Video at link:

Aaron Rupar
@atrupar.com
Mike Lawler on Trump possibly running for a third time: "As a Republican, I and many would not be open to the idea of Barack Obama running for a third term. So I think folks have to be careful here."

Background info on the Tesla protests:

Protests hit Tesla dealerships across the world in challenge to Elon Musk

From Australia to Europe and the US, demonstrators rallied against carmaker's dismantling of US federal government

On Saturday, with more than 200 events planned worldwide, protests kicked off midday in front of Tesla showrooms in Australia and New Zealand and then rippled across Europe in countries including Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK. Each rally was locally organized with original themes. In Ireland, it was "Smash the Fash", and Switzerland had "Down with Doge". Photos posted to Bluesky by Tesla Takedown showed demonstrators in San Jose, California, close to where Tesla was previously headquartered, and Austin, Texas, where its headquarters are now.

FTA:

Over the weekend, thousands of people joined the Tesla Takedown' protest movement at the company's showrooms across the country. At the same time, a much smaller number of Elon Musk supporters turned out at Tesla locations for a counterprotest movement that some participants dubbed Tesla Shield.'

While the protest movement comprises people angered at Elon Musk's role in the dismantling of federal government agencies, the counterprotest movement that showed up this weekend was peopled mostly by MAGA supporters. Among them were an array of far-right extremists, including members of the Proud Boys, armed militias, and at one event in Idaho, a guy dressed as Hitler.

FTA:

Imagine you had pretty much unlimited power over the government and wanted to save taxpayers' money. You could:

Carefully study government operations to understand what works and what doesn't

Make targeted improvements based on data and evidence

Track results to ensure changes actually deliver savings

Or you could do what Elon Musk did with DOGE: declare everything wasteful, start firing people at random, and claim you're saving billions through pure destruction.

"If the administration is working not to save money but rather to destroy the government, the cuts that threaten the well-being of American citizens make more sense."

FTA:

There are so many layers of voter suppression built into the SAVE Act that you could call it the foundational structure.

Voter Suppression Challenge #1: You have to schlepp to whatever agency oversees your state's voting with your documents. This means no more voter drives or online or mail-in registration. It also presents a real-world challenge. More than 60 million rural voters will have to drive an average of 260 miles simply to exercise their constitutional right to vote. Meanwhile, urban voters, who often don't own cars, will be forced to commute upward of two hours on public transportation.

Voter Suppression Challenge #2: You need to possess what the Republicans deem a valid form of ID. Sure, the letter of the act lists five legitimate forms of identification but most forms of government-issued identification don't list your birthplace. Scratch your REAL ID as a form of identification, or your military ID, or your tribal ID. You also can't use your birth certificate unless it is certified with an embossed governmental seal. (This analysis from the Democratic Party explains just how ridiculous their requirements really are.) A passport is one of the few forms of government ID that specifies where a person was born but ... Only half of American citizens have a passport.

Voter Suppression Challenge #3 for the win: If you are using your birth certificate, the name must match your current name. But a recent survey from the Pew Research Center found that 84% of women - as many as 69 million - have changed their last name so it no longer matches their birth certificate. Salon writes:

"This would be a back-door ban on voting for any woman who took her husband's last name and doesn't have a passport ... "

PS I won't be surprised if the DOGE boys end up cutting back or even eliminating the FHA mortgage program that Turner is supposedly making sure illegals don't gain access too.

"How many illegals were getting FHA mortgages?"

Nobody knows; maybe none:

FHA loans offer government-insured mortgages to ensure that lower-income individuals have access to home ownership. While illegal immigrants are technically ineligible to obtain FHA-backed home loans under U.S. law, HUD's announcement will strengthen enforcement mechanisms to ensure that illegal immigrants are not abusing the program in the future. It is unclear how many illegal immigrants have obtained FHA-backed loans."

Call to Action
Vitamin A for Measles
Management in the US
www.nfid.org
#31 | Posted by itchyp

Also from that website:

Measles is making a comeback around the world

Every year, measles is brought into the US by unvaccinated travelers who get infected by the virus while in other countries. Anyone who is not vaccinated is at risk of getting measles. Misinformation continues to circulate about the role that vitamins, specifically vitamin A, plays in managing the disease.

Only the measles vaccine can prevent measles--All children should get 2 doses of MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccine to prevent measles

1. Vitamins do NOT prevent measles

Vitamins should NOT be used to prevent measles

Routinely getting an overload of vitamins can actually hurt you--For example, too much vitamin A can cause dizziness, nausea, headache, coma, and even death

2. Giving high doses of vitamins may be dangerous

Due to the danger of overdoses, high-dose vitamin A should only be used in the management of measles under the direct supervision of a healthcare professional once a diagnosis is confirmed

Stay up-to-date with all recommended vaccines, including MMR

Stay healthy by exercising and eating a balanced diet. The best sources of vitamin A include: milk, eggs, cheese, fortified breakfast cereals, leafy green vegetables, orange vegetables, and fish.

"children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage."

Yeah, that's the thing not all vitamins are healthy to take in large amounts. Vitamins that are not water-soluble get stored in the body and can cause liver damage. I know this because I have to take high doses of Vitamin D, and so I have to have the Vitamin D levels in my blood tested periodically to make sure I don't overdose on it:

Water-Soluble vs. Fat-Soluble Vitamins

Cod liver oil is what cured us when we was young. The reason it don't work for these kids is cause they Mexican.
#17 | Posted by fortfisher

Exactly how old are you?!?

Pete Buttigieg
@petebuttigieg.bsky.social

There were howls of protest and denial from the GOP any time we pointed out that Republicans want to cut Social Security.

Now the most powerful official in the White House goes on TV and calls it "the big one to eliminate."

FactPost @factpostnews.bsky.social (video at link)

Elon Musk says he wants to "eliminate" programs like Social Security and Medicare: "Entitlements... That's the big one to eliminate"

FTA: "I think it is" time for Schumer to step back, McMorrow said. "There's still this idea that Democrats and Republicans are still abiding by the same rules and still believe in the same norms and systems and structure. There seems to be a lack of recognition that this is no longer the Republican Party. This is a MAGA party. And the same approach is not going to work."

And:

Q: Democrats have been struggling to find their footing since Donald Trump won in November. Is there an ideological shift that needs to take place?

A: I don't know that it's ideological, more just the approach. I think that what is very clear--was clear in 2024 throughout the election cycle, and even still now--is there are a lot of people who don't know what Democrats stand for, and what Democrats can and will do for them in a way that gives them a vision of something that they want to vote for. That transcends political ideology, but it's just back to basics. How do you approach this moment? How do you respond to a Trump presidency, and the fact that Elon Musk has access to basically all of the government, and they are very comfortable rapidly tearing it down?

I think it's less ideological and more: Are you willing to fight for a future, and what is that future? And can you clearly articulate that to people?

Q: The operative axis, you're saying, revolves less around whether Democrats should move left or right, but around whether they should fight or accommodate?

A: Right. It's fighting. Because right now, what people see is Donald Trump and Elon Musk and everybody who's in there right now are more than comfortable paring down the government piece by piece. The checks and balances no longer exist. So you either fight for a future or you don't. And that isn't about whether a party moves left or right or center. It's just, is there a future or not, and how do you fight for it?

Compare this reporting from the Washington Post with a report put out yesterday by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the dangers DOGE poses for Social Security, emphasis mine:

The Administration, Musk, and DOGE have engaged in four types of activities that each present a clear danger to Social Security but together create the potential for significant damage to the program:

Launching rhetorical attacks on Social Security programs, including false claims of massive fraud--providing a pretext for actions that could undermine eligible beneficiaries' access to benefits.

Engaging in deep cuts to staffing, new restrictions on phone-based services for the public, and "agency-wide . . . restructuring" and "massive reorganizations" of SSA that are neither well thought-out nor wise " all of which threaten SSA's ability to serve seniors and people with disabilities effectively while providing a potential excuse for privatizing key services.

Jeopardizing the reliability of SSA's systems, including through the sharp reduction of staff with technical expertise of systems that serve some 73 million people, or 1 in 5 people in the United States, each month.

Threatening the security of people's personal information by giving untrained DOGE political appointees unprecedented access to sensitive SSA data.

These four dangers (see Figure 1) compound one another--rather than making improvements that would help Social Security beneficiaries now or in the future. Social Security is highly accurate and efficient--with a payment accuracy rate of 99.7 percent and administrative costs of only 0.5 percent--and has successfully paid benefits for over 85 years. After years of underfunding, SSA needs more staff--not fewer--to give the nation's retirees and people with disabilities the service they deserve.

Oh no! They released the entire text conversation, now we all have access to those "Top Secret War Planz". Which turn out to be nothing more than a conversation on the pros and cons. About as secret as the Sunday news programs. Goldberg is again found out to be a liar and the Democrats are the boys who cried "Trump"! 4D Chess it is.
#93 | Posted by visitor_

I repeat: Did you actually read the texts? No one who read them could honestly come to that conclusion.

Oh no! They released the entire text conversation, now we all have access to those "Top Secret War Planz". Which turn out to be nothing more than a conversation on the pros and cons. Goldberg is again found out to be a liar and the Democrats are the boys who cried "Trump"! 4D Chess it is.
#57 | Posted by visitor_

Did you actually read the texts? No one who read them could honestly come to that conclusion.

When you've lost the National Review:

This episode is a product of this administration's flippancy. Its casual unseriousness is what produced a text message in the first place. So, too, did that outlook license the way in which the administration's principles disclosed its internal disputes, which are of inestimable value to our enemies, to say nothing of our capabilities. That same unseriousness produced this unsatisfying cleanup operation, which fails to marshal a persuasive argument and relies instead on the assumed partisanship of the intended audience. We have seen this sort of thing a lot from Republicans in the second Trump era. . . .

Maybe it's better that Trump 2.0 has dispensed with Biden's mock solemnity even if it has retained his insouciance. Still, the degree to which this administration seems comfortable discussing matters both grave and trivial as online gamers would in a Discord forum is as puerile as it is reckless.

The work of government is serious business. The American public deserves serious people at the helm. So far, and for elusive reasons, this presidency seems to believe that voters will disregard its mistakes if its officials act as though anyone who notices and objects to them are picayune obsessives and cranks. This strategy, such as it is, is not working.

Acyn
@acyn.bsky.social
CNN put together a collection of clips of various Trump officials who were on the signal chat criticizing Hillary Clinton's email server

Maybe RCade is on vacation or sick or dealing with a personal problem. I hope he's on vacation. . . .

Angry
@angrystaffer.bsky.social

Goldberg said the level of detail in the targeting package that he received via Signal was down to the *names of individuals* to be killed.

That's the good stuff that includes all kinds of sources and methods and never should have been outside a SCIF.

I'd be in prison if I ------ up that bad.

The Democrats in Congress need to get on this story and publicize it far and wide. I trust AOC and Bernie will.

If they haven't done so already, Five Eyes would be smart to become Four Eyes to protect their national security interests.

More proof that people who despise the federal government aren't good at running it.

I think it is time for the American people to realize that the waste, fraud and abuse is coming from inside the WH and is being directed at them. What could be more wasteful, fraudlent and abusive than suddenly cutting off phone services for SS receiptents in 2 weeks rather than gradually phasing the new policy in over 2 years?

"These are the very changes Visitor_ assured us weren't Trump's doing and have been in the works for years."

This story keeps getting worse and worse. It turns out that the SSA is rolling out changes to the phone service in just two weeks rather than in two years as would normally be the protocol, and all because DonOLD Trump is pushing them to do so:

Social Security rushing service cuts at White House request, sources say

The Social Security Administration is rushing cuts to phone services at the White House's request, the agency's acting commissioner told Social Security advocates in a meeting on Monday, two sources who attended tell Axios.

Why it matters: These changes will strain the already struggling Social Security system and could even deprive some people of benefits entirely, according to current and former employees and advocates for retirees. . . .

Driving the news: Acting commissioner Leland Dudek said the changes in question would usually take two years to implement, but will be made in two weeks instead, the two sources said, on condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation.

Dudek also said the changes, happening so fast and with little public understanding, will create opportunities for scammers, one of the sources said.

Dudek acknowledged the policy could increase fraud risks for beneficiaries, according to one attendee. He said in the past Social Security had been too "thoughtful" in considering beneficiaries before making changes.

FTA:

Many Social Security field offices are also being shut down, part of the federal government's cost-cutting efforts. That could mean seniors have to travel even farther to visit, including in parts of rural West Virginia.

Donald Reed, who runs a local nonprofit that operates two senior centers, said he has serious concerns about the policy change, and how it'll affect the people his group serves.

"I'm not anti-Trump--let me say that," he said. "I think the general public greatly supports looking for waste in government. I do not think the general public understands the consequences of the current actions of the government."