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IHeartBadCode

@ IHeartBadCode @fedia.io

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2 yr. ago

  • Trump team barred from agencies amid legal standoff

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  • Well until Congress appeals 2 USC § 7, the law indicates that they are indeed on the schedule. But Article II leaves elections in the hands of Congress and the States to deal with. The President is very much excluded from the process.

    But I mean, SCOTUS apparently can do whatever they want. So it's literally could be anything at this point. So who knows? But till 2 USC § 7 is removed, that's what puts it on everyone's calendar. And so far, most of the Courts seem to not hold that particular law in question.

  • Trump team barred from agencies amid legal standoff

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  • I mean it's their loss no matter who they try to blame. The transition team already isn't expecting midterms to go well for Trump, so they're trying to set as much up they can on day one. One of the things Trump wants to bring back is schedule F so that he can start firing people.

    There's a problem with tat though. It's statutory language indicates that departments will require a determination for reclassification. Absent that, everyone fired would have an opportunity to file suit and if it's enough of any given State opens the State to file Federal suit to block the executive order.

    One of the things they can do to speed things up would be to have those rosters right now to review. But that they're getting blocked because of failure to work with legally required ethics, means they'll be behind the ball on day one. As much as Trump wants to, all those employees have legally binding contracts that require careful consideration to undo them without massive challenge.

    With the President-elect's team not looking positive for midterms, they've got a lot of things to get done on their to-do list and not exactly a lot of time to do them in. Trump's agenda is already starting to suffer too much water for too narrow a drain. Every minute he's delayed is putting those to-do items from "getting done" to "must prioritize this list".

    But all of this is Trump's scales to balance. He can skip out of the ethics filings but that comes with the cost of having a bit over 70 day delay to get some of the more basic things done. And right now, he's got time on hand. Confirmation hearings aren't going on, which even Republicans in the Senate are going to be asking for favors for their State in order to stomach some of the people Trump is passing over. This is one of the reasons Trump wants to skip all of this and have recessed appointments. Trump isn't interested in playing the favors game, but every single person in Congress has their career to think about long after Trump is gone. They want wins they can go home with.

    So waiting to day one means he'll need teams reviewing the employment roster for his schedule F idea and he'll need teams in Congress helping to convince members to get his agenda enacted. He's going to have a lot of stretched thin groups which means getting things done are going to take longer to get done. Time that Trump doesn't have.

    So he can blame Biden all he wants, his followers can believe whatever they want to believe. At the end of the day, Trump's agenda either gets implemented or it doesn't. It's a pretty binary outcome. Trump is going to whine about Biden or Democrats when his policy ideas fall apart, that's just how Trump operates. He has no ability to see the issues within himself and learn from them to get better. So there's no stopping Trump from blaming everyone but himself, that's just never going to happen.

    So Trump will absolutely say that, the more important thing is his policy not getting any feet.

    Republicans are going to cry the whole way for the next four years. That's just who they are. We have to look past that dumb shit and see if things are getting green-lit or waiting on incompetence to clear out. Did Trump get it enacted or not? That's the only thing that matters, all the other shit is just the usual bullshit Republicans cry about. We've long left the whole "meet in the middle" thing, the only thing that should matter is if Trump gets any of his policy enacted or not. The EO stuff, everything he throws is just giving more ideas on which avenues to close off when Democrats take the trifecta next.

  • Chris Hayes: The final 2024 election tally is almost in. It should end the MAGA mandate myth.

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  • 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.

  • Trump picks TV host Dr Oz to run Medicare and Medicaid

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  • 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.

  • RFK Jr. said the government may have planned COVID

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

  • ​'Lines are drawn': Onlookers stunned as McConnell reportedly delivers bad news to Trump

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  • 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.

  • The Great Migration to Bluesky Gives Me Hope for the Future of the Internet

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  • 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 Great Migration to Bluesky Gives Me Hope for the Future of the Internet

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  • 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.

  • The Great Migration to Bluesky Gives Me Hope for the Future of the Internet

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

  • Donald Trump Got Away With Everything

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  • 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.

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    Republicans "stunned and disgusted" as Trump taps Matt Gaetz for AG

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

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    Republicans "stunned and disgusted" as Trump taps Matt Gaetz for AG

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

    And the monkey paw curled a finger.

  • Deleted

    Permanently Deleted

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  • 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.

  • Trump expected to select Sen. Marco Rubio for secretary of state: Sources

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  • 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.

  • Trump Stole Bernie’s Working-Class Story. Dems Should Steal It Back.

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  • 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.

  • Trump says there's 'no price tag' for his mass deportation plan

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

  • Bernie Sanders blasts Democratic Party following Harris loss

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  • 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.

  • In concession speech, Harris says "when we lose an election, we accept the results"

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  • 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.

  • I’m Absolutely Sure America Is About to Get Exactly What It Wants

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  • "They're not hurting the people they need to be hurting"

    We are so going to be hearing this again.

  • Harris has big lead among early voters, polls show

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  • Kamala is going to win comfortably. Mark it.

    Popular vote? Oh yeah, not even a question. Harris is going to absolutely dominate in the popular vote.

    Electoral vote? Oh see, that's a different story. Shit is close, like uncomfortably close.

    Biden pulled Michigan in 2020 by about 150k votes. A 2.8% margin. And he was up in the polls by 10% going into it. Right now Harris is showing only a 1.7% lead in the polls in Michigan. Harris has to absolutely take Michigan, there's not a path to winning without Michigan without pulling something like Ohio or Georgia, which she's 6% under in Ohio and 2% under in Georgia. So the GA surprise, nobody should be counting on that. Georgia by the numbers is going Trump this election. Ohio is solid Trump territory. Thinking Florida or Texas might sway is foolish thinking. So without those four, Harris has to pick up the Rust belt if she wants to win, and she's not polling well there. Like she's ahead, but Biden was double digits leading the Rust belt in 2020 and that turned into single digit percentage leads in votes. Harris has single digit leads in the Rust Belt polls (in aggregate).

    If Harris wins this, in the electoral college, it's going to be by the thinnest margins we've seen before. Not even joking, Trump on the Electoral college has a collection of states that he's made incredibly safe that puts only a handful of battlegrounds he needs. Harris has nothing but uphill from where we are currently at.

    The lead is larger than the one Hillary Clinton had over Donald Trump in the 2016 election as the Democratic nominee woos swing states

    From the article. And Clinton lost by some of the thinnest margins in key states. In Michigan, she lost by 0.1% of the vote. That was a massive loss that costed Clinton incredibly. Literally 10,000 votes were the difference. The Libertarian candidate received twelve times the number of votes that Clinton lost by. WI, MI, and PA, Clinton lost those three states by less than 100,000 votes. And it was those losses that gave Trump the win. Less than 100,000 votes is was made the 2016 election.

    Anybody who thinks this election is a done deal is talking out their ass. You run the numbers for who will win which State, Trump is inches from victory. This is going to be a insanely close race. Everyone HAS TO GET OUT THERE and vote. This is going to get decided by single digit percents in key states if not even closer than that.