Wayne Steger

Meanwhile the BLS *does* have serious problems related to declining data integrity — because Trump has deprived it of resources. Hiring freezes, early retirements, “fork” departures etc. have left the agency so thinly staffed that field offices are closing.

Finally, for people who want the United States to be a Christian nation, the Trump Admin efforts are not consistent with Christian teaching. Continued support for it by Christian identifiers makes it look much more like white nationalism, which looks more racist than religious in intent.

The solution is to use immigration court hearings. The problem is that the admin. must then show proof of gang membership/criminality, which they appear not to have for many of the deportees. If they had proof, they could present it. The absence of proof undercuts the narrative of criminality.

Republicans complain that the courts are blocking deportations for him but did not do so for prior presidents. Unlike his predecessors, Trump is claiming a condition of war, so that he can use emergency powers to circumvent the constitutional guarantee of due process. Prior pres’s did not do that.

Yes, a lot of big money, esp. private equity money has been going into real estate the last several years. This a a significant factor in rising rental prices.

What do you mean by real property Jack

Opinion | Trump Is Trashing America’s Reputation His foreign policy is doing irreversible damage to the greatest geopolitical brand ever created.

“America’s reputation, built on its ideals and burnished over centuries, is the greatest geopolitical brand ever created. But as someone put it to me this past week, we may be witnessing the greatest exercise in brand destruction in history.” www.wsj.com/opinion/trum...

Wow

I suspect there is a magnitude of insider grift here that would appall Americans.

Per a friend (with second hand stoey), Lutnik was bragging at a Trump inauguration party how they were all going to get rich. I wonder how many Trump circle people have hedges against the stock markets, making big money when the market drops.

His firm likely is making a killing on others’ misery, in terms of commissions and margins as bond markets rise.

The crazy thing for me is that, Howard Lutnik, a major proponent of tariffs in thee Trump Admin. He was previously the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a huge Wall Street firm that specializes in Bond markets. Market instability drives investors to Bond Markets for solid ground.

What Can the Feds Legally Demand of Columbia University? The Trump administration is using the threat of a funding cutoff to demand sweeping changes at Columbia University, including a drastic overhaul of its system of student discipline, and the putting of...

New from me at Cato: in its demands that Columbia surrender its academic and administrative independence to federal overseers, the Trump administration has violated one law after another. And there's every reason to think it's planning to roll out the same game plan to other universities. /1

The Seattle Times "There's nothing you need to do - we've deducted the funds from LEONARD A. JOHNSON's account." Uh oh. It itemized how $5,201 had been stricken from their bank account, on the grounds that Ned wasn't justified to get those benefits - because he was dead. That was for payments he'd received in December and January. Ned found that his February Social Security check hadn't been paid, and he's yet to receive his March check, either. His Medicare insurance had been canceled. He also learned that when you die, your credit score gets marked as "deceased, do not issue credit," which makes it tough to get a loan.

DOGE/SSA marked this person dead and *removed his savings from his bank account,* cancelled his social security and Medicare. #seattle https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/heres-a-dead-person-on-social-security-in-seattle-with-plenty-to-say/

Graph titled: "The US right is now closer to Russia, Turkey and China in many of its values Liberal values and attitudes to international co-operation among countries’ political movements" Graph shows parties plotted on a graph in which the x axis is liberal-conservative values and y axis is pro/anti international cooperation. US Right is clustered with Turkey and Russia in the conservative values, anti-cooperation quadrant, while US Left is in the opposite quadrant, closer to Germany Left.

Graph titled: "The US right is no longer aligned with the rest of the democratic west. Placement of countries’ political movements on the liberal democratic values scale. Separate series are plotted for the right and left in all western countries." The US Right has moved away from parties in the rest of the world and is now aligned only with Turkey and Russia.

American Republicans are ideologically much more like people in Russia or Turkey than they are like members of European right-wing parties, and this only happened in the last 25 years.

www.ft.com/content/3046...

No. You are too witty in your cynicism. More of your followers will be moving here and looking for you.

Your posts from that other place. Loved your stream of content this year.

Think about the estimated $16 billion spent on the 2024 election. For those thinking that this is too much, put it into perspective. Americans are projected to bet around $23 billion on the Super Bowl this year! What’s going to matter more?

An empirical question: does anyone know if there is a Dem candidate aligned with or backed by Dem Socialists Justice Dems, that has replaced a Republican in any state legislative race. It appears to be the case that the only victories have been replacing Democrats.

Column | Here’s how Donald Trump would lower grocery prices During Donald Trump’s town hall in Pennsylvania, an attendee asked about grocery bills and inflation. Here is Trump’s response in its entirety.

You know who’s a journalist who’s actually meeting this moment? @pbump.com

This is perfection, right down to the footnotes

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

It is National Beer Day. This day commemorates the Cullerton-Harrison Act, signed by FDR on March 21 and effective April 7, 1933, legalizing the sale of 3.2% beer. The Act created a carve out in prohibition, and serves as the origins of 3.2% alcohol beer.

She leaned into it with a base wider than the shoulders - going to get called most of the time if there is contact

The problem may not be so much Biden’s age, but his approach. Biden is a pol of days gone by when adversaries made deals and compromised. In an in era of intense and asymmetric polarization, Democratic and liberal activists want a fighter who will trade blows and play hardball with Republicans.

What do you call Trump arguing with a judge about whether he can pay?

A Donnybroke.

Analysis | The racism and ahistoricism of Trump’s ‘poison the blood’ rhetoric The former president, father to four children with immigrant mothers, is not being subtle or sophisticated in his attacks.

A century ago, anti-immigration demagogues would have been quite incensed about Trump’s marriages.

Clarence Thomas’ Private Complaints About Money Sparked Fears He Would Resign Interviews and newly unearthed documents reveal that Thomas, facing financial strain, privately pushed for a higher salary and to allow Supreme Court justices to take speaking fees.

This is an explosive story. Clarence Thomas made it known to a conservative MC that he needed more money. Efforts to raise their pay failed. That's about the time billionaires started paying for his vacations, bought his mother's house, etc.

www.propublica.org/article/clar...

Seems very, very bad. plus.thebulwark.com/p/theres-a-s...

60 years ago today, Kennedy was assassinated. on Thanksgiving day, Biden becomes the longest serving Catholic president.