Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
VIEWED: 185382
PAGE 117 of 479
April Fool...no, Canada's next election will Not take place on the First Day of April
Trudeau is gone
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Several recent efforts by members of Congress go far beyond the proper bounds of regulation and look like pretty blatant efforts to destroy the independent authority of the judicial branch for the sin of enforcing constitutional limits on the executive. Their ominous warnings made for a troubling split screen this past week, alongside the Trump administration’s defiance of a court order and contemptuous cover-up of its misdeeds. This mob-style shakedown of the judiciary may not play as a constitutional crisis for pundits on cable news, but it’s emphatically a different variation on the same themes. Last week saw congressional efforts at impeachments for the mere exercise of judicial authority; an amped-up congressional threat to do away with nationwide injunctions; and an overt promise by the House majority to defund the judicial branch. While everyone’s eyes are on the Trump administration’s open contempt for judicial orders, many of us are ignoring congressional efforts to do precisely the same thing.
Congress has voted to impeach judges only 15 times in its history, and there’s no real chance these efforts will pass; if House Republicans do drag any impeachments across the finish line, there is no way the Senate will convict and remove its targets. But Musk is using the impeachment cosplay as a litmus test for which primaries he will fund, last week donating the maximum allowable campaign contributions to seven Republican members of Congress working to impeach judges. So even if this is just a fundraising stunt, it’s certainly rewarding the craziest of the crazy.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/03/judge-impeachment-congress
-mike-johnson-donald-trump.html
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
if House Republicans do drag any impeachments across the finish line, there is no way the Senate will convict and remove its targets.
Remember this one.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Remember this one: "no person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present"
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
if House Republicans do drag any impeachments across the finish line, there is no way the Senate will convict and remove its targets.
Remember this one.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/impeachment.htm
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:BRENDA, I don't care what people "say" ... what they "admit" to, what other people call them. I care about what they DO. And if you want to know what someone will do in future, look to their record.
Originally posted by Brenda:
Mr. Carney fully admits to being the head of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England.
It is Poilievre who has had to walk back comments to try and ditch the "Maple Maga" tag that he's gotten. The other day he had to walk back about taking healthcare down, the dental plan that the Liberals and NDP brought in under Trudeau.
The Conservatives are behind the Liberals in the polls and frankly that's where they should stay. We do not need a trump wanna be leading Canada.
What was Carney's record? He spent a lot of his career representing (private, investment) banks. What were his policies?
What did Poilievre do?
IDK.
But Canadian voters should.
People spend far too much time arguing propaganda. Propaganda is for people who are distracted by shiny objects.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
So, the problem with using SIGNAL isn't that it's insecure, it's that it's unofficial and no records are kept. Kind of like Hillary's 33,000 emails about wedding plans and yoga pants, correct?
And since the only participant who "leaked" anything was Mike Walz (by including Goldberg in the list, whether accidentally or on purpose), and who chose the app to begin with was Mike Walz, I suppose this is all on him?
Seems like the guy should be fired.
-----------
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."- Henry Kissinger
AMERICANS SUPPORT AMERICA
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:Remember this one: "no person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present"
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
if House Republicans do drag any impeachments across the finish line, there is no way the Senate will convict and remove its targets.
Remember this one.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/impeachment.htm
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
I see. You're still operating under the false assumption that you are represented by a party that isn't ripping each other apart while desperately trying not to become completely irrelevant.
I guess we'll see what the future brings.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:The Future is Here:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I see. You're still operating under the false assumption that you are represented by a party that isn't ripping each other apart while desperately trying not to become completely irrelevant.
I guess we'll see what the future brings.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
Man declared ‘dead’ by Social Security shares the cost of DOGE’s cuts
Questions about the agency’s future move beyond an anecdote here or there. The question now is how much Social Security can take before it stops working.
By Rachel Maddow | March 26, 2025, 1:22 PM CDT
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/social-security-pr
oblems-trump-elon-musk-doge-rcna198196
This is an adapted excerpt from the March 25 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
On Tuesday, during a Senate confirmation hearing for Frank Bisignano, Donald Trump’s nominee for Social Security commissioner, Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington shared a report from her hometown paper, The Seattle Times.
“It was like a Depression-era scene, he [Johnson] said, with a queue 50-deep jockeying for the attentions of two tellers,” The Seattle Times reported.
The story was that of Leonard “Ned” Johnson, an 82-year-old Washington resident, who was mistakenly declared dead by Social Security, which resulted in his benefits being taken away. As Cantwell recounted during that hearing, when Johnson realized the agency’s error, he tried to resolve the problem over the phone. However, after weeks of waiting for a response, he was forced to travel to the Social Security office in Seattle — one of the buildings proposed to be closed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“They are so understaffed down there,” Johnson told the paper. “They think the office is about to be closed down, and they don’t know where they’re going to go. It feels like the agency’s being gutted.”
After waiting for four hours, Johnson told the Times he jumped the line: “I saw an opening and I kind of rushed up and told them I was listed as dead. That seemed to get their attention.”
That’s just one story from one town about one retired person trying to straighten out one problem with Social Security — and finding a Depression-era scene when he did. But, as Trump and Musk continue to hack away at the Social Security Administration, questions about the future of the agency move beyond an anecdote here or there. The question now is how much Social Security can take before it stops working.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post published riveting reporting from Social Security offices around the country. For the report, headlined “Long waits, waves of calls, website crashes: Social Security is breaking down,” the paper spoke to more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security. The Post also reviewed internal documents from the agency.
Here’s what it found in Indiana: “In one office in central Indiana, the phone lines are jammed by 9 a.m. with hundreds of retirees, further taxing a staff of less than a dozen that is responsible for nearly 70,000 claimants across the state. … [T]he questions have become predictable: What is the U.S. DOGE Service doing to Social Security? Will the office close? Will my benefits continue?”
The Post reported that employees there received no training on the impending changes and have few answers for those calling in. “I hope we’re going to be here,” one employee told caller after caller, according to the Post. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”
In Baltimore, the Post spoke to an employee who works on critical payment systems who said that as a result of a wave of resignations and retirements, nearly a quarter of his team is either already gone or will soon be.
According to that employee, the reduction in highly skilled staff is already having an impact. “His office is supposed to
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
The Government’s Rock Librarian
Her work was so quiet and fundamental—to academia and industry, all over the world—that she believed her job would be safe.
(She was fired. She seeks a job in private industry. The government rehired her. The Winds of Change are Blowing Hard and Fast.)
By E. Tammy Kim | March 25, 2025
https://www.newyorker.com/news/deep-state-diaries/the-governments-rock
-librarian
Last September, Mary and her partner moved from Oregon to Colorado by car. On the way, they camped in Idaho and took a detour through Yellowstone National Park. They passed bison grazing on the side of the road, saw Old Faithful shoot into the sky, and, when it snowed, took refuge in an R.V. and baked a frozen pizza. Mary’s love of nature, kindled in the back yard of her childhood home, had inspired her to become a scientist. (She asked that I use only her first name.) She was enamored with volcanoes and eventually pursued a doctorate, which focussed on the geochemistry of the East African Rift. At twenty-eight, she was finishing her dissertation and about to start a job with the U.S. Geological Survey. “Being a geologist, you can do a lot of different things in oil or mining or academia,” she told me. “But I always liked the idea of doing science motivated by what the public wants.”
The U.S. Geological Survey (U.S.G.S.) was founded in 1879, amid a surge in industrial manufacturing and faith in scientific progress. It was charged with the “classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain.” Now it conducts satellite mapping, tracks earthquakes, and monitors mineral resources, wildlife, and water. It is one of eleven bureaus under the Department of the Interior, but has no regulatory powers. Mary would be working at the Denver Federal Center, a six-hundred-and-twenty-three-acre campus that was originally a livestock ranch and hosted an ordnance plant during the Second World War. The U.S.G.S. building there looked like it hadn’t changed much since then. Mary’s lab had a broken sink and was cluttered with decades’ worth of beakers and hot plates. Her office was in the corner of a windowless floor that frequently flooded. She tried to dress it up a bit, with a used standing desk and a green velvet armchair from home, which her partner nicknamed the “IKEA dream chair.” When Mary was being hired, she was told, in three rounds of interviews, that a new, state-of-the-art U.S.G.S. facility would soon be built down the road, at the Colorado School of Mines, with funding from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. “That was a big sell,” she said.
She joined a team that studies “critical minerals,” a category of metals that are essential to industry and vulnerable to kinks in the global supply chain. Critical minerals are used in planes, electric cars, smartphones, and many other technologies. Some, such as aluminum, lithium, and cobalt, are better known (and easier to pronounce) than others: dysprosium, fluorspar, ruthenium, ytterbium. They’re often dispersed in small amounts in sections of underlying rock. When a mining company locates an area that contains a critical mineral, it must excavate and grind up that rock, then separate it into component parts for analysis. Mary’s job was to keep a global inventory of these components, in the form of little jars of fine powders, called “reference materials.” A mining company or fellow-researcher might contact her to purchase a jar, at cost, of Reykjavík Iceland Basalt or Knippa Texas Nephelinite (both a hundred and thirty-five dollars) for purposes of calibration and comparison. But Mary was only permitted to ship the materials to certain countries, for reasons of national security, she supposed. She liked helping other scientists “know that they’re measuring something correctly.” Her little jars were the geochemical equivalent of the original kilogram, a metal cylinder that sits in a vault outside Paris. Maintaining measurement standards is a behind-the-scenes task fe
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
I’ve Seen How ‘America First’ Ends
By Ryan Crow | March 26, 2025
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/america-first-trump-
doge/682164/
The United States is rapidly dismantling the world order that it built and maintained over the past 80 years. Donald Trump’s administration is demolishing America’s foreign-aid system, weakening its transatlantic alliances, and curtailing military assistance for key partners, all in the name of putting “America First.”
These decisions emerge in part from a belief that has a growing appeal today: The U.S. should fix its own problems before worrying about everyone else’s. But this view fails to recognize that America’s international relationships are indispensable to its strength and stability. In nearly 15 years working on foreign-aid efforts across continents, I’ve seen that when America withdraws from the world, the world’s problems come knocking on its door.
Trump’s policies resemble those of some American leaders in the early 20th century who withdrew from international commitments, restricted foreign assistance, and pursued objectives mainly through threats and limited force rather than engagement and support. Both American and foreign leaders typically expended blood and treasure abroad only when they sensed a near-term payoff, or when catastrophes had already broken out. Using one’s resources to stabilize the international system and prevent bad outcomes was the exception.
The costs of this approach became clear soon enough. Even though the U.S. had the world’s largest economy and an exceptional military, the country was deeply vulnerable to international crises, including wars, epidemics, and economic tumult, all of which inflicted great harm on Americans.
Now, in fraying the international order, Trump threatens to reinstate some of the conditions that made the U.S. so unsafe a century ago. The administration claims to want to reduce wasteful spending and inefficiency. I know firsthand that these problems are real, and that effective reforms exist. But tearing down the system isn’t one of them.
Aiding other countries may seem like charity, but it protects American interests in concrete ways. Containing Ebola or Marburg outbreaks before they reach American soil, for example, is clearly preferable to addressing them once they’re already here. But even the more routine work that the U.S. has now halted—such as training nurses and supporting hospitals—ultimately makes Americans more secure. My own experiences illustrate the point.
In 2019, I worked with government officials and medical professionals in Tanzania to curb the excessive use of antibiotics, and thereby reduce the potential for drug-resistant pathogens. In a stuffy conference room four hours outside Dar es Salaam, we created a system that could help stop the next MRSA infection from emerging in Tanzania and coming to America.
During my work in Nigeria in 2016, I saw how training teachers, providing textbooks, and rehabilitating schools not only benefited locals but also promoted America’s strategic priorities. Because we conducted all of our activities with the Nigerian government, we established relationships that could be used to encourage security cooperation, combat local insurgents, and counter Chinese influence in the country.
And while working on tax reform in Tunisia in 2017, I was one small piece of an effort to ensure that the government had sufficient revenue to pay its employees and provide basic services. This wasn’t bleeding-heart altruism: The project ultimately helped equip the country’s emerging democracy to fight extremism, reduce migration that was destabilizing Europe, and pay its debts to Western creditors.
The connection between foreign assistance and U.S. national security was even clearer in Afghanistan, where I spent several months from 2010 to 2013. I was part of a team that reestablished local government offices and cooperated with officials to rebuild schools, repair roads, and improve water systems. T
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME