BR is a great example of someone lurkers who are interested in the news rather than the noise would plonk.

People coming for the news/articles could very well block a bunch of people who don't bring much that is news worthy to the table.

If I came here to read the articles and peruse a bit of discussion, I could see plonking a bunch of people.

Is someone an active user it they sign in to read only? I could see those people killfiling trolls and yet those trolls would not know their names, having never interacted with them.

"Everyone here is convinced Bellringer IS Jeff so he's a sock puppet account. Same goes for others including Bluewaffles, Shrimptacodan, legallyyourdead, wardog, etc....a lot of active users ARE part of a list of accounts controlled by a single person."

Or alternately, didn't you say that some accounts, Bellringer may be one, are controlled by multiple posters, who switch on and off using the handle?

Musk's recent claims that the Social Security Administration is sending out payments to tens of millions of dead people more than 100 years old"a claim echoed by President Trump"were wrong: the software system defaults missing birthdates to more than 150 years ago and the Social Security Administration decided not to spend more than $9 million on upgrading its system to include death information. Right-wing podcaster Trish Regan warned DOGE that "it's critical to present the math CORRECTLY" and noted: "Looks like the team got out over its skis on this one."

"The following users appear most often in the killfiles of active users."

My question is: how does RCade define an active user? Did he change the killfile list to limit it to active users at some point? I was under the impression the killfile list used to include users who had killfiled someone even if that person no longer posted at the site. IOW, the killfile number was all inclusive and went all the way back to when the killfile option was first initiated. If RCade has changed that policy to include only active users now, that could explain why the number of killfiles some posters have has dropped.

#72 It's amusing. Some of the more intelligent posters (S/) on the left would use the plonk count as proof certain conservative posters were not worthy. GRACIE HAS 21 PLONKS, SEE? The ones that believed there was 21 real posters plonking. Now, almost overnight I have 9. This came about when I looked at the STATS page to see if someone landed in the basement for a rather energetic night of pushing the envelope. Like magic, plonks for the top five disappeared and accounts not seen before, but set up previously, appeared on the STATS page. Weird.
#74 | Posted by gracieamazed

Maybe Gracie really did have 21 plonks and those plonks included posters who no longer post here, some of whom have passed away, but now she has 9 plonks from actual active users. If so, then this dramatic drop could have nothing to do with sock puppets. I don't know. I'm just considering other possibilities.

Ron Filipkowski
@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social
Elon is telling everyone that he discovered trillions of dollars of social security money has gone to dead people & there is something else Congress is doing today besides holding hearings & having him testify about it under oath? Why? What could be more important?

Ron Filipkowski
@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social
Elon claims trillions in social security went to dead people but instead of holding hearings on that today and having him and DOGE testify under oath, Republicans are filing bills to put Trump's face on Mt. Rushmore & make his birthday a holiday. DON'T THEY CARE ABOUT OUR MONEY!

Democrat Dismisses Trump's IVF Executive Order As 'Lip Service'

Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), whose "Right to IVF" bill remains blocked by Republicans, dismissed Trump's executive order on IVF as "just lip-service from a known liar."

"Don't be fooled. Donald Trump's executive order does nothing to expand access to IVF," she said in a statement. "In fact, he's the reason IVF is at risk in the first place. But if he is actually serious about taking real action to accomplish his own campaign promise to make IVF free for everyone, there's a simple way he can prove it: He can call on Senate Republicans to immediately back my Right to IVF Act that would require insurance plans to cover IVF."

Duckworth, a U.S. Army veteran who lost both legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq, has spoken openly about using IVF to conceive her two daughters. The Illinois senator says her doctor suggested her struggles with infertility may be tied to the many X-rays she received while undergoing treatment for her injuries.

Time will tell:

Senator Patty Murray
@murray.senate.gov

Let's be clear: this PR stunt does NOTHING to actually expand access to IVF. Republicans created this mess by overturning Roe and they've blocked legislation MULTIPLE TIMES that WOULD make IVF care more accessible and affordable for families. Give me a break.

The American people can stop Trump and the GOP, but only if they wise up and speak up very loudly in protest:

Before the 2024 election, Aaron Zitner, Jon Kamp, and Brian McGill of the Wall Street Journal noted that by 2022, 53% of the counties in the U.S. received at least a quarter of their income from government programs"primarily through Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Those counties heavily support Republicans, including Trump.

On Friday the Republican-dominated House Budget Committee presented its budget proposal to the House. It calls for adding $4.5 trillion to the budget deficit in order to extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. It also calls for $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, including cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and supplemental nutrition programs. Budget Committee chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) said: "The era of wasteful, woke, and weaponized government is over."

For forty years, Republican politicians could win elections by insisting that government spending redistributed wealth from hardworking taxpayers to the undeserving because they did not entirely purge the federal programs that their own voters liked. Now Trump, Musk, and the Republicans are purging funds for cancer research, family farms, national parks, food, nuclear security, and medical care"all programs his supporters care about"and threatening to throw the country into an economic tailspin that will badly hurt Republican-dominated states.

President Donald Trump authorized FEMA to provide federal disaster assistance to all 120 Kentucky counties.

The FEMA assistance is in response to the severe storms, straight-line winds, flooding and landslides that began Feb. 14.

FEMA officials were specifically authorized to, "Identify, mobilize and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency."

In a release from the FEMA Press Office, "Emergency protective measures, limited to direct federal assistance, will be provided at 75% federal funding."

Perspective:

When asked, Americans say they don't actually want to get rid of government programs. A late January poll from the Associated Press"NORC Center for Public Affairs Research"a gold-standard pollster for public attitudes"found that only about 29% of Americans wanted to see the elimination of a large number of federal jobs, with 40% opposed (29% had no opinion). Instead, 67% of adults believed the U.S. is spending too little on Social Security, 65% thought it was spending too little on education, 62% thought there is too little aid for the poor, 61% thought there is too little spending on Medicare, and 55% thought there is too little spending on Medicaid. Fifty-one percent thought the U.S. should spend more on border security.

Bears repeating for the trolls and a//====s:

It's common knowledge that Russia does everything they can to manipulate our elections. It's even common knowledge that several Trump insiders had significant connections to Russia leading up to the 2016 election... and still do. Just because you refuse to acknowledge the facts doesn't make them any less factual.
#18 | Posted by Whatsleft

Maybe it won't take another pandemic but just the return of a slew of childhood diseases which kill a bunch of kids unnecessarily to wake people the f--k up?:

God help us if we have another pandemic during the next 4 years that affects children. The American people aren't going to be as sanguine about kids dying as they were about seniors dying during the Covid pandemic.
Posted by Gal_Tuesday at 2025-01-23 09:40 AM

This is why abolishing FEMA and turning emergency management over to the states is a foolish idea which will have fatal consequences:

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said all of the state's 120 counties were impacted by the storm. "The biggest challenge of this event is it's everywhere."

#22 | Posted by ClownShack

Hey Clown, you do what I can't, which is to show up here most days. If I did that, the trolls would get to me too.

Tick-tock:

CIDRAP @cidrap.bsky.social

Ten more measles cases"58 total"confirmed in Texas outbreak

The latest update includes a case from Lubbock County, pushing the number of affected counties to 5.

What court order is Trump ignoring?
#17 | Posted by oneironaut

Pennsylvania governor sues over Trump administration spending freezes on grants and loans

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) " Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Thursday sued agencies under President Donald Trump, saying they are illegally and unconstitutionally withholding billions in federal aid from the state that had already been approved by Congress.

Shapiro, a Democrat, filed the lawsuit despite the fact that federal courts have repeatedly rejected the Trump administration's sweeping pause on federal funding, and Shapiro's lawyers suggest that the Trump administration is continuing to ignore court orders to restore access to the suspended money.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia, calls actions by the federal agencies "flagrantly lawless" and said the agencies have no legal authority to unilaterally refuse to spend congressionally appropriated money over a policy disagreement.

Further, the agencies have provided no plausible explanation for the suspension, Shapiro's lawyers said.

Shapiro, his agencies and members of Congress have tried to try to fully restore access to the money, the lawsuit said.

"Despite that work, and despite two temporary restraining orders requiring federal agencies to restore access to suspended funds, federal agencies continue to deny Pennsylvania agencies funding that they are entitled to receive," the lawsuit said.

More from the above fact sheet on Trump and Musk helping Musk:

Department of Justice (DOJ): DOJ filed a lawsuit in 2023 against SpaceX for allegedly discriminating
against asylees and refugees in hiring. DOJ also opened investigations into whether Tesla has been candid
in describing the features of its vehicles.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC): The SEC sued X in January 2025, alleging Musk misled
shareholders about his Twitter stock purchases in 2022 and ordering Musk to pay the federal government
as much as $150 million. Musk called the agency a "totally broken organization" in response to the
lawsuit.

Office of Government Ethics (OGE): Days after Members of Congress requested that OGE investigate
Mr. Musk's conflicts of interest--given his status as a Special Government Employee and his extensive
business holdings that receive billions of dollars in federal government contracts and subsidies--the
Director of OGE was fired by Trump.

Why would an IG investigate a private company? I thought IG's were internal government watchdogs? It seems to me that any investigation of a private sector company would be conducted by convening a grand jury.
#16 | Posted by BellRinger

FACT SHEET: TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, DOGE PUNISH AGENCIES INVESTIGATING ELON MUSK'S COMPANIES

Several Federal Agencies That Were Investigating Elon Musk's Companies Have Become The Early Targets
Of The Trump Administration And Musk's Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Department of Labor (DOL): DOL, which oversees the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), and the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) had over a dozen open investigations into Tesla and SpaceX regarding alleged unfair
labor practices, safety violations, and discriminatory work practices.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB): : Consumers have submitted over 300 complaints about
Elon Musk's Tesla to the CFPB. 66 of these complaints were submitted in the last year.

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID): The USAID Inspector General initiated a probe
into Starlink satellite terminals provided to the Government of Ukraine.

Department of Transportation (DOT): DOT, which oversees the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), had several open
investigations into Tesla. FAA had recently ordered SpaceX to carry out a formal investigation into the
loss of a Starship vehicle during a test flight, and previously ordered over $630,000 in civil penalties against SpaceX.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA): The USDA Inspector General launched a probe into Elon
Musk's Neuralink in 2022 for potential violations of the Animal Welfare Act. As of January, the
investigation was ongoing.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): EPA regulators have settled multiple lawsuits with Tesla
over violations of the Clean Air Act and hazardous waste laws at the company's automotive manufacturing
plant in Fremont, California.

Federal Election Commission (FEC): The FEC is set to rule on a number of complaints filed during the
2024 election cycle, including complaints pertaining to Musk's America PAC.

Department of the Interior (DOI): DOI oversees the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which monitors
the federal lands near SpaceX's launch site in Texas for any damage to threatened species' habitats. Musk has repeatedly clashed with FWS, calling their review process "unacceptable."

Department of Defense (DOD): Concerns that SpaceX has repeatedly failed to comply with federal
reporting protocols aimed at protecting state secrets, including by not providing some details of Musk's meetings with foreign leaders, have reportedly triggered federal l reviews by DOD's Office of Inspector General, the Air Force, and the Pentagon's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. The Air Force also recently denied Musk high-level security access, citing potential security risks associated with the billionaire.

Don't get sick. Just don't get sick:

Of Kennedy's confirmation, Senator Jon Ossoff (D-GA) said to his colleagues: "It's truly astounding that the Senate stands on the brink of confirming Mr. Kennedy to lead America's public health agencies. And if the Senate weren't gripped in this soon-to-be infamous period of total capitulation, I don't think this nominee would have made it as far as a hearing ... . If I'd told you a couple of years ago, There's a guy who's been nominated to run public health nationwide. His job will be to protect American families from death and disease. He's going to run the whole public health system: Medicare, Medicaid, the C[enters] for D[isease] C[ontrol and Prevention], the N[ational] I[nstitutes of] H[ealth]"all of it. He'll decide how we protect the country from infectious disease, he'll set the rules for every hospital in the country, he'll decide what healthcare and medicines get covered by Medicare, he'll manage our response in the event of a pandemic.' And then I told you, ... Well,... there are a few concerns about this nominee. First of all, zero relevant experience. He's a trial lawyer, a politician from a famous family. No medical or scientific background, he's never run a hospital or a health system or anything like that. Second of all ... he's said some pretty wild stuff about public health, over and over and over again, like: he proposed that Covid-19 might be ethnically targeted' to spare Jews. Ethnically targeted to spare Jews. He said Lyme disease was a military bioweapon. For years he's been persuading American families against routine childhood immunizations. He's compared the work of the CDC to Nazi death camps.'... If a couple of years ago I told you all that, and I told you that the Senate was about to put America's health in this man's hands, you'd probably tell me the Senate has lost its mind."

"And two, even if it were to make it up to the Supreme Court, they've already given him the powers of a king and everyone around him just sits around at his feet waiting on a pardon."

It really is going to come down to the Supreme Court:

MAGA loyalists, particularly Vice President J.D. Vance, have begun to suggest they will not abide by the rule of law, but before Trump and Vance took office, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts called out Vance's hints that he would be willing to defy the rulings of federal courts as "dangerous suggestions" that "must be soundly rejected."

"Maybe someone in court under oath told the truth about them having read & write access."

Or maybe not:

Why Did Musk Gizmocrats Rewrite the Payment System Code?

The Times this morning has an apparent explanation for why DOGE operatives were so eager to take control of the unified government payment system at the Treasury: they wanted to be able to shut off payments to USAID projects without going through USAID personnel. They say this is based on emails between Elon-backed Trump appointees now at Treasury. I assume this is accurate in itself but I wouldn't be sure this is the only reason and perhaps not even the main reason. But it's the only non-speculative explanation we have so far.

David Kurtz notes this morning that the judge overseeing a lawsuit aimed at halting the actions at Treasury is almost certainly being given false information about what's actually happening, though as David notes we can't say for certain the Justice Department lawyers representing the administration are affirmatively lying. (They may use weasel words; they may not themselves know; many possibilities.) Those lawyers continue to insist that the Musk operatives at Treasury only have "read-only" access to the computers. As Wired and I have independently reported, that's not true. They have full administrator privileges and, as I have reported, they've already altered the code.

"3) once some people (e.g., the press that Pres Trump seems to hate?) noted Mr Musk's unprecedented access to internal and extremely critical government computer systems, the walk-back quickly occurred."

I wonder if it might have something to do with this judge's ruling today?:

Just hours before his reported resignation, Elez, along with Tom Krause, chief executive of Cloud Software Group Inc., was cleared by a judge to retain "read-only" access to sensitive payment systems at the Treasury Department. Elez was part of a team waging a war on USAID on behalf of the Trump administration and canceling authorized payments to the agency's employees.