Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Lincoln Hater"
Thank you, Isaiah. A Black man brings a different perspective to comics. The attack on the penny is just Donald Chump attacking Lincoln, just another way for Chump to express his racism.
A new report has surfaced detailing claims about late One Direction star Liam Payne’s struggles with his sexuality and allegations that he pressured his former fiancée, Maya Henry, into terminating a pregnancy.
According to Rolling Stone, sources alleged that Liam privately “struggled with his sexuality” while he was in an on-again, off-again relationship with Maya from 2018 to 2022. The report claims that Maya discovered inappropriate messages Liam had sent to other men when he “accidentally broadcast … them to their TV.”
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Tuesday that court decisions “stand whether one particular person chooses to abide by them or not,” days after two of President Donald Trump’s top lieutenants attacked rulings that halted some of his contentious executive orders.
But Sotomayor’s remarks, at times, seemed like pointed responses to the new administration. The president argues he has a mandate to shutter government programs and agencies even if Congress has ordered them to be funded, and his allies blast any court that would get in his way.
A federal judge threatened the administration with being found in criminal contempt on Monday after the White House defied his order to release billions of dollars in congressionally authorized federal grants that Trump had frozen.
A day later, Trump said he would “always abide by the courts, always abide by them,” before announcing his administration’s attempt to appeal.
Donald Trump’s lawbreaking spree has now been met with an unprecedented series of judicial rebukes. Just yesterday, five federal courts blocked some of his administration’s moves to shut down agencies, illegally fire anticorruption officials, and more. Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought once said we were living in a “post-constitutional era.” We’re finding out if that is true.
Start with the central fact: In his first days, Trump effectively claimed the ability to control federal spending without Congress, freezing trillions of dollars in grants and loans. This violates the Constitution’s core separation of powers, as well as the Impoundment Act and numerous other specific rules. He unilaterally shut down agencies including the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the world’s largest humanitarian organization. Yesterday he effectively shuttered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created after the 2008 financial crash in an attempt to ward off more fraud in the markets. Scientists across the country are realizing that funds have essentially been cut off for vital research. He’s done all this while tasking the world’s richest man, who paid for much of Trump’s campaign, with destroying agencies, one at a time.
State attorneys general, public employees, and nonprofits all sued, and courts blocked this presidential power grab. Over and over, Trump’s team lost. It’s a record of court losses unmatched since, well, his effort to undo the result of the 2020 election.
Presidents must follow court orders. Ever since the Civil War, they have, often unhappily. Whatever debates there might be about the powers of the three branches of the federal government, if you don’t like a lower court ruling, you appeal it — you don’t ignore it.
On Saturday, Judge Paul Engelmayer blocked one of the most controversial and scariest moves: the takeover of the Treasury Department’s federal payments system by Elon Musk and his callow band of engineers. Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, and three other former treasury secretaries warned of Musk and Trump’s assault on the Constitution. “A key component of the rule of law is the executive branch’s commitment to respect Congress’s power of the purse: The legislative branch has the sole authority to pass laws that determine where and how federal dollars should be spent.”
Vice President JD Vance responded to the judge’s order by declaring that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Musk called the ruling “shady” and “absolutely insane!” So far this huffing and snorting may just be bluffing. Earlier this week, the Treasury Department told the court that it would abide by the judicial order and promptly appealed. That’s what you are supposed to do.
Another federal judge warned that the administration had not complied with his order to unfreeze federal research spending. The government insists that it is trying to do so. This may be a quiet, insidious strategy: Don’t loudly announce defiance of the law, just do it softly while insisting that all is well. (It is also possible that the federal government is not a toggle switch that can be turned on and off.)
Many of these cases will head to the Supreme Court soon. Generations of justices have insisted on following judicial orders. But this is the same supermajority that truckled to Trump in the immunity case last summer, if nothing else giving him a permission structure for lawlessness. Will the Supreme Court step up?
I’m no fan of judicial overreach. There are reasons to think that the system of individual judges issuing national injunctions is not a good one. We’ve decried judges like Matthew Kacsmaryk, who tried to impose his own anti-abortion views nationwide by undoing the quarter-century-old federal approval of mifepristone. Liberals should be self-aware as we lionize a federal judiciary that too often has proven itself captured by big money and extreme factions.
"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
***VIDEO HERE***
Washington, D.C. — Today, at Senate Democrats’ weekly press conference, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, spoke about President Trump and Elon Musk’s illegal funding freeze, government funding ahead of the March 14 deadline, and the pending nomination of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Senator Murray’s remarks, as delivered, are below:
“We have a funding deadline fast approaching and we need a topline soon to be able to write and pass our bills.
“I remain at the table with my Democratic counterpart in the House to get a result so we can move forward. But it is extremely difficult to land an agreement on toplines—much less our annual bills—when you have a President and an unelected billionaire ignoring the very agreements we pass each year in our spending bills.
“What we are seeing now—the absolute lawlessness, the illegal funding freeze that is risking jobs and hurting working people—that simply cannot continue.
“The President is illegally blocking hundreds of billions in approved funding for our roads and bridges, for clean energy jobs, for foreign assistance, and a lot more.
“What’s more, the problem right now is that it’s not even March 14th yet, and Trump and Elon Musk are effectively shutting down the government—whichever parts they don’t like—all on their own, without any regard for the law or the Constitution or Congress.
“No one voted for the President to illegally block funding from Head Start classrooms or our rural health centers—but that is what Trump did his second week in office.
“No one voted to let an unelected billionaire decide what bills the federal government would or would not pay—but Trump is giving Elon the keys to the Treasury.
“In case Elon needs a reminder: the power of the purse sits with Congress—that means when people vote for us, we are their voice in how their tax dollars get spent.
“The constitution doesn’t say Elon gets to decide if our elementary schools and hospitals get funding. Congress negotiates how we invest in our communities.
“So, this has got to change, and we need our Republican colleagues to work with us to make sure it does—and I hope we can resolve things in time to pass the full year funding bills that I actually wanted to finish back last December.
“Now, as we consider nominations on the floor this week: I want to remind you all it was only 2019 when I co-led a bipartisan Senate Health Committee Hearing with Senator Alexander to educate people on vaccines. With nearly every Republican Senator on that dais making very clear that vaccines are safe, effective, and lifesaving.
“But now, Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Republican Party is on the verge of confirming, as our nation’s highest health official, RFK, Jr.— a man who has spent years crusading against vaccines.
“Republicans are choosing to pretend like it is in any way believable that RFK, Jr. won’t use his new power to do exactly the thing he has been trying to do for decades: undermine vaccines.
“People are alarmed. My phone lines are ringing off the hook with constituents who understand the stakes here and want us to stand up for science and for their health and safety. Because the Health Secretary has real power over whether Americans can get the basic information and care they need.
“I think most of my colleagues know what is really at stake here. They know what sort of agenda RFK Jr. will pursue, and they know what sort of damage he could do if confirmed.
“There are political realities, we all get that—but there is also right and wrong. There is also fact and fiction. There is also people staying healthy, and people dying pointlessly—kids dying pointlessly—from diseases that we can prevent.
“So, I urge all my colleagues to show some courage, show some conscience, and say: no, a vaccine denier should not be our highest-ranking health official.”
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Two Fox News guests who were portrayed by the network as run-of-the-mill “Trump voters” on Tuesday are both heavily involved in Republican politics, with one working as an assistant to an elected GOP official and the other a multiple-time candidate for local office.
“President Trump doubling down on his support for the DOGE leader Elon Musk. Which is getting a lot of headlines – basically all of them in the last couple of weeks. It is still early, but they’re moving fast,” Hemmer noted at the top of the segment. “The president is pointing out it’s exactly what he campaigned on. But how do voters feel? I want to bring in Don O’Connor out of Iowa, a Trump voter from Mason City – he’s in banking. And screen right is Nick Schultz; he is outside of Milwaukee in Waukesha.”
Waleed Shahid. The DSAer attacking Kamala on BLUESKY. He's a Socialist but lies about that and brings up the ridiculous political closet that is "Justice Democrats." My replies to his garbage.
October 30th -- days before the US presidential election -- Linley Sanders (AP) reported on the latest AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll:
But there’s a big partisan split on whether the Israeli government bears “a lot” of responsibility for the war’s escalation. About 6 in 10 Democrats say they do — similar to the share of Democrats who say Hamas bears “a lot” of responsibility — while only about one-quarter of Republicans say the Israeli government bears “a lot” of responsibility.
“The next Secretary of Education must fight for the best interests of students and families, not greedy and predatory for-profit colleges and inept loan servicers, and must reject extreme policies and efforts to eliminate the Department.”
“[Y]ou have a minimal track record on education issues and strikingly little experience pertaining to education policy.”
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Andy Kim (D-N.J.), member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, sent Linda McMahon, Secretary-Designate for the U.S. Department of Education, a 12-page letter with 65 questions on McMahon policy views in advance of her nomination hearing this week.
“[Y]ou have a minimal track record on education issues and strikingly little experience pertaining to education policy,” wrote the senators. “This lack of a public record means that the American people have not been afforded the opportunity to evaluate your views on topics related to the Education Secretary’s core responsibilities.”
Given McMahon’s lack of experience, the senators pushed McMahon to explain her views and the extent to which they overlap with certain extreme stances taken by President Trump, his Project 2025 allies, and President Trump’s former Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos.
These include her views as they relate to:
- President Trump’s extreme views, including his
repeated call to “abolish ED” and his reported plan to do so by
executive order; his history of proposing severe cuts to the Department
of Education’s budget, and his proposal to eliminate the Public Service
Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, which millions of teachers,
firefighters, police officers, and other public servants have relied
upon for debt relief.
“President Trump has said that he wants you to ‘put [your]self out of a job’ by helping him eliminate the Department. The harm that such a proposal would cause to students and families is grave,” wrote the senators. - Project 2025’s extreme proposals, such as allowing
unaccredited, often predatory, schools to receive federal funding;
privatizing the federal student loan system, leaving students at the
mercy of unaccountable private lenders, and replacing existing student
loan income-driven repayment (IDR) plans with a new repayment plan that
would raise costs for millions of Americans.
- Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ extreme policies,
such as rescinding a rule that would hold shady for-profit colleges
accountable for graduates’ employment outcomes; obstructing federal and
state regulators’ investigations into the misconduct of federal loan
servicers; refusing to enforce existing regulations requiring that ED
provide debt relief to students who were defrauded or misled by their
schools, and dismantling the team at ED responsible for investigating
predatory for-profit colleges.
“During her tenure, Secretary DeVos implemented numerous policies that harmed students while allowing incompetent student loan servicers and greedy for-profit colleges to rip off students and taxpayers,” wrote the senators. “The American people deserve to know whether you will repeat Secretary DeVos’s extreme policies.”
Senators Warren and Kim are demanding that McMahon arrive at her February 13 hearing prepared with answers.
“We need a higher education system that is accessible to all Americans, not just those with the means to afford skyrocketing costs without taking on student debt,” concluded the senators. “The next Secretary of Education must fight for the best interests of students and families, not greedy and predatory for-profit colleges and inept loan servicers, and must reject extreme policies and efforts to eliminate the Department.”
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Boy fight! It's a boy fight!9 hours ago
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The lawless 'leader'9 hours ago
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We're all dragged along on his bender9 hours ago
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The trickster that is DSA9 hours ago
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Who put him on TV?9 hours ago
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We can't help you when you hurt us9 hours ago
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