Presidents Day 2025 Open Thread

11 thoughts on “Presidents Day 2025 Open Thread”

1. To me, the most astonishing hypocrisy so far in the Trump presidency is watching the world's richest man take food from starving children.

   As I have heard from others…cruelty is the point.

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   1. And the "Christian" right cheers them on. "'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied: ' Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." Matthew 22:34 – 40. Reasonably subject to interpretation, but no mention of cruelty, infliction of trauma, accumulation of wealth, efficiency, free markets, anti-regulation, border control, or any of the other BS that Trump/Musk use to justify their actions. 

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2. Destruction is the point. Trump, Vance, Musk et al go All-In for Russia. Heather Cox-Richardson.

   Anti America, Anti Europe, anti Democracy.

   After the Munich conference, in Writing from London, British journalist Nick Cohen wrote that those Americans trying to find an excuse for the betrayal of Ukraine are deluding themselves. He wrote: “[t]he radical right in the US is not engaged in a grand geopolitical strategy. It is pursuing an ideological campaign against its true enemy, which is not China or Russia but liberalism. The US culture war has gone global. The Trump administration hates liberals at home and liberal democracies abroad.”

   Proving his point, on Saturday after Vance’s speech, Trump’s social media account posted: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” This message, attributed to French dictator Napoleon Bonaparte, not only claims that the president is above all laws, but also signals to supporters that they should support Trump with violence. And that is how they took it. Right-wing activist Jack Posobiec responded, “America will be saved[.] What must be done will be done,” to which Elon Musk responded: “Yes[.]”

   Political scientist Stathis Kalyvas posted: “There is now total clarity, no matter how unimaginable things might seem. And they amount to this: The U.S. government has been taken over by a clique of extremists who have embarked on a process of regime change in the world’s oldest democracy…. The arrogance on display is staggering. They think their actions will increase U.S. power, but they are in fact wrecking their own country and, in the process everyone else.”

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   1. Who Needs (Electrical) Grids?

      by Josh Marshall

      The Bonneville Power Administration, the largest transmission grid operator in the Pacific Northwest, will be shedding at least 600 workers as part of President Trump’s budget slashing across the federal federal workforce.

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3. The attempted firing of Hampton Dellinger, Special Counsel of the U.S., is on its way to SCOTUS after the D.C. Circuit on Saturday, 2-1, denied trump’s request for a writ of mandamus (Dellinger v. Bessent, D.C. Cir. Case No. 25-5028).  The dissenting judge, Katsas, a trump appointee, would have granted the government’s request for a stay.  Trump has already taken the case to SCOTUS, though it hasn’t been docketed yet as the Court is closed.  This case pushes the unitary executive theory which several of the justices are big fans of, despite the fact that accepting it basically means the president is essentially a monarch

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4. Via Marcy Wheeler at EmptyWheel.

   Don Moynihan:

   The IRS represented a very simple test for the credibility of DOGE. Was it really interested in efficiency and state capacity? If so, you support the tax enforcement, the biggest return on investment in government, generating somewhere between $5-9 for every additional $1 spent on enforcement.

   Or did DOGE want to minimize parts of the state that bothered billionaires?

   We have our answer. In the middle of tax season, the IRS was told to lay off thousands of workers hired as part of the rebuilding project.

   Part of the DOGE hype is that after they fire everyone, they will figure out better ways to do the job using, uh, AI and such. But there is no second act where it gets better. They don’t have a plan to fix what they are breaking because they don’t understand or care about the damage they are doing. Breaking government is the point. It is not as if DOGE has some magical IRS plan up their sleeve. There is no plan.

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5. If any of you have ever thought about starting a high-tech company, now is an incredible opportunity. Right now is akin to the IBM PC first shipping, the Internet hitting mainstream use, and the initial iPhone.

   And if any of you are serious and want to talk about what it entails, I'm happy to talk. Email me at david -at- thielen -dot- com. It is a brutal job that takes every waking hour 7 days/week. At times you will want run away from it all screaming.

   And it's the greatest job in the world.

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6. Preacher Collins begins his destruction of the VA…most critically destroying the Veterans Crisis Line, preventing Veterans from filling prescriptions or enrolling for care and also stopping the onboarding of Volunteers who perform critical functions like patient transport and driving donated vehicles to get patients to care at VAMCs.

   Despite exemptions, VA employees still feeling impact from policies shaking up federal workforce

   Multiple VA employees, however, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation, told Federal News Network that some of the department’s essential functions — such as health care and a hotline for veterans in crisis — are still being impacted, despite these exemptions. 

   https://federalnewsnetwork.com/veterans-affairs/2025/02/va-employees-feel-impact-from-policies-shaking-up-federal-workforce-despite-exemptions/?readmore=1

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   1. Thanks for the specifics of this impact … Collins, claiming "only 1,000" of the probationary employees and "no one directly caring for veterans,"  clearly doesn't understand what the agency's personnel actually do. 

      I suspect the larger problems will emerge soon — fewer and fewer people applying to work at the VA. More and more of a bureaucratic mess in trying to get through application processes.  Fewer and fewer opportunities to challenge whatever is initially decided. And more of the employees deciding to leave, finding limited support for veterans inside the agency, the inevitable hassles of their jobs, a growing assault on their professionalism, and continued pay and benefits not equivalent to what could be theirs in a private sector job,  

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7. I suspect most of us here on Pols know we're getting fed massive triple-bullshit-with-cheese hamberders from the DOGE-stylers, but here's a little bit of info from Daily Kos in case anyone tells you they've found 150-year-olds getting Social Security payments:

   A bit of history.  On May 20, 1875 a bunch of countries got together to create the International Bureau of Weight and Measures which established uniform standards of mass and length.  Later on, the Bureau established rules for dates as well.  The dates standard used a starting date of May 20 1875 to honor the creation of the Bureau. 

   Old versions of COBOL use that date as a baseline.  Social Security’s computers use that old version. Dates are stored as the number of days AFTER May 20 1875.

   So what happens if Social Security doesn’t know a birthdate?  That field is empty in its records.  Thus that person appears to have a birthday of May 20 1875—about 150 years ago.

   That’s why the crack team of youngsters Musk uses found 150-year-old people in Social Security getting benefits.  It’s all really as simple—and as stupid—as that.

   You’d think that those bright MAGAheads would notice that ALL those 150 year olds have THE SAME BIRTHDAY:  May 20, 1875.  

   But they didn’t.  Genius Elon Musk didn’t.  And, of course, STABLE GENIUS Donald Trump didn’t either.

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8. I hope that Dems get their act together to toss the calcified "leaders" to the side and start doing something. Litteraly, move, yell, scream, and kick. 

   There will not be a 2026 election.  There will no longer be any elections if the 2025 white supremacist agenda is allowed to continue.

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