Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
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On March 19 2025 21:33 EnDeR_ wrote: My recollection is the same. Bush was constantly ridiculed in all the news I consumed at the time (which wasn't that much to be honest).
How we got here is also fairly clear. Playing hardball and never compromising got the GoP from total wipeout (First Obama term) to the popularity they currently enjoy. It's a successful strategy within the FPTP system and American political makeup. At this point you can't even argue that they hold minority views -- they obtained broad support from a majority of Americans.
At this point, I'd argue that it is up to the GoP to rein in Trump's excesses and restore bipartisanship. At some point you do have to take responsibility for what you have created. Good luck with that though.
Democrats escalated severely, leaving them in their current predicament. They assumed the Obama administration's vision of the transformation of America was so perfect that their perpetual uniparty future was all but assured. Then they miscalculated thinking Trump's marginal electoral miracle/popular vote loss was just lightning striking, and they could go all in on escalation and it would pay off. Absolute hubris. They are historically behind both in presidents and in terms. But thought they had suddenly ushered in the kind of total government capture that proceeded FDR again. Maybe they really were on the verge and would have looked like geniuses, but results are results. They lost every branch to the same guy for the 2nd time around.
Just look back. Their opposition literally elected a New York Democrat who signaled on national TV his interest in socialized medicine at the expense of getting shit on by the party he was trying to take over, and still they were too clueless to grow up, respect that they lost one round, bite the bullet and work with an obvious centrist. So they kept escalating instead. Two impeachments. Went after his family. His allies. Journalists. Churches. Because the right side of history! And guess what, the right side of the present blew up in their faces. Now instead of Trump having been just a minor player in a cycle of red/blue ping pong, they managed to elevate him to the level of a historic figure and one of the 5 most significant Republican presidents. All while fighting for what? A dwindling coalition backing a system bloated by corruption, incompetence, and waste. Asking the Obama coalition to hold that up is a taller request than the one given Atlas. He was the first since George HW Bush to lose votes the 2nd time around. The magic word "Obamacare" isn't doing it anymore. It's more of what have you done for me lately - and look at the past decade of Democrat politics and basically, the answer is, unfortunately for everybody involved, nothing. If their position is unenviable at the moment, it would have behooved them not to have wasted national years. They wasted years belonging to the US and to us all.
What I got from this is that you think that the reason we got into this situation where bipartisanship is dead is because Obama escalated? But what did they escalate?
A just-released annual report on the global state of democracy makes for depressing reading. But what's even more depressing is what might appear in next year's edition.
Or rather, what might not appear in the 2026 volume: an old democracy, by some measures the world's oldest; a superpower that long circled the globe professing to spread freedom.
"If it continues like this, the United States will not score as a democracy when we release [next year's] data," said Staffan Lindberg, head of the Varieties of Democracy project, run out of Sweden's University of Gothenburg.
"If it continues like this, democracy [there] will not last another six months."
His project includes 31 million data points for 202 countries, compiled by 4,200 scholars and other contributors, measuring 600 different attributes of democracy.
The report adds an important caveat: this year's version does not include events in 2025, meaning it does not cover the start of Donald Trump's latest presidential term.
But it refers to ongoing events in the U.S. as unprecedented, mentioning Trump pardoning 1,500 criminals who supported him; firing independent agency watchdogs without process; purging apolitical police and military brass; ignoring laws; and his unilaterally deleting federal programs, and even a whole organization, created by U.S. Congress.
In the last few days alone, Trump has smashed past several new milestones.
He's just called his predecessor's pardons void and vacated. He gave a bitterly partisan speech at the Department of Justice, demanding the prosecution of the media and certain adversaries. He threatened numerous universities with sanctions. He invoked a 227-year-old war measures law during peacetime — for the first time ever — to deport accused gang members without due process. And, most importantly, when that deportation plan wound up in court, he may have — although it's still in dispute — defied a court order, cracking the ultimate constitutional safeguard.
Lindberg said Trump is doing many of the same things as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and Narendra Modi in India — only faster.
"It's the pace," Lindberg said. "He's trying to do in a few months what it took them eight to 10 years to achieve.… It's very dire."
What could happen next? Watch the courts, he says. Their actions, and Trump's response, are fundamental. In the countries that halted an authoritarian slide, he said, courts played a key role, citing Poland, Brazil, North Macedonia and Zambia.
@oBlade Ah yes, that universal healthcare that Trump signaled he wanted on national TV. He then proceeded to make it his mission during his first term to get it passed... right?
Oh wait, he didn't do anything to pass socialized medicine. Instead, he pushed to have Obamacare repealed. After its repeal, I'm sure they would have come up with something amazing, but those damn Democrats (and McCain) prevented him from repealing it so they never bothered to come up with anything. Strange that he waited until after the repeal that never happened rather than just announcing his replacement plan. It's almost like he never had a plan at all and it was just another lie to see if he could bait in some left of center people to vote for him.
By the 2024 campaign, he had a "concept of a plan", so that's something... except I don't think he ever elaborated on what that concept was.
It's amazing how amazing your promises can be when you have no intention of ever delivering and your voters never hold you accountable.
Meanwhile, during his term, Barack Obama worked extensively with the Republicans to build a healthcare plan that could gain bipartisan support. The Republicans negotiated him down to RomneyCare, except on a national scale. Then when it came time to vote for it, they rejected their own fucking plan. Thanks Obama.
So yeah, a lot of the polarization bullshit happened during Obama's term, but it wasn't Obama's doing. The Republicans decided that being the opposition party meant making sure that nothing got done even as the president is trying to work with them. Then they got rewarded for it at the midterms. And it's been that way for the Republicans ever since.
The Democrats need to fucking catch up. Stop working with the Republicans. We had Democrat senators work with Republicans to avert a shutdown while getting nothing in return. These collaborator fucks:
Durbin - IL - 2026 reelection Peters - MI - retiring 2026 replacement Shaheen - NH - retiring 2026 replacement Schumer - NY - 2028 reelection Cortez Masto - NV - 2028 reelection Hassan - NH - 2028 reelection Schatz - HI - 2028 reelection Fetterman - PA - 2028 reelection King - ME - 2030 reelection Gillibrand - NY - 2030 reelection
None of these collaborators should be reelected. I'll admit, I'd still vote for them over Republicans if that becomes the choice, so we need to make sure that's not the choice. We need to primary every one of them. With the exception of Durbin (who might retire anyways), they're counting on us forgetting about this by 2028/30. That's the challenge to all centrists and left of center people now, remember who the collaborators were and primary them. Get organized now, get behind a primary candidate now so that we don't get stuck with any collaborators in 2028/30. Get someone who will actually stand up for America against Trump and the Republicans.
On March 20 2025 07:39 RenSC2 wrote: @oBlade Ah yes, that universal healthcare that Trump signaled he wanted on national TV. He then proceeded to make it his mission during his first term to get it passed... right?
Oh wait, he didn't do anything to pass socialized medicine. Instead, he pushed to have Obamacare repealed. After its repeal, I'm sure they would have come up with something amazing, but those damn Democrats (and McCain) prevented him from repealing it so they never bothered to come up with anything. Strange that he waited until after the repeal that never happened rather than just announcing his replacement plan. It's almost like he never had a plan at all and it was just another lie to see if he could bait in some left of center people to vote for him.
By the 2024 campaign, he had a "concept of a plan", so that's something... except I don't think he ever elaborated on what that concept was.
It's amazing how amazing your promises can be when you have no intention of ever delivering and your voters never hold you accountable.
Meanwhile, during his term, Barack Obama worked extensively with the Republicans to build a healthcare plan that could gain bipartisan support. The Republicans negotiated him down to RomneyCare, except on a national scale. Then when it came time to vote for it, they rejected their own fucking plan. Thanks Obama.
So yeah, a lot of the polarization bullshit happened during Obama's term, but it wasn't Obama's doing. The Republicans decided that being the opposition party meant making sure that nothing got done even as the president is trying to work with them. Then they got rewarded for it at the midterms. And it's been that way for the Republicans ever since.
The Democrats need to fucking catch up. Stop working with the Republicans. We had Democrat senators work with Republicans to avert a shutdown while getting nothing in return. These collaborator fucks:
Durbin - IL - 2026 reelection Peters - MI - retiring 2026 replacement Shaheen - NH - retiring 2026 replacement Schumer - NY - 2028 reelection Cortez Masto - NV - 2028 reelection Hassan - NH - 2028 reelection Schatz - HI - 2028 reelection Fetterman - PA - 2028 reelection King - ME - 2030 reelection Gillibrand - NY - 2030 reelection
None of these collaborators should be reelected. I'll admit, I'd still vote for them over Republicans if that becomes the choice, so we need to make sure that's not the choice. We need to primary every one of them. With the exception of Durbin (who might retire anyways), they're counting on us forgetting about this by 2028/30. That's the challenge to all centrists and left of center people now, remember who the collaborators were and primary them. Get organized now, get behind a primary candidate now so that we don't get stuck with any collaborators in 2028/30. Get someone who will actually stand up for America against Trump and the Republicans.
It follows the usual enshittification process. Why wait until people have committed crimes when the precog AI can already identify who is going to commit crimes in the future.
Until recently, a page on the Defense Department’s website celebrated Pfc. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines photographed hoisting a U.S. flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, as an emblem of the “contributions and sacrifices Native Americans have made to the United States, not just in the military, but in all walks of life.” But the page, along with many others about Native American and other minority service members, has now been erased amid the Trump administration’s wide-ranging crackdown on what it says are “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts in the federal government, a review by The Washington Post found. Multiple articles about the Navajo code talkers, who were critical to America’s victory at Iwo Jima and the wider Pacific theater of the Second World War, were also removed, along with a profile of a Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the terms of the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox toward the end of the Civil War.
It has nothing to do with DEI. They just aren't white people, so they get deleted as if they never existed.
Corporate lawyers of..any other company... falling silent to this kind of shilling and promotion by the government really is the canary of the US coal mine having multiple organ failure.
He is basicly to feeble to be the boss of everything and fire his random reality-TV friends from time to time.. the cronies are self-governing at the moment, simply keep praising trump at every chance, denying reality where they can.
JPowell has just announced that consumer prices are UP UP UP and very likely because of tariffs, and Trump was quadruple cucked by Putin.
And nothing so far from the orange man, almost as if he was an 80 year old in declining health.
Until recently, a page on the Defense Department’s website celebrated Pfc. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines photographed hoisting a U.S. flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, as an emblem of the “contributions and sacrifices Native Americans have made to the United States, not just in the military, but in all walks of life.” But the page, along with many others about Native American and other minority service members, has now been erased amid the Trump administration’s wide-ranging crackdown on what it says are “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts in the federal government, a review by The Washington Post found. Multiple articles about the Navajo code talkers, who were critical to America’s victory at Iwo Jima and the wider Pacific theater of the Second World War, were also removed, along with a profile of a Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the terms of the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox toward the end of the Civil War.
It has nothing to do with DEI. They just aren't white people, so they get deleted as if they never existed.
The article titled "Pima Indian helped raise American Flag on Iwo Jima" was so celebratory of Pfc. Ira Hayes that they couldn't even be bothered to put his name in the title. It's a nice article but not as nice as the one I read on Churchill called "English bloke helps defeat Hitler."
The article was written in 2021. The deleted Navajo Code talker article was written in 2024. The deleted black medal of honor winner was written in 2021. Some intern at Biden's Department of Defense probably pumped out these articles after our country became obsessed with race. These articles didn't even exist 4 years ago but they are now so crucially important that deleting them constitutes erasure of people. Who knows how many dozens of clicks these got on the DoD website before they were deleted. I feel obliged to add that, no, I don't support the deletion of these articles. It's culture war nonsense that many of you in this thread have been preoccupied with for weeks. I'm just tired of the hyperbole where this is supposedly taking us back to the1950s when the timestamps tell us it's more accurately taking us back to late 2020 - early 2021.
On March 20 2025 07:39 RenSC2 wrote: @oBlade Ah yes, that universal healthcare that Trump signaled he wanted on national TV. He then proceeded to make it his mission during his first term to get it passed... right?
Oh wait, he didn't do anything to pass socialized medicine. Instead, he pushed to have Obamacare repealed. After its repeal, I'm sure they would have come up with something amazing, but those damn Democrats (and McCain) prevented him from repealing it so they never bothered to come up with anything. Strange that he waited until after the repeal that never happened rather than just announcing his replacement plan. It's almost like he never had a plan at all and it was just another lie to see if he could bait in some left of center people to vote for him.
By the 2024 campaign, he had a "concept of a plan", so that's something... except I don't think he ever elaborated on what that concept was.
He signaled interest. He did not signal his undying unwavering commitment. He signaled malleability and openness. On multiple issues. Because obviously he's a narcissist and wants to be remembered for doing great things that are celebrated. Any idiot could see that. Democrats met that opportunity with constant bullshit that served nobody, and that's the record they have and are stuck with. They are reaping what they sowed. They went all-in on stopping Blumpf and all-out on achieving anything other than crony enrichment, foreign policy disasters, and government bloat. Now they have nothing to show for it, and that will be reflected in history books.
The truth is neither party has had anything intelligent to add to healthcare for a while. That's why Biden didn't do anything either. Both sides have nothing but slogans and pipe dreams, if that. That's why when Trump got into office he ended up brutally scolding the Ryan GOP asking where the fuck their plan was that they had been running on repealing Obamacare for years, and why when they actually got a president in the White House who was waiting "pen in hand," it turns out the caucus's plan was just empty bluster.
On March 20 2025 07:39 RenSC2 wrote: It's amazing how amazing your promises can be when you have no intention of ever delivering and your voters never hold you accountable.
This is a beautifully bipartisan sentence, even though it's probably not how you meant it. Trump is Republican voters holding their party, and Democrats, accountable. Border numbers are down 94% from February 2024 to 2025. Not down to 94%. Down 94%. Clinton 30 years ago and Obama 20 years ago were anti-illegal immigration, anti-gay marriage Republicans. But card-carrying Republicans for some reason (Reagan) moved to perpetually starting the conversation from the point of "amnesty," which was counter both to what their voters wanted and what people in general believe about the borders of their country.
On March 20 2025 07:39 RenSC2 wrote: Meanwhile, during his term, Barack Obama worked extensively with the Republicans to build a healthcare plan that could gain bipartisan support. The Republicans negotiated him down to RomneyCare, except on a national scale. Then when it came time to vote for it, they rejected their own fucking plan. Thanks Obama.
So yeah, a lot of the polarization bullshit happened during Obama's term, but it wasn't Obama's doing. The Republicans decided that being the opposition party meant making sure that nothing got done even as the president is trying to work with them. Then they got rewarded for it at the midterms. And it's been that way for the Republicans ever since.
That could be true 15 years ago but people have wised up from new media, they see through the posturing, and there is little room for gaming and hiding who the obstructionists are. The escalating polarization the Democrats leaned into when they didn't get Obama's 3rd term right away is directly because they were following the pied piper Obama's lead.
On March 20 2025 07:39 RenSC2 wrote: The Democrats need to fucking catch up. Stop working with the Republicans. We had Democrat senators work with Republicans to avert a shutdown while getting nothing in return. These collaborator fucks:
Why do you now want to shut down the government instead of funding it the exact same way that Biden did? Can you help me understand why allowing a vote on the extension of Biden's spending is collaboration?
On March 20 2025 07:39 RenSC2 wrote: None of these collaborators should be reelected. I'll admit, I'd still vote for them over Republicans if that becomes the choice, so we need to make sure that's not the choice. We need to primary every one of them. With the exception of Durbin (who might retire anyways), they're counting on us forgetting about this by 2028/30. That's the challenge to all centrists and left of center people now, remember who the collaborators were and primary them. Get organized now, get behind a primary candidate now so that we don't get stuck with any collaborators in 2028/30. Get someone who will actually stand up for America against Trump and the Republicans.
Of course, who would ever be caught dead voting for a Republican. I mean if Pol Pot were a Democrat I'd rather vote for him than a Republican. Because it says right there "Democrat" so I mean, yeah. No contest. Goes without saying even.
And I agree about dumping collaborators you're right. This time the Democrats bravely stand up against orange man, everyone will be impressed. Especially the judges need to spam as many resistance injunctions as possible - this will save America, democracy, and the Democratic Party all at the same time. They need to show Drumpf who the real president is. And I am 100% dead serious that I am behind Democrats all the way that they need to focus on doing everything in their power to make sure he doesn't win again in 2028.
@oBlode (The accusation that somebody would vote for Pol Pot because he is on a D-Ticket.. is again just projection of what happened to the now defunct GOP with Trump.. the very fact that the low turnout for D-Voters in the face of shitty candidates made Trump possible TWICE contradicts you ..so hard...that it's like waitig an hour by the phone to be laughed at by putin)
Additionally: Are you advocating for a multi-party system and reform of the EC to represent a non binary choice for voters? Since it sounds an awful lot like you do.
If voters had the chance of ditching the Gerontocratic push-over democrats like Pelosi, Shumer and Biden for another liberal party, and then voters could show their dissatisfaction better than to choose between a douche and a turd sandwich, like now.
And if the president was voted for in parliament, after a general election, you'd even have coalitions.
So you could vote liberal and progressive.. and non authoritarian.. without giving your voice to Trump, the Dumpster or the Pelosicrats.
On March 20 2025 07:39 RenSC2 wrote: @oBlade Ah yes, that universal healthcare that Trump signaled he wanted on national TV. He then proceeded to make it his mission during his first term to get it passed... right?
Oh wait, he didn't do anything to pass socialized medicine. Instead, he pushed to have Obamacare repealed. After its repeal, I'm sure they would have come up with something amazing, but those damn Democrats (and McCain) prevented him from repealing it so they never bothered to come up with anything. Strange that he waited until after the repeal that never happened rather than just announcing his replacement plan. It's almost like he never had a plan at all and it was just another lie to see if he could bait in some left of center people to vote for him.
By the 2024 campaign, he had a "concept of a plan", so that's something... except I don't think he ever elaborated on what that concept was.
He signaled interest. He did not signal his undying unwavering commitment. He signaled malleability and openness.
I don't know what you mean by "signal", but Trump clearly has/had no intention of pushing anything related to universal healthcare or socialized medicine. One of his greatest failures (from his/Republicans' perspective) of his first term was unsuccessfully trying to remove Obamacare and replace it with nothing. No plan. No concepts of a plan. He had lied about wanting to "repeal and replace" it, as he had just wanted to repeal it and simply destroy healthcare in this country. He might succeed in doing so this term.
Until recently, a page on the Defense Department’s website celebrated Pfc. Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian who was one of the six Marines photographed hoisting a U.S. flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, as an emblem of the “contributions and sacrifices Native Americans have made to the United States, not just in the military, but in all walks of life.” But the page, along with many others about Native American and other minority service members, has now been erased amid the Trump administration’s wide-ranging crackdown on what it says are “diversity, equity and inclusion” efforts in the federal government, a review by The Washington Post found. Multiple articles about the Navajo code talkers, who were critical to America’s victory at Iwo Jima and the wider Pacific theater of the Second World War, were also removed, along with a profile of a Tonawanda Seneca officer who drafted the terms of the Confederacy’s surrender at Appomattox toward the end of the Civil War.
It has nothing to do with DEI. They just aren't white people, so they get deleted as if they never existed.
The article titled "Pima Indian helped raise American Flag on Iwo Jima" was so celebratory of Pfc. Ira Hayes that they couldn't even be bothered to put his name in the title. It's a nice article but not as nice as the one I read on Churchill called "English bloke helps defeat Hitler."
The article was written in 2021. The deleted Navajo Code talker article was written in 2024. The deleted black medal of honor winner was written in 2021. Some intern at Biden's Department of Defense probably pumped out these articles after our country became obsessed with race. These articles didn't even exist 4 years ago but they are now so crucially important that deleting them constitutes erasure of people. Who knows how many dozens of clicks these got on the DoD website before they were deleted. I feel obliged to add that, no, I don't support the deletion of these articles. It's culture war nonsense that many of you in this thread have been preoccupied with for weeks. I'm just tired of the hyperbole where this is supposedly taking us back to the1950s when the timestamps tell us it's more accurately taking us back to late 2020 - early 2021.
How long was the Gulf of Mexico known thus?
I don’t think it’s particularly apocalyptic, just a bit shitty. The worry is either this ‘anti-DEI’ push is so ill-defined that people will do things like this just to cover their arse, or that for some this is the whole point. If it isn’t clarified and more tangible lines are drawn in the sand, such things will just keep happening, and indeed may start intensifying in ways that do much more tangible harm.
The ball is in the court of Trump supporters and anti-DEI people here, not folks such as I. ‘Hey I don’t like this DEI stuff, but obviously I didn’t mean things like deleting a website entry of a Medal of Honour winner, that’s un-American!’ Entries get restored, no biggy.
Pushback I’m not seeing much of, which brings things like this into a wider ‘big deal’ problem trend rather than an isolated nothingburger.
In short, every opportunity offered up, big or small for pushback and moderation, that could prove pessimistic souls such as myself wrong, isn’t taken and things continue to get worse.
On March 20 2025 17:21 EnDeR_ wrote: I mean, it was fairly obvious from the campaign trail that this was the direction of travel.
We are still in month 2.
It’s insane, it feels way longer. It’s like the opposite of when you see a family member or buddy you’re not super close to and ask how old their kid is and are stunned that they’re about three times older than you thought.
As a European I usually don't follow American politics that closely, but five years ago or so I read a book that seemed to largely pin this new environment of non-cooperation on Newt Gingrich. I asked ChatGPT if there was any truth to this, and this is the reply I got:
Yes, there is significant truth to this. Newt Gingrich played a pivotal role in reshaping American politics, particularly by promoting a strategy of intense partisan confrontation.
Gingrich’s Strategy and the Republican Revolution
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gingrich—then a rising Republican leader—argued that Republicans should refuse to cooperate with Democrats and instead focus on aggressive opposition. This was a shift from the previous political norm, where bipartisan compromise was more common.
Gingrich’s strategy helped lead to the Republican Revolution of 1994, where the GOP won control of both the House and Senate for the first time in decades. His "Contract with America" laid out a clear, ideologically conservative agenda, and he used aggressive rhetoric and obstructionist tactics to unify Republicans against the Clinton administration.
Lasting Impact
Polarization: Gingrich’s approach contributed to the deep partisan divide in American politics. He encouraged Republicans to see Democrats as adversaries rather than as colleagues with whom they could negotiate. Media Strategy: He used C-SPAN and other media outlets to paint Democrats as corrupt and ineffective, reinforcing a more combative political environment. Government Shutdowns: Under his leadership as Speaker of the House, the government shut down twice in 1995-96 due to budget conflicts with President Clinton. Republican Gains The strategy initially paid off, with Republicans dominating Congress for much of the next two decades. However, it also contributed to the dysfunction and gridlock seen in modern American politics.
If you're looking for books that discuss this, "It's Even Worse Than It Looks" by Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein examines Gingrich's role in increasing partisanship. Another is "Burning Down the House" by Julian Zelizer, which argues that Gingrich transformed the GOP into a party of relentless obstruction.
The total lack of political cooperation is likely what kills the US. I saw a protection that in 2033 the interest rate on the national debt is going to be 20% of the budget. Trump's budget doesn't even attempt to reduce deficit spending in the next 4 years despite DOGE.
It's politically impossible to turn something like this around without consensus because whichever party does will lose to the ones that don't.
What the US needs is to lock away the senate and congress and not let them out until they come out with an 8 year plan to balance the budget that has 80% of the total votes. Then pass that and lock it behind a supermajority with automatic impechment if the executive refuses to do it.
We'll see how much damage Donald Trump can truly do to our education system. I worry that it's going to be a lot.
President Trump on Thursday will sign an executive order to begin dismantling the Department of Education, according to the White House. ... But completely eliminating the department would require congressional approval, which isn't certain.
President Trump is expected to sign a long-expected executive action Thursday calling on U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon "to take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure [of] the Department of Education and return education authority to the States," according to a fact sheet provided by the White House. Trump plans to sign the order at a ceremony alongside the Republican governors of Texas, Indiana, Florida and Ohio.
The move has been expected since early February, when the White House revealed its intentions but withheld the action until after McMahon's Senate confirmation. It now arrives more than a week after the Trump administration has already begun sweeping layoffs at the Education Department.
According to the administration's own numbers, Trump inherited a department with 4,133 employees. Nearly 600 workers have since chosen to leave, by resigning or retiring. And last week, 1,300 workers were told they would lose their jobs as part of a reduction in force. That leaves 2,183 staff at the department — roughly half the size it was just a few weeks ago.
Text of the executive order was not available Wednesday, but a draft, previously obtained by NPR, instructed McMahon to act "to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law," an acknowledgment that the department and its signature responsibilities were created by Congress and cannot legally be altered without congressional approval. That would almost certainly require 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to overcome a Democratic filibuster.
Damn, modern conservatives are actually so stupid, this is a wildly dumb thing to say, I'm very excited to see all of the mental gymnasts online go through their mental circus routine for some of this deranged shit in the next few years. If the tents gonna be on fire I'm at least gonna try to enjoy the performance.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. thinks that the bird flu should be allowed to spread unchecked to identify birds that could be immune.
Kennedy said in a recent Fox News interview that farmers “should consider maybe the possibility of letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds, and preserve the birds that are immune to it,” an idea that experts say would be dangerous and hurt the poultry industry.
“That’s a really terrible idea, for any one of a number of reasons,” Dr. Gail Hansen, a former state veterinarian for Kansas, told The New York Times.
Every new infection of the H5N1 virus is a chance that it will mutate and become more powerful and spread further, although it still hasn’t been proven to spread between people. But if it were allowed to spread through millions of birds, “that’s literally five million chances for that virus to replicate or to mutate,” Hansen said.
EPT
