Open Thread - Thurs - 20 Mar 2025 - It's So Easy To See Now

Submitted by Sima on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 5:00am

It's So Easy To See Now

First, Happy Spring! Spring is wonderful! Now, onto the stuff...

Maybe even up to a few years ago, ok maybe 10 years ago, I'd have been a bit doubtful in believing that politicians and their like, including the media, manipulate things so very overtly. But not anymore.

Just a few days ago the Dems were supposedly gonna fight back hard against Trump's budget stuff. And the Dems in the House of Representatives did. And the Senators were gonna too, and Schumer was all into it. And then... what happened? Schumer and a few others, like Fetterman!, caved. Of course. (I have to admit, I like Hartmann's term for Trump - the 'Mango Mussolini'. Hah!)


Good cartoon by Adam Zyglis from Cagle Cartoons

I bet Schumer's gonna retire now. Probably that was the plan all along and the reason why he was picked by TPTB to be the lightning rod for this action. He'll get accolades and money and whatever he wants as rewards. And he'll take the blame, because his caving is what his real masters, not the public who voted for him, but the oligarchs who own him, want. And so he'll slink away, since he's old and his time is done anyway (like Pelosi did, although she's back now, attacking Chuck over his surrender) and until then he'll take the blame and be the punching bag (deservedly, don't get me wrong) TPTB are willing to give us right now. And he's a great distraction!

Dems, the lower levels and those on the progressive left like AOC, at least, are really mad at Schumer. And it shows. But despite the actual anger which would arise from so many people, Schumer's surrender after his vow to fight Trump's budget was so predictable. It's kinda funny, if it wasn't so sad. I wonder who'll replace him when he retires? Does it even matter? It'll be some other odious sycophant.

Here's the open thread - remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!

Note: Some of these articles are from alternet because it's a great source to analyze to learn about the current 'directions' of the Dems.

Tags: 
Open Thread
#Schumer
#caving
#dems
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Submitted by Sima on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 1:30am
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Hope all is going well with everyone. Things are as well as they can be here, and the daffodils are blooming! Let us know what's up, we wanna read/hear it! Smile

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9 users have voted.
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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 7:39am
QMS's picture

.
.
Blaming the senate minority leader on the inability to legislate sounds about right.
Someone has to be the fall-guy.

Seeing snow drops and crocus popping up and the grass is beginning
to blush green.
Not quite out of the woods yet, but things are seeming a bit brighter.

We had a fun 'worlds shortest parade' here Sunday for St. Paddy.
Raised about $40K for local food banks. Featured a green balloon
dragon 49 feet long ( the length of the parade) spouting bubbles,
smoke and confetti. Scottish fiddlers, Irish dinners and stout beers.

th-1193865446.jpeg

Thanks for the OT Sima!

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Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 1:10pm
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@QMS

I like your parade a lot. And your cause.

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Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:08am
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@QMS
Sound great!! World's shortest parade sounds like a lot of fun Smile

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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by Lookout on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 8:01am
Lookout's picture

The CR budget continues the Biden budget. I'm unsure if it refunds USAID and other programs Elon is supposedly cutting. Dems voting against the same budget they created last year seems a bit absurd to me, but the protest optics are important to the Trump deranged.

Things will come to a head next Sept when a new budget should be created.

Happy spring everyone. Thanks for the OT!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:15am
Sima's picture

@Lookout
they are all on the same side, really.

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3 users have voted.
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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 10:06am
QMS's picture

courts are fighting executive
congress is typically out of touch
derp state manipulates the media
and we just sit back and watch the fireworks

meanwhile the MIC makes zillions slaughtering foreigners
and state sanctions anything that moves

judiciary is now the bottle neck to the flow of change

law fare, appeals and mis-interpretations of constitutional
authority is the battlefield.

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Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:16am
Sima's picture

@QMS
the military gets. None, probably.

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3 users have voted.
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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 10:38am
enhydra lutris's picture

nuthin, so for grins I peeked at today's history, some "highlights"

1800 - Volta announced his discovery of the battery
1815 - Napoleon entered Paris after his escape from Elba
1854 - The Republican party was formally organized (in Wisconsin, no less)
1933 - Dachau was completed

so, one highlight and then straight downhill. Tsk. Cool but not cold and no rain.

Trump wants to control the Ukie nuke plants "or safety", yah, sure. The Rus should say yes, go control those within ukiestan's actual possession as of today and gouge the Ukies, but leave those in our hands alone. That'd be a real giggle. Wink

be well and have a good one

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:19am
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@enhydra lutris
made me suddenly realize, is that why it's called 'voltage'? Electricity measurement? I should know this, but I don't. A rabbit hole to go down!

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4 users have voted.
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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by snoopydawg on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 11:17am
snoopydawg's picture

.

Jeremy Scahill
and Israel telling our government what our first amendment right should be.

Mahmoud Khalil’s attorneys are engaged in what may well be a precedent-setting case that cuts to the core of issues surrounding speech, due process and the right of all of us to dissent from the foreign policies of the US government and to oppose the genocidal policies of foreign governments—in this case Israel. The Trump administration is using Khalil as a test case in its sweeping campaign to dramatically expand the powers of the executive branch and to crush some of the rights granted under the Constitution.

“I think what happens with this case,” Greer said, “is a true bellwether to whether or not we, as Americans, want to preserve our right to speech and expression and association, or whether we're going to let this administration roll back those rights.”

Trump and congress are making Columbia curtail free speech because it’s forbidden under the first amendment to do it themselves.

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Here in the USA arming and funding Israeli genocide and mass murder is perfectly OK, but objecting to it will get you expelled, arrested or deported.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 2:23pm
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@snoopydawg

....I would like to force an Amendment to the Constitution making any criticism of Israel a specific type of exception to the First Amendment. In the same way that (falsely yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater) is not protected speech, and Inferring that voicing any criticism of the Israeli State is discriminatory speech and unlawful in the United States.

Of course the Constitution is entrenched and can no longer be amended, which means that American's protection from dictatorial Leaders (enshrined in the vague and incomplete US Constitution) is now decided by politically appointed judges, who tolerate corruption among themselves.

I like to see invisible laws written down. for People-who-cannot-think.

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Submitted by snoopydawg on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 4:03pm
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@Pluto's Republic

I would like to force an Amendment to the Constitution making any criticism of Israel a specific type of exception to the First Amendment.

Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but that’s exactly what Israel is trying to do and Trump is fully on board with it.

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Here in the USA arming and funding Israeli genocide and mass murder is perfectly OK, but objecting to it will get you expelled, arrested or deported.

Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 2:05pm
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@snoopydawg

....in the most blatant and intellectually honest way so that people can better see and understand the hypocrisy and compromise of truth they are consenting to. They are elevating unspeakable evil above their own conscience and their knowledge of right and wrong.

But maybe that's the karma of people who cannot admit that they live on the blood soaked soil of an even worse recent genocide that took place in the United States.

After all, the US genocide was exactly what inspired Hitler to believe that the complete extermination of a troublesome population results in a more perfect civilization That's the hidden truth that binds us to Israel in such an unholy way. We share a genocide bond with Israel and Germany. Look at the three cultures and the madness and monsters they produce.

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Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:23am
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@snoopydawg
'Trump and congress are making Columbia curtail free speech because it’s forbidden under the first amendment to do it themselves.' So very true. And it sucks.

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4 users have voted.
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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 11:21am

more simping for Musk

Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick used an appearance on Fox News to encourage viewers to buy stock in Tesla, as the company struggles amid Elon Musk’s involvement in the Trump administration.

Although cabinet secretaries traditionally do not endorse individual stocks, Lutnick told viewers of Jesse Watters Primetime that Musk – a “special government employee” of President Donald Trump – was “the best person to bet on” and that Tesla’s stock will “never be this cheap again.”

“I think if you want to learn something on this show tonight, buy Tesla,” Lutnick said. “It’s unbelievable that this guy’s stock is this cheap. It’ll never be this cheap again.”

Never this cheap again? It immediately drops more.

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Submitted by la58 on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 11:51am

@gjohnsit https://www.wired.com/story/doges-dodgy-numbers-employ-a-tesla-technique/

ELON MUSK HAS pledged that the work of his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, would be “maximally transparent.” DOGE’s website is proof of that, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, and now White House adviser, has repeatedly said. There, the group maintains a list of slashed grants and budgets, a running tally of its work.

But in recent weeks, The New York Times reported that DOGE has not only posted major mistakes to the website—crediting DOGE, for example, with saving $8 billion when the contract canceled was for $8 million and had already paid out $2.5 million—but also worked to obfuscate those mistakes after the fact, deleting identifying details about DOGE’s cuts from the website, and later even from its code, that made them easy for the public to verify and track.For nearly a decade, Goodall and others have been tracking Tesla’s public releases on its Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features, advanced driver-assistance systems designed to make driving less stressful and more safe. Over the years, researchers claim, Tesla has released safety statistics without proper context; promoted numbers that are impossible for outside experts to verify; touted favorable safety statistics that were later proved misleading; and even changed already-released safety statistics retroactively. The numbers have been so inconsistent that Tesla Full Self-Driving fans have taken to crowdsourcing performance data themselves.

Instead of public data releases, “what we have is these little snippets that, when researchers look into them in context, seem really suspicious,” alleges Bryant Walker Smith, a law professor and engineer who studies autonomous vehicles at the University of South Carolina.

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Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:29am
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@gjohnsit
I hope Tesla stock bottoms out though, gotta admit. Heh.

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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by gjohnsit on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 11:47am

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Submitted by humphrey on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 2:37pm

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Submitted by QMS on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 2:51pm
QMS's picture

@humphrey
.
.
how does this MAGA thing coincide with
bowing to zions? If my maps are valid,
Israel is on the other side of the world
from the US. Funding wars abroad has
nothing to do with US territory.

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Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:32am
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@humphrey
like that I posted above about him going along with the budget makes me both really disappointed in him and really angry at myself for every even slightly supporting him.

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4 users have voted.
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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so

Submitted by usefewersyllables on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 3:09pm
usefewersyllables's picture

after surgery. They removed the surgical drain on Tuesday, so I'm no longer toting around a little jar of my own personal biohazard material on the end of a hose that leads up to the scar.

No- instead, said material is just soaking right through the dressings- and saturating my underwear, shirt, and pants while it is at it. I stood up to go to the bathroom and check on it, and realized that I have this nice dark wet stain, extending all down my front from just left of the half-bellybutton that remains post-surgery, to about halfway to my left knee. That has appeared over the last 4 hours, while I was busy nerding away. Not a good look.

Well, there's one reason to head home early, I guess. And hopefully, over this coming weekend, my new spare pee-hole will decide to seal itself up. If the dressing isn't in the way, it obscenely squirts when I cough. This is a party trick that I definitely do not need...

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by humphrey on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 3:12pm

@usefewersyllables
It is just that you have a knack for describing your travails in such a light hearted way.

Hopefully you have a speedy recovery!

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Submitted by usefewersyllables on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 3:37pm
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@humphrey

liked it! I have to laugh more than just a bit, myself, even though I now have the HR people in here, seeing if they need to send my office chair out to have it cleaned. You have to approach the absurdities of life with humor, I think, in order not to just collapse into the fetal position and wait for Someone Else To Fix Things.

Best of all- I have to run by Mickeymart on the way home. The big damp stain down my front will fit in just fine there amongst the Walmartians. After all, there is no such thing as HazMat at Mickeymart, right?

Maybe I should pick up some Depends.

On edit: crap, my billfold is wet. Argh. Well, that puts a whole new spin on the name of my favorite bar from Jost Van Dyke: the Soggy Dollar...

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 3:14pm
QMS's picture

@usefewersyllables
.
.
phones and tools in patients bodies
perhaps a scan is in order?

hope the magic holds you together

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Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

Submitted by usefewersyllables on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 3:36pm
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@QMS

the kind thoughts! Now you've got me waiting for my half-bellybutton to *ring*. That would definitely kick the party trick up a notch!

Come to think of it, I could use another pair of forceps/haemostats or two... (;-)

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 3:42pm
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@usefewersyllables
.
you've got me in stitches!

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Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

Submitted by usefewersyllables on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 3:46pm
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@QMS

Hey, I paid for 'em: they're mine, MINE, I tell you.

Now I just have to figure out how to recover them without making more of a mess. The joys of having surgery while on anticoagulants: apparently, my Indian name is now "Human Puddle"...

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

Submitted by QMS on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 4:00pm
QMS's picture

@usefewersyllables
.
so you don't bust a gut
Wink

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Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel.
-- August Hare

Submitted by on the cusp on Thu, 03/20/2025 - 4:06pm

@usefewersyllables you are always good for a belly laugh!

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Sima on Fri, 03/21/2025 - 1:37am
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@usefewersyllables
in sympathy! The coughing squirts! Ack! I hope everything heals fast and it's all good after that!

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If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so