I just want to scream. The stupidity on our side -- the left -- is so intense. I'm just so tired of the stupidity and the bigotry. Ava and I had an idea regarding the piece we've got to write for THIRD and thought, "Let's go to the fringe of the fringe." And we did. Socialist publication. And we found the extreme like we knew we would but we found more.
Roberta Flack passed away and . I posted videos about her passing and we noted the memorial service here. I knew Roberta but I just wasn't in the mood to say goodbye by writing about her passing. Roberta was a lovely person and tremendously talented artist.
For the most part, coverage that I saw was good.
Leave it to a White Socialist to enrage me by writing an uninformed and racist piece.
It's lousy these days. If you can find hope, more power to you.
But the attacks from this administration on the country, on children, on the LGBTQ+ community, on Latinos, on Black people, on women, on veterans, on -- go down the list. And we have to fight that. We have to rise up every day and fight that -- and it's not just because of the MAGA loons, it's also because the traitors and idiots on our side who could've voted for Kamala and we could now be putting pressure on Kamala to do this or that -- items this country needs -- but instead we have to spend all day trying to keep the country from sinking further under Chump.
Those attacks are bad enough.
On top of that to have White Socialists lying about Roberta and imposing racist views in their writing of her?
When does it ever end? When do we get to take a breath?
And I am so sick of having to explain this. I am so sick of a left that refuses to address their own problematic issues.
I reposted Tabitha earlier today on BLUESKY but let's bring that into post because it's pertinent. TABITHASPEAKS is her YOUTUBE program and we note it often here.
Background, Tabitha is a warrior woman (though I'm sure she gets tired like everyone else). As a Kamala Harris supporter, she was attacked by Gaza Freaks with one racist remark after another.
The racism has still not been acknowledged in the wider left -- or, if you prefer, the Whiter left. These were not attacks coming from the right-wing. This was from the left. And Black women saw it, we watched it and we watch to this day in fascination as the larger left thinks they can avoid the reckoning that's taken place.
These attacks are why so many are taking a vacation. It might have helped us, if some of our White allies had called these attacks out when they took place. It might have helped us if, after the election, kn all the coverage that was done, some of the White 'journalists,' YOUTUBERs or whatevers had acknowledged it.
But they didn't and they don't.
Instead of respecting the wishes of some Black women, a Karen shows up to attack Tabitha.
You and those 126 people who 👍🏾 your comment can kiss all of the 92%’s ssa! Third, leave us, the 92% tf alone and focus on your people... (2)
— TabithaSpeaksPolitics (@tabithaspeaks.bsky.social) March 15, 2025 at 5:52 AM
focus on the 54-55% of latino men and the 38-39% of latino women that voted for Trump and voted against their own best interests and voted to put us all in danger of losing our democracy! And lastly,🖕🏾you Debra and those 126 who agreed with your sh💩tty comment!! (3)
— TabithaSpeaksPolitics (@tabithaspeaks.bsky.social) March 15, 2025 at 5:52 AM
First, F you @debraphilip6173... I mean seriously F you and the 126 people who 👍🏾 your post. Second, the unmitigated gall you have to attempt to assign any work to the major group of people who have ALWAYS been present and doing the work. (1)
— TabithaSpeaksPolitics (@tabithaspeaks.bsky.social) March 15, 2025 at 5:51 AM
[image or embed]
It just gets old. It's just really too much to ask of people. To constantly disrespect us? When does it ever end? Don't push your workload off on us. We're not your maids and we're not your mammies.
After what we experienced from the left -- the fringe garbage left, yes -- do not think you have any right to make demands on us.
We get it, you had to disappear us. Black women who were Democrats had to be disappeared because you wanted to keep Kamala out of the White House. That's why Amy Goodman brought on no Black women Democrats from August first through election day. She brought on a lot of Socialists --usually DSAers who were part of Uncommitted. Now she didn't tell her audience that they were Socialists or that they were part of Uncommitted.
Telling the truth would have hurt their efforts to destroy Kamala.
Grasp that these fringe radicals didn't just f**k us over -- Black women -- they also f**ked over the whole country.
Don't make demands on us because you have no right and we owe nothing to you. Not one damn thing.
You disrespected us and you f**ked over the country.
It's amazing to find these trashy people on BLUESKY and find them acting like they're not responsible. They publicly trashed Kamala, they told people not to vote for her. Now Chump's back in the White House and they want to act like they didn't do anything wrong. They want to worship Rashida Tlaib and act like she didn't do a damn thing wrong.
Every damn day, Americans have to get out of bed and wonder just how hard we have to fight today to preserve what we had in 2024. We've got no time to working on bettering the country because we're too busy pushing back against Chump.
Aaron Parnas (MEIDASTOUCH NEWS) reported Thursday:
Nearly two dozen Democratic attorneys general have filed a lawsuit today against the Trump administration, seeking to stop its efforts to drastically downsize the Department of Education.
The lawsuit, filed in a Massachusetts federal court on Thursday, comes just two days after the administration laid off more than 1,300 employees, a move that critics say represents an attempt to dismantle the department from within. The Trump Administration terminated more than half of the Department's employees.
The layoffs have drawn fierce opposition from educators, lawmakers, and civil rights groups. The lawsuit argues that these mass terminations are unconstitutional, violate federal labor laws, and threaten the ability of the federal government to effectively oversee education policy nationwide.
While the Trump Administration cannot abolish the Department of Education via an executive order, it can significantly downsize and dismantle the Department into a barebones shell of itself. That's what it is currently doing.
Could you imagine what we could be doing as a country right now if we didn't have to fight Chump every damn day. Anna Merlin (MOTHER JONES) notes:
In an executive order signed late Friday, Donald Trump effectively dismantled seven more federal agencies, this time with cuts that will impact work on homelessness, libraries, support for minority-owned businesses, and the US Agency for Global Media, which funds Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia. The cuts are expected to leave thousands more federal workers unemployed; in the case of VOA, it furthers a specific vendetta Trump has had since his first term.
The order will affect the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the United States Agency for Global Media, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and the Minority Business Development Agency. It instructs the head of each agency to submit a report to the Office of Management and Budget “explaining which components or functions of the governmental entity, if any, are statutorily required and to what extent.” In practice, as has happened with other federal agencies in recent weeks, it’s expected to leave these agencies a shell of themselves and fundamentally nonexistent; in the case of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness, it destroys the only federal agency solely focused on addressing the homelessness crisis.
The attacks never end. At the Center for American Progress, Molly Weston Williamson explains:
In January 2025, 73 million people—more than 1 in 5 Americans—received benefits from the Social Security Administration (SSA). But the agency that gets those benefits into bank accounts to buy groceries and pay bills is now under attack, putting beneficiaries at risk of dangerous disruptions and delays. Recently, the SSA announced that it would cut approximately 7,000 jobs—a 12 percent reduction in the agency’s staffing. At the same time, the SSA is shutting down six of its 10 regional offices, while posts to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website spark fears of upcoming field office closures around the country.
These assaults on the SSA threaten Americans’ ability to access the benefits they rely on to get by.
The Social Security Administration has been doing more with less for years, providing benefits to a rapidly growing number of beneficiaries despite its shrinking staff. Under congressional restrictions on administrative spending, agency capacity has stretched to the breaking point, with staff levels approaching a 25-year low in fiscal year 2024. Under these conditions, former Social Security Commissioner Martin O’Malley warned that DOGE-led cuts to an already skeletal agency may lead to “system collapse and an interruption of benefits.”
Any delay or interruption in payments would be catastrophic. More than 7 million Americans 65 and older receive at least 90 percent of their income from Social Security.* For many of these seniors, even a few days’ delay in receiving Social Security benefits would pose an immediate threat to their ability to pay rent and buy food. Payments made even later, or missed, would irreparably harm many more: In a January 2025 survey, 42 percent of Americans 65 and older reported “I would not be able to afford the basics, such as food, clothing, or housing [without Social Security retirement benefits].”
Don't miss Betty's "Sea levels are rising" and grasp just how much the freaks screwed us over, screwed the world over, by working to defeat Kamala Harris. At MOTHER JONES, Pema Levy offers:
In an extraordinary show of the power that Elon Musk now exercises over the United States government, last week he joined a cabinet meeting in which he delivered a tongue-lashing to Marco Rubio. On paper, Rubio is the Senate-confirmed Secretary of State, while Musk is a mere adviser to the president without any power. But according to an account of the meeting in the New York Times, Musk is the one who has been in charge. Rubio tussled with Musk in the meeting, reportedly angry that Musk and his DOGE team had essentially shuttered the US Agency for International Development (USAID) that is technically under Rubio’s control.
President Donald Trump reportedly called the meeting last Thursday to settle power struggles between Musk and the cabinet secretaries, and answer a question: who, exactly, is in charge? Ask Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who the Times says complained about DOGE’s push to lay off air traffic controllers as he tries to deal with multiple plane crashes. In the same meeting, Duffy reportedly told Musk that he had stopped the layoffs, an indication that Duffy remains at least partially in charge of his agency. Musk informed Duffy that he had his phone number and could call him if Duffy encountered any problems with what DOGE was doing. That sounds like Musk is in charge. According to the Times, Trump clarified at the meeting that Musk can no longer boss around cabinet members—an indication that for nearly two months Musk has had such power and, despite Trump’s new rule, may well continue to.
While this drama is spilling out in the press, it’s legally relevant. Multiple challenges to Musk and the actions of his Department of Government Efficiency allege his vast authority violates the Appointments Clause, one of the Constitutions key anti-corruption measures. Under this clause, which the framers crafted to prevent the kingly practice of handing jobs and authority to unaccountable allies, any officer of the United States must be formally nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. Moreover, such appointees must fill a role created by Congress. Musk’s exercise of vast authority, at least four lawsuits allege, is unconstitutional, as he was neither confirmed by the Senate nor is he serving in any role Congress created. “You don’t have to stretch the text very far to see that there is a problem under [the Appointments Clause in] Article Two,” says Jed Shugerman, a law professor and historian at Boston University School of Law.
As long as the courts hold that might seem good news. As long as the courts hold. We can't even get the Senate Democrats to hold and pull together. Robert Kuttner (TAP) explains:
For three days, Senate Democrats privately debated whether to support a House-passed continuing resolution (CR) keeping the government funded through September 30, or to block it with a filibuster, thus letting the government temporarily shut down.
At midweek, it looked as if Chuck Schumer had devised a deft plan: Propose an alternative resolution to keep the government open for 30 days and send that back to the Republican House. That way, if the House did not go along, the shutdown would be on the Republicans.
On Wednesday, Schumer emerged from two days of meetings to declare that the caucus was unified against the Republican six-month resolution and supporting the 30-day plan instead.
But it turned out that he was simply floating the idea to keep Senate progressives happy. He was confident that the more centrist Democrats would reject the idea and vote cloture to end a filibuster and send the six-month continuing resolution to President Trump. In a more sinister maneuver, he would allow Republicans to end debate on their CR in exchange for a vote on the 30-day resolution—a vote that would fail, leaving Republicans able to pass their bill by majority vote.
Marin Scotten (THE NEW REPUBLIC) reports:
Democrats are turning on Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi is leading the charge.
Schumer announced Thursday he would vote to pass Trump’s disastrous budget bill to avert a government shutdown, flipping on his own party just 24 hours after he signaled he would vote against the bill. Pelosi issued a statement the next day urging Senate Democrats not to follow his lead.
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across American,” Pelosi said in a statement.
“Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable,” Pelosi continued, referencing Schumer’s betrayal. “I salute Leader Hakeem Jeffries for his courageous rejection of this false choice, and I am proud of my colleagues in the House Democratic Caucus for their overwhelming vote against this bill.”
The GOP bill would gut funding for health care, increase military spending, and fund mass deportation. It narrowly passed the Republican-led House, with just one Democrat voting to pass. Schumer argued that a government shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk a “carte blanche” to gut federal services. Pelosi disagreed.
Good for Nancy. Maybe being out of leadership has freed her to do the right thing. Or maybe age has? This is a long way from nearly two decades ago when Harry Reid stabbed her in the back when it came to ending the Iraq War. And she largely let him slide on that when she should have been shouting it from the rooftop. Good for her
"i'm saying whatever's going on here, its not a good look. it feels personal. just let it go."
That has nothing to do with the above. It's something we may work into our media piece and I don't want to look for a scrap of paper tomorrow. The following sites updated:
