No Disaster Relief for Bomb Cyclone: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) denied a Washington state request for a little bit of help in the wake of November’s disastrous bomb cyclone. The gusty storm felled trees, knocked out power, and killed two people. It left an estimated $34 million-worth of damage in its wake. FEMA said assistance wasn’t warranted. This is in line with Trump’s agenda to reshape and likely do away with FEMA or, at least, withhold disaster relief from states ideologically opposed to him.
FEMA Tap Turns Off in North Carolina: The Tar Heel State was spurned by FEMA, too. FEMA declined to keep matching North Carolina’s spending on Hurricane Helene disaster relief. Back in the Joe Biden days when Helene first ravaged western North Carolina, FEMA agreed to reimburse North Carolina on 100% of disaster relief assistance. No longer!
Benefits for Striking Workers: House Democrats in the Washington state legislature pushed through Senate Bill 5041 which will provide striking workers with benefits. While the bill passing is a win for labor rights, the bill that passed is, of course, a watered-down version of the original; the House capped striker benefits at four weeks rather than the eight weeks in the initial bill. Now, the bill heads back to the Senate where senators will decide whether to approve the revisions or fight for the original version.
The Weather: We have another glorious day on deck. This is bad news for me because the sun has made my cat a menace. He longs for the outdoors and he is really letting me know about it.
The Sun Is Exerting Its Dominance: Starting Wednesday, the sun will set after 8 p.m in Seattle.
Things Get Trashy at NOAA: Thanks to the Trump administration not renewing contracts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center doesn’t have anyone to do hazardous waste disposal, janitorial services, IT, and building maintenance for their lab. So, the scientists in charge of monitoring the health of West Coast fisheries are taking out the trash themselves. Instead of doing science, the ecologists, chemists, and biologists at the Montlake lab are scrubbing toilets. The lab is a victim of Trump administration inefficiency; a new policy at the Department of Commerce requires Secretary Howard Lutnick to personally review all contracts over $100,000. This is creating quite the bottleneck in what contracts get renewed.
Vance Fumbles: A butterfingered JD Vance dropped the College Football Playoff’s national championship trophy before presenting it to Ohio State University. The trophy fell apart. Is this a metaphor???
JD Vance just broke apart the College Football Playoff National Championship trophy on live television.
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) April 14, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Trump Freezes Billions Intended for Harvard: Harvard University refused to comply with Trump orders to limit on-campus activism. In response, Trump is freezing $2.2 billion of grants and $60 million in contracts to Harvard and threatened their tax-exempt status. The list of demands Harvard rejected included instituting a “merit-based” admissions and hiring policy, a ban on face masks, and an audit on Harvard’s student body and faculty’s view of diversity. Trump’s demands are supposedly to root out “anti-semitism,” which everyone with a brain can assume is a load of hogwash. Doing this controversial bullshit in the name of “combatting” anti-Semitism is one sure fire way to increase anti-Semitism. Chilling stuff.
Obama and Yale Come to Harvard’s Defense: Former President Barack Obama praised Harvard for standing up to Trump’s demands and said he hoped other institutions followed suit. His statement came after the letter published by 876 faculty members at Yale University that expressed support of their rival, Harvard.
White House Defies 9-0 Supreme Court Order: The Supreme Court, in a shocking show of unity, ruled the White House must facilitate the return of 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador. Abrego Garcia, who is from El Salvador, had an “immigration court order preventing his deportation to his native country over fears he would face persecution from local gangs,” the Associated Press reports. He is now being held the notorious CECOT prison for being a member of the MS-13 gang, an unfounded claim. In spite of the ruling, Trump and El Salvador president Nayib Bukele refused to return Abrego Garcia back to the US.
COLLINS: Can President Bukele weigh in on this? Do you plan to return Garcia?
BUKELE: How can I smuggle a terrorist into the United States? Of course I’m not going to do it. The question is preposterous
TRUMP: These are sick people
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 14, 2025 at 9:02 AM
DOGE Digs into Sensitive Labor Data: The goons in the Department of Government Efficiency infiltrated the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under the guise of “reviewing agency data for compliance and to cut costs and maximize efficiency.” However, a whistleblower disclosure shared with Congress and obtained by NPR shows DOGE really was stealing data. That data could include sensitive information on “unions, ongoing legal cases, and corporate secrets.” After their time rifling around inside the system, DOGE staffers allegedly turned off monitoring tools and manually deleted records of what they’d accessed, things “criminal or state-sponsored hackers might do.” Later, employees at the NLRB started noticing login attempts from Russian IP addresses.
What Happens if This Data Leaks? According to labor law attorneys interviewed by NPR, “If this data gets out, it could be abused, including by private companies with cases before the agency that might get insights into damaging testimony, union leadership, legal strategies, and internal data on competitors.”
5.2 Magnitude Quake Rattles San Diego: There was no major damage, but look at how the elephants reacted at the San Diego Zoo. The adults huddled around their calfs to protect them.
WATCH: Elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park react to Monday’s 5.2 magnitude earthquake that shook San Diego County. The elephants formed an “alert circle” meant to protect the young and the entire herd from any threats, according to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
— ABC 10News (@abc10news.bsky.social) April 14, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Measles Outbreak Continues: Life in our anti-science country is going great. There are now measles outbreaks (places where there are three or more cases) in six states including New Mexico, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, and, of course, Texas. There are over 700 reported cases of measles nationwide. The majority of those—541 of them—are in Texas.
A Long Read: Here’s a wild story about two Lakeside School grads who became indoctrinated in an AI Cult and were involved in two murders.
A Song for Your Tuesday: This song pairs perfectly with a sunny day.
All in all, 249 years was a pretty good run for a Democracy. Back to the old ways.
‘Trump’s demands are supposedly to root out “anti-semitism,” which everyone with a brain can assume is a load of hogwash.’
While I have no doubt Trump has no good motivations for exploiting the situation at Harvard, that school did have explicitly anti-Jewish protests after 10/7:
‘Updated: October 10, 2023, at 5:15 p.m.
‘Harvard student groups drew intense campus and national backlash over the weekend for signing onto a statement that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” in the wake of a deadly invasion of Israel by the Islamist militant group Hamas.’
(https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/10/10/psc-statement-backlash/)
Some Harvard alumni responded:
‘Bill Ackman and other business leaders said they never want to hire the Harvard University students who signed a statement saying they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.”’
(https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/israel-hamas-war-gaza/card/bill-ackman-doesn-t-want-to-hire-harvard-students-who-blamed-israel-xPsuiqpYDRYpCLLkSYso)
@2 You’re dumb.
@3 You’re right.
@2 Anti-Israeli is not anti-semitic.
@3, @4, & @5:
The Wormtongue
doesn’t Give a Fuck
if you support Hamas
or not — and he’ll be more
than Happy to Claim that You DO.
as Intellectually Dishonest
as the Day is Long
That’s Just Our
Wormtongue!
@3, @4, @5: Thanks for confirmation of my point. For the ongoing anti-Jewish sentiments at Harvard specifically, see this essay:
“As University President Alan M. Garber ’76 read the Haftarah portion at Rosh Hashanah services, I thought about when encampment goers depicted him with horns and a tail last spring. I’m astonished that, while pro-Palestine coalition members removed the poster after backlash, they couldn’t even find the simple humility and self-awareness to say sorry.” (https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/10/7/nekritz-october-7-wont-say/)
Again, nothing good can be expected from Trump’s assaults upon Harvard, Columbia, etc., but thanks to last year’s campus protests, he’s been given a weapon with which to attack those schools — and many others.
If you believe they needed any pretext to dismantle higher education in this country you have not been paying attention to what’s been going on in Florida over the last several years, long before October 7. I can see the appeal of blaming people you disagree with for everything bad that’s happening but authoritarians are going to be authoritarians with or without an excuse you find worthy.
@8: You provided no link to anything “going on in Florida over the last several years,” let alone explain how any of it relates to Trump’s attacks upon Columbia and Harvard now. Last year, during those protests, commenters here were very clear in saying the obnoxious nature of those protests, and their very clear anti-Jewish tone on some campuses, were not helping the cause of justice in Palestine. Brushed aside with the ends-justify-the-means lie of stopping a non-existent “genocide,” those statements continue to be validated by Trump’s attacks upon the very institutions of higher learning which allowed these abusive protests.
Another question, already asked in these threads concerning Columbia, asks why do well-endowed, elite private universities like Harvard receive any public money at all? Trump’s threats to use this as a club to batter them into submission should now cause them to re-think that policy, one would hope.
Legit accusations of anti-Semitism may have been one of many niche pretexts for ushering in an authoritarian regime and ringing down the curtain on our constitutional republic; but now that we’ve held our last presidential election the chumps that thought el Presidente de por vida actually gives a shit about anti-Semitism are about to find out the hard way, just like everybody else, that the days of government listening to the concerns of citizens are over. Suckers!
@7 You’re welcome, dummy.
@9 https://time.com/6309612/christopher-rufo-public-universities-deceptive-essay/
I guess you haven’t been paying attention bc this has been a big national story for several years now. Pretty sure there is stuff about higher education in project 2025 too. They were never going to wait for an excuse to fall into their laps bc this was the plan all along.
So, no money from FEMA for the bomb cyclone means that electric rates will almost certainly be going up, particularly for those on the Eastside.
Happy Tuesday, everybody.
More here
https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/project-2025-and-higher-education
No shade but you should definitely know about this if you care about higher ed bc both of these were big ongoing national news stories for the last few years and republicans have been talking about going after universities for as long as i can remember
The nyt profiled rufo a few days ago. He’s been a central figure in the far right propaganda mill since the first trump admin.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/podcasts/the-daily/christopher-rufo-dei-critical-race-theory.html
What’s the “Go eat a burrito” “or even a small child” all about?
@12 tensorna’s a useful idiot don’t waste your time you’ll never convince them of anything
I’m thinking that by 2027 gets here Putin will be waltzing right onto the west coast, marching up and down from Cali to Bellingham. drumpf will think that is awesome. and refuse to send military aid. But it will all backfire, Canda and Mexico will come to the defense. But then drumpf will say Canada and Mexico are invading and decide to launch a few nukes thinking it’s far enough away from the rest of western society no one will do anything about it. And that leads to global thermal nuclear war. At least from what I have seen of drumpf so far, that is the only logical path I see this following. Fuck drumpf, fuck the GOP, and fuck MaGaTs. And Kristo, you are right again, drumpf don’t give a shit about hamas, israel, jewish people or anyone. All the rest of y’all gotta realize he is a completely broken, self-obsessed, self-centered, self-serving rightwing pigeon from outer space sent here to destroy the fucking human race. Time to rise people, time to take the power back. Protest, raise your voice, join the effort, 4.5% is all we need to make sure drumpf is powerless. FUck yeaaaaaa!!!!! Let’s Gooooooo!
Also. Our government funds private universities because we value(d) education and we have/had the best schools in the world because of it. Money spent on education is an investment that pays dividends to our entire economy. It’s a little scary how easily centrists fall for reactionary propaganda but that goes a long way towards explaining how we got here.
@16 why? I’m guessing your watering in the mouth after reading that…. asshole.
@20: ok Alfie – you got your retort in.
@16,
It’s a sticker. That’s instructing you to go eat a burrito. Or even a small child.
@22. I am actually laughing, thanks.
@13 It’s a bummer for SCL employees too. Half that FEMA money was for booze and porn.
Doug dear, that division of the utility had nothing to do with the bomb cyclone response, but thanks for trying!
“His statement came after the letter published by 876 faculty members at Yale University that expressed support of their rival, Harvard.”
The Guardian has since updated the linked story: ‘…Yale’s faculty letter did not mention Harvard specifically, but did ask leadership to “work purposefully and proactively with other colleges and universities in collective defense”.’
@12: Your link says “public universities”; Harvard, Yale, and Columbia are private institutions. Again, what does Rufo’s censorious efforts at public universities in Florida have to do with this? This quote from that link should be worth your read, though:
“Universities aren’t blameless when it comes to free expression. Too often, campus culture and administration reflect an illiberal orthodoxy emanating from the left, or place diversity and free expression in unnecessary opposition.”
Yeah, having protesters chanting “death to Israel” on Columbia’s campus, and telling Jewish students to “go back to Poland” probably didn’t help dispel the notion of “an illiberal orthodoxy emanating from the left” very much, now did it?
@14: From your link: “Higher education is not the centerpiece of Project 2025, but it is addressed in the document, over and again.”
Well, ok, but again, nothing in there about specifically attacking elite private universities. (There’s the usual hard-right garbage about American higher education being infiltrated by the Commies, but to say that’s not exactly news makes for rather an understatement.) After mentioning education was not the centerpiece of Project 2025, the article describes what Project 2025 most wanted:
“Project 2025, the extremist policy agenda published by former Trump administration officials, is a 922-page roadmap for the future Trump administration. Its dystopian wish list of policy recommendations would cut Social Security and Medicare, require states to report women’s miscarriages, limit access to contraception, gut civil-rights laws, invalidate gun-control laws, and much, much more. It also would hike taxes on the poor and middle class.”
Wow, that all sounds very bad! Perhaps the Stranger should have been talking about that last year, instead of constantly yelling about “genocide” in Gaza? (Is that how we got here?)
@19: The question wasn’t whether we should spend money on education, but whether sending public money to very wealthy private institutions of higher learning represents the best use of that money to advance American education.
@17: Were you ever able to figure out the difference between a NATO Center of Excellence and “a PR firm”? Because thumpus and I didn’t seem able to convince you of any difference between those two types of entities.
@9 At least half of the letter that the administration sent to Harvard was about DEI and forcing Harvard to be more conservative both in faculty and student body. If they hadn’t had crocodile-tear antisemitism charges to lead with, they would have led with that.
And you know it’s crocodile tears because the Trump administration has been nearly silent about the guy who tried to burn down Josh Shapiro’s house this week.
@7 At what point will the IDF have the simple humility to say sorry for shooting grandmothers following marked evacuation routes and nuns in their convent? I’m not holding my breath.
Hatred for Gaza protesters really has this goof @26 arguing in defense of Project 2025’s goals
26, The road to tyranny is paved and maintained by centrists who think the fascists kind of have a point. I believe you when you say you don’t support trump but you don’t have to keep handing it to him.
“Higher education is not the centerpiece of Project 2025, but it is addressed in the document, over and again.” I never claimed it was the centerpiece, only that it was, you know, addressed in the document. Over and over again.
Private universities record federal funding for, among other things, competitive grants and student aid, as they should. Their endowments are earmarked for specific ends and aren’t just a massive savings account they can draw from.
That you believe republicans were going to stop with public universities or that it makes a difference either way is genuinely disturbing but not surprising considering you’re more concerned with what’s happening to your left than the shit show to your right. You don’t even know who chris rufo is and he got his start in Seattle. If you were paying attention you would have read about him here nearly a decade ago.
*receive federal funding
Absolutely no good can come from the State paying striking union workers. Even more egregious is paying striking GOVERNMENT union workers. We will be paying them not to work while they extort the taxpayers for even more generous pay and benefits. Expect every labor dispute to immediately turn into a 4 week strike. Incredibly dumb legislation. But it keeps the union political contributions rolling in and that’s all that really matters to the Democrats in the House and Senate.
“Doing this controversial bullshit in the name of “combatting” anti-Semitism is one sure fire way to increase anti-Semitism”
Why is that case – why not simply call it out as bullshit and call it good?
No one to clean up hazardous waste or janitorial services.
How is that different than what people see in the streets of Seattle everyday
“We will be paying them not to work.” Oh, horrors!!!
WereBackBaby, what do you think DOGE is doing? I swear you conservatives are the dopiest people around. So afraid that someone might be getting something you’re not. Suspicious and stupid is no way to go through life, dear.
@33 … he typed from his home in Sammamish (or similar)
YouTube today was full of videos of Bernie Sanders rallies. Maddow & others were rejoicing over how the whole nation is rallying to defy Trump.
I don’t get it. Where were all these people when Kamala & Hillary needed their votes? It’s too late now. A day late & a dollar short. Where were all these people on voting day when it mattered? And they’ll all be hung over & asleep on the day of the next election.
I feel really sorry for the people who live in shitty states where they have to stand in line for 8 hours or more to vote. But that’s the first thing you have to do in life: Vote! It’s worth losing your job over. You can always get another job next week. But it takes generations to reshape the courts. It’s worth losing your family over. Ask any Germans who were alive in 1945 if it was worth being on good terms with their relatives who were party bosses.
Politicians can’t tell HOW you vote. But they can tell IF you vote. And if you don’t vote, THEY CAN TOTALLY IGNORE YOU. If you can’t figure out who to vote for, just go and vote for one candidate. At least you show up in the records as having voted and they will fear you for that.
When Trump ran for his first term as President I asked the question, If you think congress can control a corrupt president, what do you think will happen when Trump sends the army or the US Marshals to arrest congress? This wouldn’t be even the second or third time a president or prime minister has dissolved a congress & mad himself king.
Guillotine!! Guillotine!!
@36 you really think anyone who attends a political rally doesn’t vote? That’s almost as ridiculous as this incredibly out of touch assertion:
“Vote! It’s worth losing your job over. You can always get another job next week.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16hGl_prqBI
Freak on a Leash – Isolated Beatbox Thingy
@27: “If they hadn’t had crocodile-tear antisemitism charges to lead with, they would have led with that.”
Exactly. The protesters needlessly handed them an issue which, they decided, made even better raw material for their demagoguery. Thanks for confirming my point.
@28: “…arguing in defense of Project 2025’s goals”
So, you interpreted my sentence, “Wow, that all sounds very bad!” as defending the quoted Project 2025 goals which immediately preceded it? If you claim that is your best possible reading comprehension on display, then I will believe you. (Was my syllable:word ratio just too large for you?)
@29: “Their endowments are earmarked for specific ends and aren’t just a massive savings account they can draw from.”
That’s not even the first time you’ve gotten that wrong here. Commenter hbb schooled you on this, just a month ago:
“Only 67% of Columbia’s endowment is designated for specific uses, the remainder is unrestricted. The endowment had a market value of $14.8 billion at the end of the last fiscal year. So, Columbia has $4.88 billion available to spend on whatever it wants.”
(https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2025/03/14/79966130/slog-am-pike-place-park-opens-hoh-road-repairs-get-funding-chuck-schumer-will-back-gop-bill/comments/10)
“You don’t even know who chris rufo is and he got his start in Seattle. If you were paying attention you would have read about him here nearly a decade ago.”
Well, it certainly looks like you’ve completely got me on that incredibly relevant point.
(Wait, what?)
‘Rufo is a Member in good standing of two local right-wing propaganda outfits. The one founded by a right-wing radio yakker constantly advocates policies which are the exact polar opposite of what Seattle does. Seattle prospers. It’s not too terribly much to speculate this entire affair was confected to slander Seattle nationally, with the “liberals are the real intolerant ones” lie. Rufo was never going to get elected with the baggage he proudly carries.
‘tensor on November 19, 2018 at 5:59 AM’
(https://www.thestranger.com/articles/2018/11/16/35689714/former-city-council-candidate-chris-rufo-presents-his-evidence-of-online-harassment/comments/33)
The problem with Trump using “Antisemitism” to try to seize control of our major universities is that we all remember when actual Nazia marched in Charlottesville with torches, chanting “Jews will not replace us,” and a counter-protester was murdered, Trump said there were good people on both sides. There were no good people on the Nazi side.
@31 Now that Trump has set the precedent, the next Democratic president should round up Nazi trolls like you, and fly you halfway to Gitmo as Domestic Terrorists.
BTW: one should not post a sticker telling people to eat a burrito on taco Tuesday.
@27: “At what point will the IDF have the simple humility to say sorry for shooting grandmothers following marked evacuation routes and nuns in their convent? I’m not holding my breath.”
Look, I understand how defending the Stranger’s attempt to rewrite the recent history of stridently anti-Jewish protestors at Harvard now looks like a complete loser, so you’re trying whataboutism instead. But you didn’t give a source citation. Are you referring to the report which concluded the Israelis shot civilians, based not upon forensic or ballistic evidence, but simply because an IDF unit was in that area? The report which made no attempt to determine if Hamas was also operating in that same area at that same time? Because I believe we already covered that report’s deficiencies here.
@39 you think universities have “an illiberal orthodoxy emanating from the left” and as a result aren’t sure the federal government should find research at private ones at least. Seems pretty Project 2025-y to me. Stretching to justify Israel killing grandmas and nuns is the icing on the cake.
Ok so -the vast majority of their endowment- isn’t up for grabs, but the president holding up medical research funding to compel speech from these universities is still unconstitutional on multiple levels and the kind of shit you should be embarrassed to be defending.
@39 You pretend that the Trump administration would care about public opinion one way or the other in their assault on universities. But you’re always in for ignoring inconvenient facts.
@42 You were the one who brought up the notion that an apology was required for the protestors putting up a poster showing the university president with devil horns. I’m just saying that if the protestors should apologize, shouldn’t the IDF? After all, they were the ones who shot civilians. Last I checked, the Harvard protestors never killed anyone.
How quickly you forget the civilian casualties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Nahida_and_Samar_Anton
Note that Hamas was not operating in the area and the convent was registered with the Israelis as a safe zone. Didn’t stop them from being shelled, shot by snipers and later having Israeli bulldozers pile wrecked cars in front of the door.
Grandmother shot next to her grandson on a published evacuation route. Note that her grandson was carrying a white flag. Again, Hamas was not operating in the vicinity. The civilians were following IDF evacuation orders.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/26/middleeast/hala-khreis-white-flag-shooting-gaza-cmd-intl/index.html
Don’t these (and dozens of others) deserve apologies?
@43, 44, 45 et al
you cannot Ever
Win an “argument”
with the Wormtongue*
cuz
he’ll
ALWAYS
have the Last
w
o
r
d
.
*sociopaths’re
unburdened by
intellectual — or
Any kind of ~ Honesty
twisting/ignoring facts
is the Wormtongue Way™
@43: That line you quoted was from a source barth cited, so you can take that up with barth. I noted it agreed with the perception caused by protestors on Ivy League campuses engaging in blatantly anti-Israel and anti-Jewish messaging. I said nothing about funding based upon any of that.
@44: Where did I defend Trump’s assaults on these institutions? I was pointing out they have money sufficient to tell him off. If they want to sue the administration as well, I say they should.
@45: Well, you abandoned that one pretty quickly! Again, the protestors needlessly handed material to a demagogue, and per your account, the demagogue agreed it was better for demagoguery than the DEI material. Thanks, protestors!
“You were the one who brought up the notion that an apology was required for the protestors putting up a poster showing the university president with devil horns.”
Yes, pointing out the blatantly anti-Jewish nature of the campus protestors didn’t exactly help the Stranger’s claim to the exact polar opposite, now did it? The original author decided to note the churlishness of the protestors as well. You decided this was all too factual, and so went for whataboutism instead.
Civilians get killed in war zones. Hamas has a longstanding policy of getting civilians killed in Gaza. The former head of Hamas had reminded his subordinates about the need to get civilians killed, because persons like yourself would blame such civilian deaths on the Israelis. Your response to all of this? Go digging wherever you can for “proof” the IDF targeted civilians. If anyone in the IDF did, then they should be prosecuted for it. Full stop. That no one will ever be prosecuted for 10/7, or for firing rockets into Israel from behind civilians in Rafah, just makes the difference between the two sides that much clearer.
@46: “sociopaths’re
unburdened by
intellectual — or
Any kind of ~ Honesty”
Look, just because barth made multiple factual errors in a single comment @29 does not mean barth is a sociopath. Even barth’s false accusation was probably just an honest mistake, not per se evidence of sociopathy. You really should refrain from using words you clearly do not understand.
@47 “Civilians get killed in war zones.”
If you believe this then why do you keep crying about 10/7? If civilians being killed by the IDF when they invade Gaza is Hamas’s fault then clearly civilians being killed by Hamas when they invade Israel is Israel’s fault. Your “stop hitting yourself!” defense should apply bilaterally if at all.
@48
see:
@46.
@47
that’s More than Enough
of your Appeasements
and Capitulations
Wormtongue:
nyt:
[Bernie] Sanders
and [Alexendria] Ocasio-Cortez
Electrify Democrats Who Want to Fight Trump
Bernie Sanders and his apparent heir, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have drawn enormous crowds on their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, energizing a beaten-down Democratic Party.
The biggest political rallies anywhere in America right now are being headlined by an 83-year-old senator in the twilight of his career and his 35-year-old protégée.
Roughly 36,000 people in Los Angeles. More than 34,000 attendees in Denver. And another 30,000 on Tuesday night near Sacramento.
Those monster crowds — more than 200,000 people in all, according to organizers — have turned out to cheer on a fiery anti-Trump, anti-billionaire message from Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York during their “Fighting Oligarchy” tour of Western states.
Mr. Sanders even surprised attendees at the Coachella music festival near Los Angeles last week, popping onstage to introduce the singer Clairo and make an appeal to young people.
As Democrats search for a spark after being routed in November, the two progressives are providing the kindling, offering the party’s beaten-down base the fighting spirit it has been missing ever since President Trump returned to office.
–by Kellen Browning; April 16, 2025
oodles:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/us/politics/bernie-sanders-aoc-trump-democrats.html
corporate
Dems don’t
Approve. and
NEVER Will fuck ’em:
This is a War for the Soul of America.
ps.
the
Sociopath*
is YOU, wormmy
OWN it.
*not a Doktor
but I couldda
Been one on
TeeVee: Eza
Lee, MD.
@44: The Wall Street Journal analyzed Harvard’s endowment, in the light of Trump’s threat to pull funding. Their conclusion? Harvard might or might not feel a little pain, but can easily withstand Trump’s threat to withhold money:
“The university is limited in its ability to reallocate most of its endowment, but it can borrow against it. In a sign that Harvard anticipated a potential cash crunch, the university issued $750 million in taxable debt earlier this month. That would roughly cover the maximum amount of annual funding at risk.”
(https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/is-harvards-53-billion-endowment-big-enough-to-offset-federal-funding-cuts-a7fd1a27?mod=hp_lead_pos9)
@48: Well, that’s a huge moral failure, even for you. Simply ignoring Hamas’ role in getting Gaza’s civilians killed hasn’t worked for you, and neither has claiming supporting evidence for it was catalogued by “a PR firm.” (Snicker.) So now you’re just fine with flat-out murder of civilians for its own sake. (At least you admit it.)
@50: Whatever, dude. An old man from a small, remote state isn’t getting elected president, your foaming fantasies notwithstanding. (And, please stop calling barth a “sociopath.” Humans can sometimes make innocent mistakes, you know.)
@51 nope, IDF personnel exist in society therefore all Israeli civilians are fair game. Sorry I don’t make the rules
@52: Got proof of IDF personnel hiding beneath the music fest’ Hamas attacked, eh? You’ve tripped over that one as well.
Keep ignoring Hamas’ actions to increase the body count in Gaza. It’s all you’ve ever had, and I personally cannot wait for your topper to, “a PR firm.”
you’ll never get from
The Wormtongue
Any intellectual
honesty
they’re
Simply in-
compatible:
“Nobody in the world,
nobody in history, has ever
gotten their freedom by appealing to the
moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
–Assata Shakur
@54: I like how multiple other persons in this very thread have made demonstrably false statements, but you have not breathed a word of criticism for them, let alone called them fancy names. Yet you keep loudly attacking me for supposed dishonesty, whilst never once giving so much as a single example.
So, let’s do it: quotes and URLs, please!
(Angry obscenities and further name-calling in 3, 2, 1 …)
@53 I don’t have to prove anything you have to prove there WEREN’T any Israeli government or military personnel at the festival. Just ask thumpus or NotMyopic
@56: You seem to have forgotten that report by “a PR firm.” Hamas has used the civilian population of Gaza as human shields for a very long time.
There’s a reeeeeeeally big difference between having evidence, and not having evidence. (Kristo’ should be right along with the latter…)
@57 you really need to educate yourself about international law before wading into these discussions to avoid embarrassing yourself like you’ve done here
@58: You’re just not going to admit Hamas is a terrorist group, which kills civilians as a chosen policy, are you?
@59 how dare you ask anyone to denounce Hamas you Islamophobe, asking people to denounce foreign government entities is violence
if you don’t
Denounce hamas
Frequently Enough the
Wormtongue’ll have you
down as a hamas SUPPORTER.
he
like
thedjt
makes his
Own rules up
as he goes along.
and That’s
why we call him
The Wormtongue.
Thanks, JRR!
@61: “If you don’t
Denounce hamas
Frequently Enough…”
If you don’t recognize that Hamas is the main source of suffering in Gaza, then I’ll cite sources showing they are, which (in thirteen12’s case) leads to him describing a NATO Centre of Excellence as “a PR firm.” Hilarity ensues!
“he
like
thedjt
makes his
Own rules up
as he goes along.”
You were the one who repeatedly claimed that even mentioning Hamas was a distraction, as if they hadn’t done anything after 10/7.
“…have you
down as a hamas SUPPORTER.”
If you don’t want to be seen as a Hamas supporter, then you should not approvingly refer to material like this:
“You can disagree with the decisions Hamas made on that day [10/7]. You can say they should have used other means to pursue justice.”
But you did.