 80 year-olds fuck. All those experts are gone and my boy here is fucking treading water in a slow panic seeing the picnic he’s planned in the hurricane.

potentially benefiting multinational businesses at the expense of the local population.

Oh no, that’s exactly what it’s out to do. Milei is looking for capital injection after his nose dive on inflation. Like all of the austerity, Milei has successfully slowed inflation down drastically, but has done so by basically bringing his country’s economy to a damn near halt. That’s the easy part. You stop putting any kind of investment into the public, they hold onto their money longer, economy slows and inflation basically flat lines.

The trick is that once you’ve got the economy this cold and all the fluidity has almost frozen completely, you warm it back up and try to control the thing to prevent another run away inflation. That’s the difficult part, because your people have to trust you to play their part and not be scared they’ll watch their dollars buy less and less again. And you’ve got to warm it up, because if it completely freezes, then you leave recession and enter depression where money enters a glacial pace of movement.

The thing I find funny is that the Libertarian paradise puts all the trust completely into the hands of the public. Which given how cold Milei has made his economy, is either the most insane or genius thing ever. But then he does this and, “AH, he wasn’t going to trust them after all.” He’s going to wheel and deal and see where it lands. Problem is that the folks with money know the position he’s put himself into. The cards are stacked in the favor of the rich people who Milei wants to invest in his country and boy are they going to play their hand.

Hornsby sang a song about it. “That’s just the way it is. Some things will never change. That’s just the way it is. Ah, but don’t you believe them.” Man people are hungry to think this shit ain’t going to play out the same way it always does. It amazing the lengths folks go to thinking that. It’s shit like this that makes me think hope is one of those bad four letter words.

The Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) handles:

• Medicare
• Medicaid
• the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
• the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance Marketplaces

They are also in charge of:

• Setting the health insurance portability standards for the United States
• The administrative end of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• Setting the Federal quality standards in long-term care (nursing homes)
• Clinical laboratory quality standards under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) of 1988

So it’s not just Medicare and Medicaid, but millions of people within the ACA and including seven million children in CHIPs that he’ll be overseeing. Not to mention setting the standards of care for millions of people in nursing homes.

Remember everyone. This guy is going to be Dr. Oz’s boss.

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell reportedly warned that there will be no recess appointments

Recess appointments stopped being a thing in 2016 altogether and really the water source was shut off back in Obama who only got 32 as Pro Forma became popular in Congress.

I am seriously doubtful that the House wants to get rid of Pro Forma nor would they risk a Section III dismissal to appease Trump.

As much as Trump is power hungry, so too are a ton of GOP members of Congress equally hungry.

Yeah, something got in their crawl and Bluesky is on low key TPOT rising.

Someone did a post on it, you can see the map that was done in the picture there with TPOT in blue.

I don’t know why they started coalescing on Bluesky, but it is what it is. If they get annoying there, I know how to mute them. But as long as that doesn’t also herald the “free speech absolutists” that literally add zero value, I’m cool with TPOT heading to Bluesky.

Besides, I’m more active on Fedi/Mastodon at this point than Threads/Bluesky so it’s not really a pressing thing for me. I mean shit, I wouldn’t have a problem with Musk’s network if he’d clamp down on the utter trash going on over there. Like it’s gotten to pure garbage, I haven’t the time to block everyone who pops into my feeds that how hard the algo there is pushing the trash.

The postrat folk. The deep value Silicon Valley folk. Core Techbro kind of people.

Would have thought they’d be prone to sticking with Musk

Ditto, but at the same time. Being with daddy Musk might be too traditional at this point. No idea the reasons, but you can to see a lot of this popping up in that circle on Twitter.

TPOT → Bluesky is actually an interesting example of what looks like a successful transplantation… quasi-existential concerns about Elon Twitter, vibes have been off leading to big cascades of migration tend to happen after inciting incidents (eg twitter banning substack links being a canary in the coal mine)

You know the “I sound super thoughtful” kind of stuff. Lots of praise from that Group on XTwitter/Bluesky.

I don’t know. Lots of folks pointing out That Part Of Twitter (TPOT) also migrating over.

That’s not the victory Republicans will think it is.

The House Freedom caucus routinely has at least one or two who dig their heels in over “this bill doesn’t go FAR enough!”

With a 218 majority, that means 100% of the Republicans have to toe the line. Not a single person can be out of line, something that rarely happens with either party. There’s usually at least ONE person who doesn’t like the outcome.

This is going to put a lot of people who are known for digging in their heels into very precarious situations. Either they toe the line and have to accept some compromise because of Democrats in the Senate looking to filibuster. Or they alone hijack the Republican plans.

And woe if someone dies, gets sick, or retires in office on their side, something that also happens at least once per year on either side.

Yeah. We don’t have anything in place for this kind of thing, so we had to rely exclusively on things we use for corporate litigation and what have you. The whole impeachment, that’s about it as for what our founders created to protect us and if Congress doesn’t exercise that power, well this is what happens. That whole argument way back “the courts will settle this” from the Senate that gave him a pass, that was the Senate knowing they failed and trying to pass the blame elsewhere.

Trump got away with everything because the actual few protections we have, the people entrusted to use those powers lacked the spine to actually use that power. Cowardice is how we got here. A short but important line of defense was entrusted to weak minded people and so they failed at every step of the way.

Perhaps we will one day fix these shortcomings. Maybe. But this shows that if we give power to weak individuals that will put wealth, power, and their own interests over the rule of law, then we don’t have a country. The Constitution is only a sheet of paper if we do nothing to enforce it.

Bold of you to assume that any family member of Trump’s would not already be stealing the money.

Someone, somewhere wished that Rubio and Gaetz were no longer in Congress.

And the monkey paw curled a finger.

This cluster just gets worse by the day.

And we all have 1,529 days left to watch that hope get even dimmer.

One. Trump can’t fire the Comptroller. They report to Congress.

Two. Trump will get to select the next Comptroller on December 22 of 2025. So it’s kind of a moot point.

WHAAAAATTT?!

Rubio? Dang. That’s a choice. There’s Romney, Paul, Barrasso, and Cruz that are some heavy hitters on the Committee on Foreign Relations and he went with Rubio? I mean shit, Rand Paul is who I would think would slide the best into Trump’s Sec. of State. There’s likely no one for Sec. of State that’s on Foreign Rel. that’s been more meticulous about the southern border that him. Additionally, the man is an easy pick for if you wanted to have someone sign a giant check from the US Treasury to Israel in the amount of ALL dollars.

Rubio is a bit more slow paced. Don’t get me wrong, he wants a wall just as much, but he’d likely slow walk it to allow it to gain heavy media traction. Paul would just be like “Give me some fucking bricks”.

is viewed by State Department officials as unlikely to overly politicize the role

That is a massive understatement there.

All I have to say is color me surprised by the choice. I mean, obviously Trump is going to tell Romney to eat shit, but shit if Foreign Rel. is where Trump was going for Sec. of State, I would have surely thought Paul would be a a perfect fit to Trump’s mannerisms.

Dems Should Steal It Back.

Or you know, Bernie should just have it and everyone should stop stealing it. I mean I’m as liberal as they come, but c’mon Democrats, stop stealing Bernie’s shit and leaving him behind and just listen to what Senator Sanders is telling you will actually win Americans.

I mean, I get it, I’m bummed about Trump, but shit, PLEASE LEARN SOMETHING THIS CYCLE DNC!! I mean there’s a ton of reasons for why Trump won, but holy fuck, Democrats if you could run something just few nanometers short of the current level of insipid political rhetoric, that would be amazing.

I’ll still vote Democrat on the mid term, but c’mon drink a Red Bull or something.

You’ll have to speak up. He can’t hear you over the leopards.

While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they’re right.

Goddamn this hits the exact thing that Democrats really need to learn.

There’s a ton of emotion in this nation. Given:

• The opioid crisis where the people responsible are in perpetual litigation.
• The wars we fought that costed us deaths of young people who had lives ahead of them, and scarred millions more. All so that a few rich asshats could profit.
• The corruption of large companies as they swindle the working class, only to watch legislators continue to profit off of insider trading.

And that’s just to name a few. There’s a ton of emotion in this nation. And Trump, for better or worse, taps into that emotion. The cut and dry democrats, they keep telling us, “The system will work, this time” and you have a public that just screams “well how soon is now then?”

Democrats cannot just keep tapping on the system as it currently stands when the system so obviously doesn’t deliver. There are hungry democrats looking for change to the system to form a more better system that will serve them, and the party just keeps dressing the bones of the long gone bird from days long pass.

Sanders fucking sinks the nail in a single stroke of the hammer on this. And Republicans are using that emotion, that pent up distrust of the system as it is, to move people in their direction. The entire point of this living government is to have a government, to have a system, that matches the people who are alive and having to deal with it. Sanders sees that and cut and dry Democrats keep going “but Trump will ruin the system that doesn’t work for you!!”

Goddamn, one day, they will learn. Democrats will pick up on what Sanders is saying one day. But holy shit, they are going to clearly take an incredibly long and winding road to get there. I don’t agree with where Republicans want to take us. I don’t agree with how Republicans want to get there. But goddamn, we’ve got to hand it to them that they’re actively pointing out the exact same thing the Sanders is pointing out. “Status Quo ain’t going to fucking work anymore.” The sooner the traditional Democrats learn that, the faster they can come back to being relevant.

Remember 4 years of Russia-gate, everyone

That whole thing was about Russia using social media to spend disinformation. The entire thing wasn’t that, Russia hacked into the ballot boxes and changed votes, it was that Russia was using social media as a means to give false information to the public.

Underpinning the whole Russia-gate episode is the fact that human beings still physically pushed the buttons they pushed and that the vote they cast was indeed the vote they wished to cast. So we still accept the results as, technically speaking, the people have spoken.

But c’mon, you’ve seen the increase in AI slop. You know the Russia-gate stuff is true. In fact, I would dare say this election cycle they’ve gotten worse at doing it as they’re still pretty new at the whole AI stuff. Now where I, myself, and other Democrats likely disagree is the how to solve it. Lots of Democrats want to ban AI and regulate social media, but my opinion is you can’t fight fire by banning the match. You have to teach fire safety and hope the public is smart enough to not set themselves on fire.

But the important aspect is in all of this, the ballots that were cast, we still respect the final tally. That’s the fundamental difference between the Russia-gate and Trump’s legal challenges. The Russia-gate stuff is basically people are being misled. Trump’s stuff was that people were literally altering the ballot computer.

I think people are still being misled… BUT, Trump won this one fair and square. The law doesn’t say a person being misled shouldn’t have their vote count, and such a law would be insanely stupid/incredibly dangerous, even if it favored my particular team. We fix being misled by educating people and so losing this election just means that the educating folks game needs to up the ante. Best anyone can do is put the sources out there, show where the misinformation is wrong, and leave it up to the voter to read all of that come to the conclusion that matches reality. But if they don’t, we’ve got to accept that and work on better messaging.

That’s how one makes a point. They present the view, present the evidence, and use a persuasive argument. The rest is up to the voter to put together.

“They’re not hurting the people they need to be hurting”

We are so going to be hearing this again.