Don’t get your hopes up.

I wrote the below Tuesday afternoon, before the world learned the United States government would be assisting in developing beachfront property in Gaza. Clearly we’ll have something to discuss today, but I don’t have words for it at the moment.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed by the Senate Finance Committee Tuesday, which means he goes on to a full Senate confirmation vote, which means he’ll probably be confirmed. The one possible GOP holdout, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor if you can believe that shit, folded like a cheap tent and so there’s the fourth Republican who might have saved the country from this quackery advocate.

Which reminds me, I need my second shingles shot, and should probably get it PDQ. The RSV jab as well. Then it’s just wait for bird flu to roll through.

I wrote to both my senators yesterday. They were sharply worded, but contained no R-rated language and didn’t get personal. I’m trying to do my part. God knows it isn’t easy.

And now I find myself looking at a to-do list for the week that’s mostly checked off. Having lunch with friends on Wednesday. Contact with other humans is important, lest we go even nuttier than we already are. It doesn’t help that so many people I know are having a terrible winter, even outside of current events. Jeff Borden has shared his here. The other day I met a friend for coffee, and his current situation sounds like something out of a 19th century novel.

I want spring to come and everybody to be happy and healthy, but increasingly that’s not looking too possible.

Back to writing to representatives. And waiting for RFK to take the reins.

Sorry this is short and bummer-ish, but I’m committed to three a week this year, and at the rate we’re going, we’ll need a fresh thread sometime on Wednesday. Because IT NEVER ENDS.

Posted at 12:15 am in Current events |
 

47 responses to “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  1. annie said on February 5, 2025 at 12:59 am

    Can we petition to become a province of Canada?

    47 chars

  2. Chris Winkler said on February 5, 2025 at 4:41 am

    Thank you for my sanity check.

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  3. Hilary said on February 5, 2025 at 5:54 am

    Chris! You’re here! So glad to see you I can barely come up with a comment, except God, we are tired, we are so tired.” Pam’s Black Book features you, saying, as you often did, “I’m so tired.” The rest of us would have behaved better if we were tireder, or asleep at least.

    Good to see you on the site.

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  4. Mark P said on February 5, 2025 at 10:03 am

    I think most of our Democratic leaders are too old and tired to do anything but clutch their pearls, except maybe AOC.

    So far, Musk is only hurting federal employees. Nobody cares about USAID because they mostly don’t know what it does, or its importance. I’m afraid that by the time Musk starts hurting ordinary people, it will be too late. Medicare and Social Security? No fears there. Those people are too old to take up arms to save themselves. Granny won’t be missed until her apartment starts stinking.

    This place is the only place where I get to interact with sane people, mostly. The only people I actually get to see are Trump supporters, except my wife, who is getting harder to interact with.

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  5. alex said on February 5, 2025 at 10:08 am

    Glad to know Chris and Hilary are alive and well and on this site. Gawd, do we have some history. They were charter members of the Rockhill Straight Womyn’s Collective and I was an outsider looking in even though we all wanted the same thing which was some dick.

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  6. Jason T. said on February 5, 2025 at 10:32 am

    You can’t fool me, Chris. There ain’t no sanity clause.

    https://youtu.be/BfSFi0ucZ6M?feature=shared&t=9

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  7. Peter said on February 5, 2025 at 10:32 am

    After I heard about Trump’s grand plan for Gaza, I have one question for all of the people who voted for Trump because of Biden’s stance on Gaza – Well, what do you think of him NOW?

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  8. Jenine said on February 5, 2025 at 10:52 am

    Thanks for the frequent posts. It’s refreshing even when there’s a new shitwave every day.
    We got our home eq loan and will be scheduling our new roof this month which feels like positive progress on the homefront at least.

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  9. Mark P said on February 5, 2025 at 10:53 am

    Well, since none of Israel’s neighbors want the Gaza residents, Trump did invite all of them to relocate to the US, didn’t he? There’s some beautiful land in MTG’s district.

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  10. Heather said on February 5, 2025 at 11:03 am

    he United States Military Academy has eliminated all Cadet clubs and activities for POC. The rate at which this is moving is terrifying, and the way institutions are folding without a fight is truly disheartening and rage-inducing. Apparently they’ve decided liberalism is dead and it’s time to get on board with a malevolent dictatorship.

    As Elon and co. now have all our tax info and banking details, what’s preventing them from swooping in and taking property and money away from groups they don’t like? Nothing. Hitler did it to the Jews after all.

    The Constitution is no longer in effect, it seems.

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  11. Carter Cleland said on February 5, 2025 at 11:23 am

    The late sentence of an LTE I sent the Tribune back in October, after they posted a scurrilous cartoon by their cartoonist/troll Scott Stantis.

    “After all, how can Jared Kushner develop that Gaza beachfront resort if those pesky Palestinians are still there?”

    And an LTE I just cranked out about a kerfuffle at the City Council regarding a Netanyahu/Biden “protest puppet” at Chicago’s Cultural Center.

    I’ve got blood on my hands, just as the “protest puppet” at the Cultural Center does. Why? Because my tax dollars, and yours, and those of Alders Silverstein, Sigcho-Lopez, and Conway, go toward the purchase of US-made bombs that, to date, have killed 46 thousand Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children. Tens of thousands more have been maimed, and the dead buried under the rubble that was once Gaza may double or triple the known casualties. I’m sickened by my complicity in this conflict, and if that makes me an anti-Semite, so be it.

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  12. SusanG said on February 5, 2025 at 12:32 pm

    The next disaster will be confirmation of RFK Jr.

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  13. susan said on February 5, 2025 at 12:49 pm

    I assume by “contained no R-rated language,” you mean no language that Republicans would use against Democrats?

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  14. Dexter Friend said on February 5, 2025 at 1:06 pm

    I asked for my RSV shot last week, was rejected as my COPD/asthma dual diagnosis was flaring somewhat, and with wheezing, it’s a no-go for that shot.
    It was reported today that as Drumph revealed his “Gaza Riviera” grand plan, Netanyahu was as surprised as everyone. I bet Jared knew, probably he concocted the plan.

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  15. Deborah said on February 5, 2025 at 1:17 pm

    Wouldn’t Jarred’s bone saw Saudi pals not like the Gaza Mar-a-Lago plan?

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  16. Sherri said on February 5, 2025 at 2:30 pm

    Most people have no idea what the government does. That’s true whether you’re talking about the federal government or state government or local government. Maybe they know who their governor is and who their senators are, but that’s about it.

    So when David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel say that no one cares about Elon shutting down USAID, they’re probably right. When they say that Dems should ignore it, they’re deeply wrong.

    They’re deeply wrong because Elon won’t stop there. They’re deeply wrong because letting an unelected, unaccountable billionaire decide what programs are worthy is unconstitutional, illegal, and undemocratic. They’re deeply wrong because appeasement never works.

    They’re deeply wrong because if you aren’t going to uphold the oath you took to defend the Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic, why are you even there?

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  17. Sherri said on February 5, 2025 at 4:23 pm

    The Dems should be putting AOC front and center, because she’s really good at explaining things. If they really wanted to do something about helping working class people, they’d follow her lead. But they’re scared to death of her, and of Elizabeth Warren, because big money donors hate both of them.

    This is AOC’s livestream yesterday. It’s long (hour and a half) but it’s comprehensive about what’s happening: https://youtu.be/CVgNJf6CsBA?si=3938XTcLDKyqj_07

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  18. Sherri said on February 5, 2025 at 4:29 pm

    “Elon Musk is a billionaire who is raiding the federal government for his personal profit and the profit of his friends.”

    From AOC’s livestream. Should be on the lips of every Democrat.

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  19. susan said on February 5, 2025 at 4:59 pm

    I concur: That video is terrific. AOC is such a good communicator. I sent the link to one of our useless Dem Senators, Maria Cantwell, and suggested she watch it and learn.

    AOC’s explanation of “why 2025?” was so enlightening, too.

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  20. David C said on February 5, 2025 at 5:40 pm

    This is a wild idea which for, I’m sure, many reasons won’t not work. It costs $350 to file a Federal Civil suit. Since there’s a reasonable chance that Musk has given himself access to people’s personal data, anyone in a favorable district should file a lawsuit against him. Give people a boilerplate lawsuit to file and make him answer each one. He has a history of not showing up when ordered by courts so, when he doesn’t, arrest him and toss his ass in jail.

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  21. Sherri said on February 5, 2025 at 5:52 pm

    There’s already a lawsuit filed, though I like the boilerplate idea.

    https://prospect.org/justice/2025-02-03-lawsuit-takes-on-musk-payment-system-takeover-on-privacy-grounds/

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  22. Sherri said on February 5, 2025 at 6:33 pm

    How bout them egg prices?

    Waffle House has announced a 50 cent per egg charge on all egg orders.

    https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/food/waffle-house-egg-surcharge/index.html

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  23. Ann said on February 5, 2025 at 10:05 pm

    It started with him going after the six transgender athletes in the world, progressed to anything LGBT or DEI, and it’s only two weeks later and he’s already at the Lutherans. https://nebraska.tv/news/local/flynn-and-musk-claim-fraud-by-faith-based-groups-without-evidence-lutheran-leaders-refute

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  24. Dexter Friend said on February 5, 2025 at 11:09 pm

    Elizabeth Warren is really getting the warnings and message out, and loudly. I love her passion.
    All nighter tonight: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/feb/05/cia-staff-buyout-offer-donald-trump-gaza-china-us-politics-live

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  25. Sherri said on February 6, 2025 at 2:33 am

    Elon’s goons have taken over NOAA, and NOAA employees have been instructed to “pause” all communication with foreigners. That will work out well, I’m sure, because weather never originates from outside our country.

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  26. Mark P said on February 6, 2025 at 2:47 am

    Musk’s goons taking over NOAA is getting perilously close to having an effect on everyone’s favorite pilot. Where are those aviation forecasts coming from if NOAA doesn’t provide them? And can you trust them once the professionals are replaced by loyalists? Oh, my, I thought the Musk administration was going to hurt all those other people, not me!

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  27. David C said on February 6, 2025 at 6:17 am

    I think the point in killing NOAA is they we would have to pay the asshole who owns Accuweather for our forecasts. Elon will probably give himself a nice little lagniappe by turning the weather satellites over to SpaceX so we have to pay him for weather too.

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  28. David C said on February 6, 2025 at 6:29 am

    “Stop licking Putin’s ass” should be a big part of the Democrat’s messaging. We’re at war with him and his allies too.

    https://crooksandliars.com/2025/02/zelensky-tells-tucker-stop-working-putin

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  29. Icarus said on February 6, 2025 at 8:18 am

    Everyone’s favorite pilot has been very quiet lately.

    53 chars

    • nancy said on February 6, 2025 at 12:30 pm

      His last comment crossed a line, and I booted it to Spam. He may have made subsequent comments that went there, but honestly I don’t care enough to check. I really really really don’t mind disagreement, but you cannot call another commenter, who always bring receipts, nuts. That’s my line.

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  30. Dexter Friend said on February 6, 2025 at 8:23 am

    Schumer is getting hell for his sing-song protesting yesterday. I really never noticed until yesterday how tired the Party is of him.
    One thing must happen: Musk be brought up in front of Congress and dressed down.
    Hey…anybody have an opinion of Ross Dress for Less? I have never been, and I need new clothes.

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  31. Jeff Borden said on February 6, 2025 at 9:25 am

    The stories about the fallout of the sudden closure of USAID are unnerving. Some of these folks are stationed in very dangerous parts of the world and they wake up one morning to find their computers frozen, their phones frozen, etc. This is nothing short of vandalism.

    Adults would know shutting down a department requires planning and should be done slowly and in steps. Not the arrogance fuckweasels of the tRump administration. . .particularly South African immigrant and general all around asshole Elmo Musk. They like the sounds of things breaking.

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  32. Mark P said on February 6, 2025 at 10:18 am

    I wish the Democrats would attack Musk through Trump’s ego. Ask Trump or his press secretary if Trump’s latest stupid idea has been approved by Musk. Ask whether Musk has put Trump in charge of all foreign affairs, or just the Palestine issues. Talk about the Musk administration. Ask whether Musk plans to be regent for the next administration. Never refer to Trump as “Mr. President” or “the president.” Always call him Mr. Trump. It’s not the only thing that should be done, but Musk needs to be stopped as quickly as possible, and he seems to be immune to any form of normal control.

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  33. Deborah said on February 6, 2025 at 10:44 am

    My niece who lives in Minneapolis sent me this link to an article by a Lutheran minister who had issues with Flynn and Musk going after Lutheran Social Services https://www.startribune.com/denker-and-now-elon-musk-is-coming-after-lutheran-refugee-organizations/601217632 there wasn’t a paywall for me. Love thy neighbor is no longer appropriate for white MAGA “christians” it seems.

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  34. tajalli said on February 6, 2025 at 3:08 pm

    Came across this today. Recently declassified, no doubt as part of the government-sanctioned resistance by those employees loyal to their oaths to the constitution. Don’t ya just love getting your instructions directly from the CIA? And posted on Project Gutenberg.

    Simple Sabotage Field Manual by United States Office of Strategic Services.

    https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184?fbclid=IwY2xjawIR9OBleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHeb1Y-17byQib-edrY0zU2jqWXsKQHxDdg0tCI4Fh7nL5zKfHj778-vKwA_aem__tekR41-kDlRYFzCxOVhdg

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  35. alex said on February 6, 2025 at 3:18 pm

    Since I figure we could all use some reading that’s heart-warming as opposed to blood-curdling, here’s a gift link:

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/02/05/opinion/coming-out-evangelical-pastor.html?rsrc=flt&smid=url-share

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  36. Sherri said on February 6, 2025 at 3:18 pm

    If you ever spent even ten minutes educating yourself about US foreign aid and how it works, you’d know that most of the money is actually spent in the US, to US farmers and companies to provide food and goods and services to foreign countries.

    So, when you shut down USAID, you harm not only the foreigners helped by those programs, and damage US standing in the world, you also hurt US farmers and companies.

    But SpaceX is still getting its $20billion, so no problem.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/06/trump-usaid-money-american-farms/

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  37. jim h said on February 6, 2025 at 3:26 pm

    Just found this on Charles Pierce’s blog. Just Security is keeping an updated list of all the legal actions against Don and Leon’s efforts: https://www.justsecurity.org/107087/tracker-legal-challenges-trump-administration-actions/

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  38. Deborah said on February 6, 2025 at 3:39 pm

    Reading this will make you ill, not because of the author but because of the subject. https://substack.com/home/post/p-155924661?selection=007228b6-8c66-4333-b71d-a57117dc28ce The world’s richest man is keeping the world’s most vulnerable from getting food and medicine. Shame,shame, shame.

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  39. Deborah said on February 6, 2025 at 4:07 pm

    Nancy, I just saw your comment about PJ, good for you. Not sure how I missed your comment earlier.

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  40. Sherri said on February 6, 2025 at 4:08 pm

    Medical trials shit down prematurely because of Musk’s hatred of USAID: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/health/usaid-clinical-trials-funding-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.u04.uDaN.KYHDtVddNwO1

    But I’m sure David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel know more than I do, and nobody cares about USAID.

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  41. Jeff Gill said on February 6, 2025 at 5:28 pm

    My former supervisor & I would debate the question of “nuts,” & “crazy” as language issues. He’d argue I was going all PC on him, and I’d say “I didn’t used to notice this, but once I started working more closely with actually mentally ill people, it bothers me.” Because precision & accuracy are important: if any out of norm behavior or strange events are crazy, if music you don’t like or art that disturbs you is always nuts, if anything that’s out of your wheelhouse is attributable to someone being out of their minds, then you start doing two things.

    One is, you’re making your own taste or assumptions the benchmark of sanity. That’s debatable, okay? The other and more important issue is if all sorts of “out of the box” stuff is crazy, then what is psychosis or psychotic behavior? Either the situation of people with mental illness is being minimized, or you’re making those you disagree with clinical cases.

    I know this kind of stuff can be carried to extremes. But I really have started to notice the return of language rooted in violence as a casual metaphor for everyday conflict (“take a shot,” “pull the trigger,” “fight this one out in the trenches”), and I’m trying to intentionally avoid wording like that in my everyday speech. It’s not nothing.

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  42. Sherri said on February 6, 2025 at 5:48 pm

    Why do conservatives hate the Department of Education? Because the main role of the department is making sure every child gets an equitable education. It’s certainly not about curriculum, because curriculum is determined at the state level. Conservatives like to rail about Common Core, but that was done state by state, not by the federal government.

    Conservatives will say they want to give more control to the states, yet Trump’s EO banning transgender athletes does the opposite. It forces Washington state to follow the same policy as Tennessee.

    States rights has never meant states rights for things conservatives don’t like.

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  43. David C said on February 6, 2025 at 6:27 pm

    As I was doom scrolling Bluesky this morning, someone pointed out that Treasury likely has your banking information for direct deposits and if direct deposits are possible, so are direct withdrawals. They suggested calling your bank and asking them what they are doing to safeguard accounts. Seemed like a good idea to me so I called my Credit Union. The customer service person had never heard of Elon and the incels wilding through Treasury. But, he was sure they weren’t doing anything wrong. A Fox viewer, I would guess. Will nothing shake them awake?

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  44. Sherri said on February 6, 2025 at 9:11 pm

    The Republicans in the Senate just confirmed Mr Project 2025 himself, Russell Vought, as head of OMB. Vought is clear that he believes that the President can overrule Congress when it comes to spending, that he thinks the Nixon era Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional. It’s clear that the GOP wants to memory-hole Watergate, that they regard their cooperation to remove Nixon was a fundamental mistake despite his crimes.

    He’s also a self-described Christian Nationalist.

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  45. Sherri said on February 6, 2025 at 9:23 pm

    I love it when Trump starts talking about infrastructure. Here he’s talking about air traffic control:

    https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lhjqtveqxc2x

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  46. David C said on February 7, 2025 at 6:19 am

    From Dave Roth at Defector:

    “The most important thing to know about both the chittering Renfields gnawing through the ductwork of the American administrative state and the billionaire sociopath they serve is that they don’t care. Every bit of damage they have done and will do springs from and follows this fundamental fact. They don’t know anything about what they’re wrecking, naturally—these are creatures that do and eat and shit on things, not ones that know—but it is more salient that they don’t care enough even to try to know anything about it. They are busy and stupid in a way that mirrors their rancid imago—hardcore in a way that is mostly just erratic and impatient, secretive but grandiose, prissily paranoid, conducting their nasty business on an amphetamized and whimsical timetable—but they are also not really doing anything for the reasons that people or institutions do things.”

    https://balloon-juice.com/2025/02/06/cleansing-excoriation-read-billionaire-dipshit-and-his-strike-team-of-greasy-beavises-are-stripping-the-wires-from-the-federal-government/

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