UPDATE: The problem with Hand's Off? It is a defensive effort. Reactive not proactive. It says only, keep what we have that has worked well for decades.
We need to press an improved agenda, not merely saving the best of a flawed status quo. But with chaos and grief being Trump's agenda, and his getting more votes, the short term goal is to stop the people's bleeding. Long term, make it the oligarchs who bleed.
Make it better for everybody by making Elon give a little, millionaires in Congress having to give a little.
Otherwise known as justice for all. Not all to the oligarchs.
Spread the wealth. See how there is more than enough, if merely used wisely.
It's a life preserver of a bill. In case the fan really loads up, tariff-wise.
If the fan really loads up badly, worldwide, from this Trump idiocy, there's already a Congressional process started, in the Senate, and in the House if it looks like the tariff stuff is a load of garbage, a failure, the Republicans can abandon the sinking ship, in hope of survival.
If they are smart enough. That's one hell of a big IF. Don't bet on it.
The headline is the story. The HAND'S OFF protest effort will be tested via an ongoing turnout.
A growing turnout is best. A vote is the only thing that will quell the billionaires, and then, getting votes >> politicians with guts to fight is not assured in the two party universe.
Anoka County, MN, where I live had its Hands Off turnout, and the strongest thing was drivers passing and honking their solidarity.
But if you don't get out the vote you don't get reform. Simple, but people stowing thier MAGA caps do vote, so people otherwise inclined need to counter them each and every time, each and every chance, fair weather or foul, by mail or in person.
Vote the raacals out, or live under their meanness. Simple. Do it. Again and again.
And force your party to reform its ties to the same people who run the Republicans, or wish you had. It's not easy. It's not always effective. But it is all you have.
Rather than trying to explain what the case is about Crabgrass refers readers to the first few pages of the opinion.
In effect, Pam Bondi's DOJ wanted to tie a string to the Mayor, to keep him in a place where, to do well and not be bomed he'd have to embrace and follow administration immigration policy, in his city.
Consider the classic image of the organ grinder having a string tied to the dancing monkey, to assure it keeps dancing to the tune, rather than going away on its own path. There is that feeling of impropriety to how the Bondi DOJ does things.
While admitting its much like getting to Mars, Elon says, "We need it. We really, really, really need it. Trump listened. We got the order signed, so it's all over but the shouting."
Hegseth to make it a DOD priority. Not just a priority actually, but a crusade.
"If I can get the ocean to tilt, I can do this too."
With his getting Palintir into the project, and his main man in Idaho, the best hearts and minds are on it, Hegseth says. Have faith. "We're aiming to be engineering a camel downward; from the size of a Tesla to the size of a dust spec, and going to the finish line from there. Of late, we're down to mouse size, but our most recent lab instantiation met with a house cat and we're starting over from there."
So, if you miss or pass over the video, you may be more confused by this post than otherwise. Not saying you should watch it, just that you might.
Alternatively, try this. It's sounder than crypto. Buy in. Enjoy mixing with best/brightest. Ask: Where would DOGE be without Palintir as a trailblazer? Guess.
Susan
Crawford, a Democratic-backed candidate, won the Wisconsin Supreme
Court race against Republican-backed Brad Schimel, ensuring a liberal
majority for at least three more years.
The
election was marked by record-breaking spending and high turnout, with
Crawford supported by figures like Barack Obama and George Soros, while
Schimel was endorsed by Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Elon
Musk played a significant role by funding Schimel's campaign and
personally distributing $1 million checks to voters, highlighting the
national political stakes of the race.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - The
Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court defeated a
challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk
on Tuesday, cementing a liberal majority for at least three more years.
Susan
Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union
power and abortion rights and to oppose voter ID, defeated
Republican-backed Brad Schimel in a race that broke records for
spending, was on pace to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court
election ever and became a proxy fight for the nation’s political
battles.
Trump, Musk and other Republicans
lined up behind Schimel, a former state attorney general. Democrats
including former President Barack Obama and billionaire megadonor George
Soros backed Crawford.
The
first major election in the country since November was seen as a litmus
test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and
the role played by Musk, [...who] traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and
personally hand out to [sic] $1 million checks to voters.
Crawford
embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights
advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the
procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and
Republicans, referring to Musk as "Elon Schimel" during a debate.
NBC has a report with a Porter campaign ad saying she's not an empty vessel.
Here, with this video URL if you, like Chauncey Gardner, prefer to watch.
Porter is well known nationally, and in California as a former U.S. House member who rolled the dice for the Feinstein Senate seat but ending up as third in the primary behind Schiff and Garvey. With top to going to the general election.
Garvey, for Christsakes, good baseball player, short on cause to be taken seriously as a politician, but there to squeeze out Porter.
Schiff not unhappy about it turning out that way.
So Guv race. Expect Harris - Hollywood Harris, to expect it as hers, because.
Crabgrass is 100% behind the Porter candidacy at this point.
Show me something better. You don't have it, so Porter's the one.
“If Vice President Harris were to choose to run, I
am certain that that would have a near field-clearing effect on the
Democratic side,” Porter told The Orange County Register late last year.
Harris,
also a former California senator and state attorney general, will
decide whether to run for governor by the end of the summer, according
to a source familiar with her planning. Harris is also weighing a
possible presidential run in 2028, and the source said she is “keeping
all options open.”
The people of California need a Governor, not a dilettante who took a loss head on, and down ticket, to Dondald J. Trump and the red cappers.
So -- Please Kamala, give it up. You blew it big time and there are reasons.
For Governor Kamala -- You're the second best candidate, between you and Porter.
Plain, simple, and true. Clyburn has no real say, in California.
Beneath the smugness of Ron DeSantis, at Florida leading the nation in immigration enforcement lies something of a conundrum: how to fill the essential jobs of the scores of immigrant workers targeted for deportation.
The answer, according to Florida
lawmakers, is the state’s schoolchildren, who as young as 14 could soon
be allowed to work overnight shifts without a break – even on school
nights.
A bill that progressed this week through the Republican-dominated state senate seeks to remove numerous existing protections
for teenage workers, and allow them, in the Florida governor’s words,
to step into the shoes of immigrants who supply Florida’s tourism and
agriculture industries with “dirt cheap labor”.
“What’s
wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now?
That’s how it used to be when I was growing up,” DeSantis said at an immigration forum with Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, in Sarasota last week.
“Why
do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally,
when teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be
[doing] all this stuff.”
Unsurprisingly, the
proposal has alarmed immigration advocates and watchdog groups concerned
about child labor abuses and exploitation.
They point out that there is nothing “part-time” in the language of the companion senate and house
bills currently before lawmakers, which instead will permit unlimited
working hours without breaks for 14- and 15-year-olds who are schooled
at home or online, and allow employers to require 16- and 17-year-olds
to work for more than six days in a row.
Florida. Alternatively, they could use convict labor. If too few convicts, that can be fixed, Florida style.
House Republicans advised to avoid in-person town halls amid protests
*****
As in be gutless, don't face the people in a real town, at a real hall.
Why this focus? My district's Rep. Tom Emmer says he'll do a town hall - But ---
His latest email, hitting the inbox three hours ago, one day's notice. This [images omitted] -
Dear Friend,
As we’ve said for years, Congress is a customer service business. As
we continue our work in Washington, D.C., we have announced a telephone
town hall to give you an update on our work, hear your input and answer
your questions.
The telephone town hall is scheduled for this Wednesday, April 2nd at
5:30 pm. Many of you will receive a call inviting you to participate,
but in case you don’t, to join the event call 833-425-1492. Being
transparent and accessible to our constituents is always a top priority
and we hope you are able join us for this event.
Sincerely,
Sincerely, but what's sincere about it? It's phony to the core. It's an insult.
No town. No hall. Why bother?
To stage a controlled phone-based propaganda fling?
If you toggle it on, DuckDuckGo will provide a bot blurb as well as a return list. Here's the bot blurb I got with this search:
Donald Trump has expressed interest in finding ways to serve a third term as president, suggesting there may be methods to bypass the two-term limit set by the US Constitution. However, he has not provided specific details on how this could be achieved.
The bot is telling it like it is. The story presumes he'd be able to run again and be elected. To the extent people fail to see Elon is only doing Trump's dirty work, hating on Elon for it instead of hating on the dirty work itself and its actual father, he could possibly win again, but BLESS THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMIT TO TWO TERMS when considering how he'd abuse things by doing it if he thought he could get away with it. What a piece of work.
UPDATE: Reading the TOI link, it says:
Speaking to NBC News in a phone interview on Sunday, Trump claimed,
“There are methods which you could do it,” while also adding that “it is
far too early to think about it”. The 22nd Amendment of the US
Constitution, ratified in 1951 after Franklin D Roosevelt's four-term
presidency, explicitly limits a president to two elected terms. However, when asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker whether one way to bypass this restriction could be through Vice President JD Vance running and later stepping aside, Trump responded, “Well, that’s one. But there are others too. There are others”.
That would be running a ticket JD/Trump, JD top spot, and then winning. Another way, same ticket and throw JD off a tall building once winning. Putin's possibly hellpful on options.
Speaker Johnson if asked, likely would prefer the tall building option.
FURTHER: An Elon/Trump ticket, Elon top spot, would fail because Elon's birthplace is South Africa; foreign birth being a bar, unless Trump could finagle a way to thwart that Constitutional provision too. (It's original text, not by Amendment, so would it be harder to evade?)
Collusive litigation is always a worry, as in name a class, get it through, and then sell out the class. Isthis an instance of a greatly inadequate settlement amount?
More
than 350,000 current and former employees at UnitedHealth Group have
been sent notices about a proposed $69 million settlement in a class
action lawsuit alleging workers lost millions in investment returns
because the company offered low-performing 401(k) plan options from
Wells Fargo.
The
settlement notices, which were sent by email or regular mail as of
March 24, say a federal judge in Minneapolis will decide during a
fairness hearing on June 12 whether to grant the settlement final
approval.
Each
class member’s proportional share of the net settlement proceeds will
be based in part on the balance they invested in certain Wells Fargo
Target Date Funds at any time since April 23, 2015, according to a website with settlement details.
“Plaintiff
filed a class action complaint … alleging that [UnitedHealth Group]
violated ERISA’s fiduciary duties of prudence and loyalty,” according to
the settlement notice, which used the abbreviation for the Employee
Retirement Income Security Act. “Defendants deny all of the claims made
in the complaint [and] deny all allegations of wrongdoing.”
Wells Fargo sold off its asset management business years ago.
[...] Judge
John Tunheim of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota substantially
denied UnitedHealth Group’s motion for summary judgement in the case in
March 2024. In his ruling, Tunheim wrote that “a reasonable trier of
fact could easily find” the lead plaintiff caught the company “with its hand in the cookie jar.”
The fairness hearing is scheduled for June 12 at 10 a.m. at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.
During
the hearing, attorneys representing the class will seek an award of
legal fees not to exceed one-third of the $69 million settlement plus
their out-of-pocket costs. Legal fees, administrative costs and a
proposed incentive award up to $100,000 for the lead plaintiff will
reduce total settlement funds available to class members.
Class members don’t need to do anything to receive payment, according to
the settlement notice, nor do they need to attend the hearing. Those
objecting to the settlement, however, must notify the court and
attorneys in writing by May 29 and may speak during the June hearing if
they wish.
The calculator says $69,000,000 / 350,000 gives under $200 on average, and that's if attorney fees are $0. It gets lessened while the plaintiffs' law firm makes a killing.
Is the class being sold out? Is UnitedHealth happy to cap the cost and not take a risk of a substantially bigger hit after losing summary judgment; instead not risking a jury award?
Could be.
Would you do anything, if in the class, with those numbers, or shrug and say the lawyers did okay for themselves, and UnitedHealth got off cheap but it's not worth a fight for what, possibly another fifty bucks?
There is cause up front to opt out of class actions and preserve individual rights to sue, but wtf, let it move on without any cost to you then take the pittance and move on? Myself, I'd protest and say take it to trial, get a jury, and roll the dice. You hardly can do worse than two hundred bucks on average.
__________UPDATE________
You look at the lifetime of a 401k and $200 bucks against annual numbers here and here, and a chief/indians difference seems striking. However, in one of those items it is Brian Thompson under discussion, and he cashed in but only until he duly got "Luigied." Win a few, lose a few.
Hate the bastards! And go with Bernie and AOC the crowds they attract and their push to get Medicare for All. It's the only sane thing out there if we can move it past Dem donor money against it, into serious debate, then over the finish line.
Yeah, they are not yet intentionally coming for me. But mistakes happen, as the Atlantic editor being invited to a top level Trumptsers chat over a military strike at another nation.
Or Musk overstepping and being judicially quelled. It is ongoing operations ripe for error, and if I of a sudden stop posting, please ask about it.
The LaSalle immigration court,
inside a sprawling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detention
centre in rural Jena, Louisiana, has been thrust into the spotlight in
recent weeks after the former Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil
was transferred here earlier this month. His case has drawn
international attention as the Trump administration attempts to deport
the pro-Palestinian activist under rarely used executive provisions of US immigration law. The government is fighting vigorously to keep Khalil’s case in Louisiana and he is due to appear again at the LaSalle court for removal proceedings on 8 April.
But
it has also renewed focus on the network of remote immigration
detention centres that stretch between Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi,
known as “Detention Alley”
– where 14 of the country’s 20 largest detention centres are clustered.
And now where other students have since been sent after being arrested
thousands of miles away.
Badar Khan Suri, a research student at Georgetown University, was arrested in Virginia last week
and sent to a detention centre in Alexandria, Louisiana, and then on to
another site, Prairieland in eastern Texas. This week, Rumeysa Ozturk, a
doctoral student at Tufts University, was arrested in Massachusetts and sent to the South Louisiana Ice processing centre in the swamplands of Evangeline parish.
These distant detention facilities and court systems have long been associated with rights violations, poor medical treatment and due process concerns,
which advocates argue are only likely to intensify during the Trump
administration’s immigration crackdown and promise to carry out mass
deportations that has already led to a surge in the detention population. But rarely do cases within these centres attract much public attention or individual scrutiny.
“Most of the folks in detention in Louisiana
aren’t the ones making the news,” said Andrew Perry, an immigrant
rights attorney at the ACLU of Louisiana. “But they are experiencing
similar, if not the same, treatment as those who are.”
To observe a snapshot of the more than 1,100 other detainees
confined at the facility also holding Khalil, the Guardian travelled to
Jena and witnessed a full day inside the LaSalle court, which is rarely
visited by journalists. Dozens lined up for their short appearances
before a judge and were sworn in en masse. Some expressed severe health
concerns, others frustration over a lack of legal representation. Many
had been transferred to the centre from states hundreds of miles away.
Earlier in the morning Wilfredo Espinoza, a migrant from Honduras, appeared before Judge Robbins for a procedural update
on his asylum case that was due for a full hearing in May. Espinoza,
who coughed throughout his appearance and had a small bandage on his
face, had no lawyer and informed the court he wished to abandon his
asylum application “because of my health”. The circumstances of his
detention and timing and location of his arrest by Ice were not made
clear in court.
He suffered from hypertension
and fatty liver disease, he said through a Spanish translator. “I’ve had
three issues with my heart here,” he said. “I don’t want to be here any
more. I can’t be locked up for this long. I want to leave.”
The
judge asked him repeatedly if he was entering his decision of his own
free will. “Yes,” he said. “I just want to leave here as quickly as
possible.”
The judge ordered his removal from the US.
Substantiated
allegations of medical neglect have plagued the Jena facility for
years. In 2018, the civil rights division of the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) examined the circumstances of four fatalities at the facility,
which is operated by the Geo Group, a private corrections company. All
four deaths occurred between January 2016 and March 2017 and the DHS
identified a pattern of delay in medical care, citing “failure of
nursing staff to report abnormal vital signs”.
At
the South Louisiana Ice processing centre, an all-female facility that
is also operated by the Geo Group and where Ozturk is now being held,
the ACLU of Louisiana recently filed a complaint to the DHS’s civil
rights division alleging an array of rights violations. These included
inadequate access to medical care, with the complaint stating: “Guards
left detained people suffering from severe conditions like external
bleeding, tremors, and sprained limbs unattended to, refusing them
access to diagnostic care”.
The
spokesperson added: “These allegations are part of a longstanding,
politically motivated, and radical campaign to abolish Ice and end
federal immigration detention by attacking the federal government’s
immigration facility contracts.”
The DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Louisiana
experienced a surge in immigration detention during the first Trump
administration. At the end of 2016, the state had capacity for a little
more than 2,000 immigrant detainees, which more than doubled within two
years. A wave of new Ice detention centres opened in remote, rural
locations often at facilities previously used as private prisons. The state now holds the second largest number of detained immigrants, behind only Texas. Almost 7,000 people were held as of February 2025 at nine facilities in Louisiana, all operated by private companies.
“It
is this warehousing of immigrants in rural, isolated, ‘out of sight, of
mind’ locations,” said Homero López, the legal director of Immigration
Services and Legal Advocacy in Louisiana and a former appellate
immigration judge. “It’s difficult on attorneys, on family members, on
community support systems to even get to folks. And therefore it’s a lot
easier on government to present their case. They can just bulldoze
people through the process.”
At the LaSalle
court this week, the Guardian observed detainees transferred from states
as far away as Arizona, Florida and Tennessee. In an afternoon hearing,
where 15 detainees made an application for bond, which would release
them from custody and transfer their case to a court closer to home,
only two were granted.
Cases heard from
detention are far less likely to result in relief. At LaSalle, 78.6% of
asylum cases are rejected, compared with the national average of 57.7%, according to the Trac immigration data project. In Judge Robbins’s court, 52% of asylum applicants appear without an attorney.
In
the afternoon session, the court heard from Fernando Altamarino, a
Mexican national, who was transferred to Jena from Panama City, Florida,
more than 500 miles away. Altamarino had no criminal record, like almost 50% of immigrants currently detained by Ice. He had been arrested by agents about a month ago, after he received a traffic ticket following a minor car accident.
ICE says 29,675 people
are in custody in detention centers across the US. Though the numbers
have slowed, ICE is still carrying out thousands of deportations a
month - 17,965 in March and 2,985 in the first 11 days of April,
according to ICE spokeswoman Mary G. Houtmann.
Detainees allege ICE is rationing basic hygienic products and not giving them masks
Tiben said all but one
of Pine Prairie's dormitories, which house up to 70 people, are under
quarantine. Detainees cannot leave their rooms to exercise or go to the
cafeteria, and meals are served in the dorm themselves.
Though they share every
surface, the detainees have not been given masks, gloves, and other
basic hygienic products, like hand sanitizer, disinfectant, or wipes,
according to Tiben. Two detainees* told Business Insider that soap is
rationed and given out every one to two weeks, which ICE spokesman
Bryan D. Cox denied.
For-profit corporations
run many detention centers, including Pine Prairie, which is managed by
the private prison giant Geo Group.
A spokesperson for the
Geo Group denied medical neglect in the facility and told Business
Insider the detention center "provides access to regular handwashing
with clean water and soap in all housing areas and throughout the
facility."
An attorney suspects 'massive under-testing'
"You're going to see a
loss of life" because of exposure to the coronavirus in ICE detention
centers, Jeremy Jong, a Louisiana-based civil rights attorney, told
Business Insider.
Alongside colleagues at
the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Immigration Project,
and the Loyola Law Clinic, Jong has filed lawsuits in three states to
try and free detainees with underlying medical conditions that make
them more susceptible to COVID-19.
According to the ICE website,
the agency has only carried out 1,030 coronavirus tests on detainees
nationwide. Some 490, or 48%, have come back positive. Another 36 ICE
employees at detention centers have tested positive, as well.
But Jong suspects the disease is much more widespread in detention facilities than what has been reported.
According to the ICE
website, there only have been 20 confirmed cases at Pine Prairie, but
Jong alleged that number is "the result of massive under-testing."
Cox said ICE will carry
out 2,000 coronavirus tests per month, but that those tests will be
earmarked "to determine detainee health and fitness for travel" - in
other words, to clear migrants for deportation.
These are, at the most primitive level, human beings no different in that than Donald Trump, Usha Vance, us, or others - to be decently treated.
Meanwhile, Musk "sells" X to XAI, at a loss? For less than he paid for X. Is he trying to hoodwink the IRS? "Realizing" a loss on X, while still the boss and beneficiary of both enterprises? Hope not, but otherwise he'd have to sell Tesla stock to realize a real loss, there the price is depressed, and that would not be just a loss on paper.
But back to the headline - never forget. N-E-V-E-R!
Guardian has the Vance video with a few geeks standing behind him at the space force site. What a piece of work. The man needs to learn manners, no question about it.
Previosly he dumped a load on Ukraine's Zelinskyy.
Now this. JD, do the world a favor and stfu. Worse than Musk that way.
A report on Friday showed all types of U.S. consumers are getting
more pessimistic about their future finances. Two out of three expect
unemployment to worsen in the year ahead, according to a survey by the
University of Michigan. That’s the highest reading since 2009, and it
raises worries about a job market that’s been a linchpin keeping the
U.S. economy solid.
A separate report also raised concerns after
it showed a widely followed, underlying measure of inflation was a touch
worse last month than economists expected. It followed reports on other
measures of inflation for February, but this is the one the Federal
Reserve pays the most attention to as it decides what to do with
interest rates.
The report also showed that an underlying measure
of how much income Americans are making, which excludes government
social benefits and some other items, “has been treading water for the
last three months,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth
Management.
“Households aren’t in a good place to absorb a
little tariff pain,” he said. “The Fed isn’t likely to run to the rescue
either as inflation moved up more than expected in February.”
These are not political shots being fired. This is consumer confidence hitting the toilet. People do not have trust in Trumponomics. It is that simple. Different policy, different results seems a clear way out. Crabgrass hopes for things getting better.
Here, and here. I've always viewed a glich as something such as a website not loading correctly on the laptop, first try. That level of magnitude. Oh, the computer just glitched on me, no problem, retry. Nobody's life at risk and such. Just -- a glitch.
A coffee shop in Kyiv called "Trump" is rebranding to "Nolan" as
Ukrainians grow increasingly frustrated with U.S. President Donald
Trump's stance on Ukraine.
Located in the capital's central Pechersk district, the establishment was opened in 2019 and in January of this year celebrated Trump's inauguration with a special "Trump sour" cocktail.
It
was an apt name in hindsight as since then things have only soured
further — the now infamous Oval Office showdown, the subsequent halting
of U.S. military aid and intelligence, and the White House's wooing of Russia have left many Ukrainians disillusioned with Trump's efforts to end Moscow's full-scale invasion.
And for the few Republican politicians daring townhall events these days there is extensive questioning and unease by crowds without wearing any caps.
Scaling down the ham-handed crap - a surprising thing for the Trump people - is the news of the day. Greenland accepts a scaled down thing when nobody really wanted any visit by colonial opportunists, and definitively said so.
Denmark chimed in. On YouTube -
Link. A German English language outlet. Current relations, U.S./Europe, suggest the Germans had absolutely no reason to soft pedal the truth of things. Greenlanders being repulsed by Trump imperialism, something repulsive to the world.
Trump's people backing down on the fiasco is a trend breaking thing, and deserves applause. Trump's people ginning up the whole thing. Big thumbs down over the sheer stupidity of it. It had "Big Time Splat" written over it from day one.
House Democrats always assign corporate-friendly New Dems to run the DCCC and never learn what a mistake it is. Before the current disaster, Suzan DelBene, there were equally awful Sean Patrick Maloney, Cheri Bustos, Ben Ray Lujan and Steve Israel, all from the conservative wing of the Democratic Party establishment, all looking to recruit other conservative Democrats, all having done a lousy job, winning only when circumstances dictated it and overrode their sheer incompetence.
DelBene, from a struggling Alabama family, was all through life motivated by accumulation of money and became personally wealthy working in Microsoft’s marketing operations. Her net worth is somewhere in the vicinity of $200 millions and she is absolutely clueless about how the voters she has failed to appeal to live their lives. She ran for Congress — a self-funder— in 2010, lost and ran again two years later and won, first using her massive fortune to beat a progressive in the primary.
She has no imagination and no guts, just a nose to the grindstone attitude that has served her well personally but has done nothing for the Democratic Party or the DCCC. This is going to be a good cycle for Democrats, despite her, and she is eager to take all the credit. She could have gotten off to an heroic start by giving a hand to Josh Weil’s uphill battle to win in FL-06, now a margin-of-error race. Instead she lied about what the DCCC would do to help, did nothing at all and is counting on him losing, an obvious likelihood in an R+14 district. Republicans, meanwhile, have freaked out, seen the possibility of Weil beating their crackpot candidate Randy Fine, and, panicking, have started shoveling money into the race, while DelBene... lunches with lobbyists. Last night, we learned even Musk has rushed to start spending.
Yesterday, Max Cohen and Jake Sherman, not even mentioning the imaginationless DelBene or her pathetic, plodding DCCC, reported on the Republican panic in Florida. “House Republicans,” they wrote, “shouldn’t have to worry about Florida’s 6th District special election on April 1. It’s a deep-red seat that former Rep. Michael Waltz won by 33 points five months ago before decamping for the Trump administration. But many GOP officials are concerned that Republican candidate Randy Fine’s lackluster fundraising and sky-high Democratic enthusiasm could put the race in uncomfortably close territory. Fine, a GOP state legislator, has raised just under $1 million since entering the race and has just $93,000 on hand. Meanwhile, Democratic candidate Josh Weil has brought in a stunning $9 million and has $1.2 million on hand.
The money situation has gotten so dire for Fine that we’re told he’s been calling GOP House members, pleading for funds.”
No help from the DCCC, Weil is considerably closer to $11 million today than he is to $9 million. The one hint of a DelBene/DCCC mention— so typical of her and the DCCC: “Democrats tell us they aren’t expecting to come close to flipping the seat blue.” Cohen and Sherman didn’t mention the first thing I found out about Weil when I called him— he’s a Berniecrat in a district where people hate Democrats but love Bernie. It isn’t something DelBene is capable of grasping, let alone acting on. In her world, only people like Chuck Schumer win election— and people who can buy their seats, the way she did.
It is past time for progressives to take over the Party and make it work. Somebody has to.
______________UPDATE_____________
Two old guys talking, and this DCCC trainwreck GOP-lite mess could blow it anyway.
U.S. officials went door-to-door in Greenland to find anyone who wanted to be visited by the Vances. They found no one.
A local travel company in Greenland’s capital also cancelled a planned visit by Usha Vance
The headline says it all? Not quite. There is this:
Vance, the Second Lady, National Security Adviser Mike Waltz, and
Energy Secretary Christ Wright are scheduled to depart for Greenland on
Friday, though those plans could change by the time the delegation
departs.
The U.S. delegation was also scheduled to attend the
Avannaata Qimusserua, one of the world's largest dog-sledding events,
but that visit has been cancelled as well, according to USA Today.
As it currently stands, the American visitors will only be visiting the U.S. Space Force Base at Pituffik.
Greenlanders and Danish authorities aren't pleased about the trip. Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen accused the US of exerting "unacceptable pressure" on Greenland through its planned visit.
“I
have to say that it is unacceptable pressure being placed on Greenland
and Denmark in this situation. And it is pressure that we will resist,”
Frederiksen told Danish broadcasters DR and TV2 on Tuesday. “You cannot
make a private visit with official representatives from another country,
when the acting Greenlandic government has made it very clear that they
do not want a visit at this time,”
Frederiksen went on to say the US delegation's arrival is "clearly not a visit that is about what Greenland needs or wants."
It's sort of like a "Go fuck an iceberg" response. Earned, and given.
It’s
a split that shows Waltz’s unique position in the administration.
Traditional defense hawks — who care most about the breach in security
at the center of the controversy — are also more likely to want Waltz to
stay. They view him as someone who, given his close personal rapport
with President Donald Trump, can sell a more aggressive foreign policy
to hardcore MAGA ideologues who are wary of more traditional Republican
policies. [...]
The
debate emerging in Washington lays bare the fact that different
factions are vying for influence over President Donald Trump’s foreign
policy agenda, and ultimately the future of the Republican Party’s
platform, according to interviews with five people familiar with the
administration’s internal thinking. All were granted anonymity to
discuss internal party dynamics.
[...] Waltz’s
job appears to be safe. Trump told reporters on Tuesday afternoon in a
Cabinet meeting that Waltz is a “very good man” and the attack in Yemen
was ultimately “totally successful.”
“You
have to learn from every experience. I think it was very unfair the way
they attacked Michael,” the president said of Waltz, who was in the
room at the time. Trump instead directed his ire at the Atlantic
journalist who had access to the Signal group chat, Jeffrey Goldberg,
who he called a “sleazebag.”
So, Waltz set up the SIGNAL chat with editor of The Atlantic an inadvertent party.
What next?
Readers are encourage to watch this video, with an all to accommodating FOX talking head helping the man. Would you hire and trust this person in a business you run? Would you think him up to the job, if in your organization?
Crabgrass opinion:
Of course, my personnel decision up front would have never let the guy into things.
Waltz has a Wikipedia page.
From the video, he takes responsibility for the chat fuck-up, but only to a degree and needlessly maligns both editor Goldberg, while blaming the Biden Presidency as somehow at fault for all it did or did not do. That is called passing the buck. That is not an act of courage nor of contrition over having made a mistake with a focus on doing better next time. It is superficial, and mediocre, two characteristics I spot in the video but with the admission I well may be reading the man wrong from that limited presentation. Playing the blame game and trashing others when he'd fucked-up is a gratuitous thing, when discussing a situation he instigated that was clear error.
Will Trump give him the boot? Crabgrass doubts it would happen, but would welcome it even with uncertainty that a replacement might be worse.
Crabgrass would be completely surprised if Hegseth is removed from DOD head over this event.
In discussions at EmptyWheel speculation focused on the JG target Waltz had in mind, (where Jeffrey Goldberg erroneously got included), was Trade Rep Jamieson Greer (wiki page). The discussion included thoughts over getting others besides the U.S. government to pay for the operation, Egypt and European nations, because they predominated Suez and Red Sea trade. In that context, the trade rep would be a person already in dealings with both. He could put on the squeeze with a Trumpian tariff threat, or otherwise. It makes sense.
How the Waltz SIGNAL designations got mixed up, Waltz says he does not know, but carelessness is a clear factor.
In the post operation thread an "MAL" was praised, which could be a Mossad Political Action and Liaison Department abbreviation, as humint of a person targeted for assassination whereabouts for strike purposes would be needed, Mossad being good on humint. Also, Israeli notice of strike launch times would be needed to assure Israel did not scramble aircraft in detecting U.S. F-18 or other air activity and raise a friendly fire threat.
I.e., the guess here is that it was Israeli cooperation that helped set target locations, particularly one or possibly more human target locations for assassination.
BOTTOM LINE: In planning air based assassinations and destruction of enemy positions, it is not normal to invite a member of the media into policy discussion.
That such a thing was done is astounding. Big fuck-ups usually have a head or two chopped, but Trump seems to not bind himself to normal actions. Bet on nobody being fired or reassigned. Bet on a protocol being articulated, even if not made public, on use of SIGNAL and proper care. No heads will roll.
Last, the guy who set the agenda and those included, Waltz, seems to Crabgrass to be the wrong person for the job, but Trump decides that, not me. Again, that video is linked, so you watch and decide.
UPDATE: News now indicates a campaign is involved, ongoing as of today; e.g., here, here and here.
FURTHER: Waltz is a bullshitter and I really have a hard time with that. Again THIS VIDEO. But so is Trump, so, kindred souls is all I can say.
During the Obama administration, proposed U.S. drone strikes in
locations outside active war zones (i.e., in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia)
required high-level approval.[24][25]
The Obama administration process for approving drone strikes in such
locations featured centralized, high-level oversight, based on
intelligence about individuals suspected of terrorism activity.[25]
Obama's approval was required for every strike in Yemen and Somalia, as
well as "the more complex and risky strikes in Pakistan" (about
one-third of the total as of 2012), and insisted on deciding whether to
approve a strike unless the CIA had a "near certainty" that no civilian
deaths would result.[24] The process, formalized in a 2013 Presidential Policy Guidance document, was intended to reduce civilian casualties and blowback risks by requiring the targeted person to present a "continuing and imminent threat" to Americans.[25] The process often required multiple interagency meetings to decide whether to go forward with a strike.[25] However, some U.S. military and intelligence officials opposed the restrictive nature of the system,[25] and some Republicans criticized it as too cautious.[24]
However, in the pre-strike review, Obama "embraced a disputed method
for counting civilian casualties" that effectively counted "all
military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several
administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence
posthumously proving them innocent."[24]
Counterterrorism officials defended this approach on the idea that
people located in close proximity to known terrorists were likely
combatants; some Obama administration officials were critical of this
approach, who said that it led to implausibly low official counts of
civilian deaths, with one administration official telling the New York Times that it amounted to "guilt by association."[24]
In October 2017, Trump abolished the Obama-era approval system in
favor of a looser, decentralized approach, which gave the military and
CIA officials the discretion to decide to launch drone strikes against
targets without White House approval.[25] This policy reduced accountability for drone strikes.[26] After Joe Biden
took office, he halted counterterrorism drone strikes without White
House approval and initiated a broad review of U.S. policy on drone use.[25]
So the leaked SIGNAL chat group chat targeted an individual and "the building collapsed." That leaves open the question of collateral damage. Civilian death.
It is an item ripe for reevaluation that Trump should address because of the wanton way Israel has attempted ethnic cleansing (indiscriminate bombing) on a scale that has led into ICC questions of war crimes.
Somewhere between Biden ceasing drone killings, and Israeli grotesque conduct is the U.S. resumption of targeted drone strikes (recall, Trump45 drone killing of an Iranian general which this latest action resembles).
If Trump/Hegseth/chat crowd has any defined protocol for authorizing killings, it should be disclosed to Congress, even made public in detail. If it is discretionary to Hegseth or any of the other chat crowd to pin the tail on a donkey, fine, but say so.
Crabgrass honestly believes nobody, not Hegseth nor any others, intends a death vendetta on the scale of Israel in Gaza against Hamas, or likely not the lesser level of Israel in Lebanon against Hezbollah. But the fact that this blown chat expressly indicates a target individual (possible several) makes headlines that have yet to be published among other widespread outlets as a part of their reporting and attention the situation earned.
