Bluetus
Bluetus's JournalI think we really are at THE turning point, at least on social media
Like most people here, I never thought people could continue to support all the outrageous things Trump has done, going all the way back to 2011 when Trump started the birther business. But we just kept seeing outrage after outrage. Every day, Trump tried to do or say something more outrageous to continue to dominate the media coverage. None of us thought this could possibly continue for so long. And after 14 solid years of it, most of us have had serious doubts that there was ever a line that Republicans and their voters would not cross.
But in the past month, we have seen Massie take strong "in your face" positions against Trump and Johnson -- and survive. We even saw Boebert and Marge Taylor stand up. Ms. Taylor said there were lots more House Republicans ready to bail. I did not believe that. But then we had the 434-1 vote on the Epstein files. And the November election rout everywhere. Things seemed to be moving quickly, even though we had to put up with Schumer capitulating just when the leverage was swinging solidly to our side.
Because of the Schumer wing of the Party and the DNC's preference for candidates in empty suits, I didn't really expect we could see a real political swing. But now I am convinced there is a huge inflection point taking place before our eyes. I base this mainly on my observations on various social media, including Facebook, and other sites that are not typically political (e.g. a car site, a financial planning site, a music synthesizer site. etc.)
What I have noticed the past several weeks is that the MAGA people are almost all gone now. Many people have commented that Trump signs are gone from their neighborhoods. Well, I have only one MAGA person harassing me on FB now. He's a jerk, but I rarely block anybody unless they get violent or really offensive. Normally there are a dozen people trying to pwn me, but none of them are active anymore.
I saw an article about Indiana state Senator Bohacek, who has said that he is pulling his decisive vote from the redistricting effort because of Trump's disgusting comments about people with intellectual challenges (the Senator has a child with Downs). There were over 100 responses to this article on FB, and practically every one of them was anti-Trump -- in a state that voted for Trump three times.
But it isn't just that. On a forum talking about the model of car I drive, people are now making all sorts of strongly anti-Trump, anti-Nazi comments, where the discussions used to be mostly apolitical. Same thing on the music sites I follow. It is like there is a jailbreak where it is no longer cool to be with Trump. And I should say, they are not talking about inflation or eggs or gas. They are talking about the downright evil things that are going on in this regime. They are talking about ICE. They are talking about tearing down the White House. They are talking about the guy's mental state. They are talking about his grifting and other corruption. They are talking about the billionaires doing their smash-and-grab. People are actually paying attention now.
I don't know if others are seeing the same things, but it looks to me like the dam is breaking.
Will corporations tire of making tribute payments to the mob?
OK, our government has always (for over a century anyway) had a pay-to-play system. As late as the 1980s, there were great efforts to maintain secrecy -- the proverbial cash in a brown paper sack left behind the oak tree 30 yards SW of the Lincoln Memorial. That secrecy was all but gone in 2010 when the SCOTUS decided anybody could pay any amount to any politician for any purpose, and do so anonymously through PACs. That was awful and continued to increase thought the past 15 years.
But now, Trump has taken it to a whole new level, thanks, once again, to the SCOTUS that says the President cannot be prosecuted for anything, ever, for all practical purposes. That was all Trump needed to hear. Now every day is a shakedown. Meme coins. Gifts of gold bars. Contribution to the "Inaugural Fund." The Ballroom project. etc. etc.
With Trump, it is not just, "Hey, I'm here. If you need some help with anything, just grease my palms." With Trump, it is an active shakedown racket. "You want that merger? Then settle this lawsuit I have PERSONALLY filed against you, by paying me PERSONALLY $16,000,000. That's the going rate for a merger in the Trump syndicate, but the price might go up if you don't take my offer quick."
We are treated to the most humiliating public display of Corporate CEOs lining up to kiss Trump's dirty diaper ass and present their gold. Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Boeing, Coinbase, Ripple, Boeing, CBS, Delta, United, Ford, GM, Stellantis, BlackRock, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Pfizer, PhRMA, Eli Lilly, Qualcomm, Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, T-Mobile, Tether, Altria Group, Hard Rock International, Nvidia ... the list is endless.
"Sorry to hear that those highly patriotic 'Make America First' tariffs are causing you problems. Did I mention that people who buy $100,000,00 of Trump coins don't seem to have those problems", says the mobster.
That is where we are. It is just like the Mafia, only much bigger. Trump is not shaking down little Mom&Pop shops for "protection". Trump is grabbing his tribute $10,000,000 at a time.
This is all fact, and we all know it. Nothing new or insightful about that. The 2 important questions are:
1) Why does our media just ignore this?
2) Do corporations really enjoy paying off the mob boss? Are they ever going to rebel?
Unfortunately, the answer to question 1 is that most of the large media is owned by some of the same corporations on that above list, so they are not going to talk about any of this or else Trump will double their tribute payments.
Question #2 is much more interesting. After all, all those corporations listed above have been gleefully buying politicians for decades. It was a cost of doing business. If I need something for my business, I pay a politician to make the problems go away. That's a simple business transaction, and the best return on investment any of them ever get. But that was the world when the corporations controlled the transactions. They came to the politicians with a problem and the politician agreed on a price to fix the problem.
The question, now, is when will the corporations decide enough is enough. It is too late to do anything about Trump. Corrupt corporations created him, and they will just have to live with his shakedown racket until he leaves office. But if they don't want the next guy to be twice as greedy and cutthroat as Trump, maybe they should stop funding the shakedown machine. Will there come a time that corporations decide that it is in their best interests to stop funding a completely lawless party run by mobsters? It seems to me that Democrats ought to be asking these questions out loud and challenging shareholders to demand that corporate board stop feeding the monster.
My daily DNC ask-for-money text
I am more confused than ever. Today's fund-raiser said:
FIRST: The New York Times reported that our resistance to Donald Trump is “TIRED.”
THEN: Hakeem Jeffries announced a major 10-POINT PLAN to fight back against Trump – and Democrats SURGED in the polls!
NOW: Hakeem Jeffries isn't backing down – he SUED Donald Trump for his attempts to undermine our elections and overturn our Democracy!
So now, Democrats are coming up with a plan and agreed to 600% MATCH every gift to this text to SHOWCASE our Democratic strength! >> hmpac.org/a9?t=ESufDr
So I am thinking, "Great. We have been begging for a bold plan that Democrats can get behind, clearly explaining to Americans what we stand for and what we will fight for if they allow us back into the government. That's great news."
Naturally, I was very curious what was in this 10-point plan. I searched and I searched. The only thing I could come up with was a wonky set of legislative ideas for slowing down Trump's wreckage. This was dated Feb 23, 2025. I am glad they were at least thinking about things they could do to throw some sand in the gears, but none of that stuff actually worked. And nowhere in that 10-point plan were any ideas we could present to voters to show WHY they should be voting for Democrats and what we were willing to commit to fight for. Not one word. See for yourself.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-reveal-10-step-game-020213239.html
If this 10-month old plan that never worked is what the DNC is trying to sell me today, all I can say is WTF?
Where is the 10-point plan that says who we are and what we are going to do if the people will give us one more chance? Who is working on that plan? Evidently nobody in Congress and nobody at the DNC. But here are some ideas I have seen floating around. I beg the DNC, Jeffries, and whomever to take some of these ideas and make a real plan we can give to the voters. I'm not saying these are all the best ideas or the best way to state the ideas. I just offer these as examples of how to talk to voters in language they can understand and appreciate.
• Overturn the Citizens United decision that allows corporations to openly bribe politicians
• No personal use of PAC money, even after retiring
• Codify Women's Right to Choose
• Term Limits and highest code of ethics for SCOTUS
• Get Rid of the Electoral College
• Eliminate the Jim Crow filibuster rule in the Senate entirely
• Outlaw Gerrymandering Nationwide
• Return Fairness Doctrine in Media
• Universal Healthcare for ALL
• Ban Stock Trading While in Congress
• 5 year wait before taking jobs in industries overseen/regulated when in office
• Cap Congress Salary at 1.5x Median Income of Their District
• Tax Billionaire wealth at a level that encourages philanthropy and investment in American innovation
• Eliminate billionaire tax loopholes such as using untaxed gains as loan collateral
• Tax Mega-Churches involved in political activity
• Raise Federal Minimum Wage to $20/hr
• Eliminate the Presidential pardon privilege
This email from Ken Martin
Like many of you (I assume) I received this email from DNC chair Ken Martin:
Let me be crystal clear: Donald Trump and the Republican Party that orchestrated this betrayal of the American people are responsible for the men, women, and children who will suffer because they cannot get the health care they need to survive. These are the same people who rushed to vote for tax breaks for billionaires. It is clear whose side they are on.
As this vote moves to the House, I stand with Democratic leadership as they refuse to rubber stamp the full-scale Republican assault on Americans' health care and I am proud of the majority of Senate Democrats who opposed this vote.
The voters will never forget the day Trump turned his back on them so he could focus on building his gilded ballroom
I sent a response, but I will post that here because he probably is receiving a flood of angry letters today
I am happy to hear that you are proud of the Senate Democrats who did not betray the vast majority of Democrats who did not cast votes to undermine the position of strong opposition to the Republican destruction of the ACA and so many other things. I also note that the 8 who were selected to lead this betrayal do not stand for office any time soon, and therefore are beyond the reach of accountability to grass roots Democrats. One can assume that beyond those 8, there were probably other Senators ready to betray us if necessary.
I realize that your job is not involved with day-to-day legislative tactics. However it very definitely IS your job to cultivate the Democratic brand including the values expected of candidates at all levels and the things we are fighting to accomplish. And it is your job to recruit candidates, not just on the basis of their odds of getting more votes than the Republican, but also based on their commitment to the Party ideals and goals.
What happened Sunday may have ended inside the Beltway, but it is nothing less than the complete failure of the DNC to recruit and support candidates that align with the party grass roots and will act to represent us faithfully. It is this failure, in my judgment, that was at the heart of the dispute with Mr. Hogg that ended with your forcing him out of the DNC. Respectfully, I suggest that far more grass roots Democrats agree with Mr. Hogg today than with you and what the DNC represents.
I know the DNC problem did not begin with you. It has been ongoing for more than a generation. I discontinued contributing money to the DNC many years ago for this reason. I do work with our local Dem office and contribute directly to candidates I believe I can trust. I will not resume contributing to the DNC unless I see evidence that you are actively working to fill every seat with strong progressives who align strongly with our base and can be trusted not to undermine the efforts of so many hard-working Democrats at the grass roots level.
Is the DNC asking you for money every day without any commitment of purpose? Here is an alternative.
Sorry, I just can't. I can't support a group that fights progressives tooth and nail every damn time. I can't support a group that kicks out a co-chair whose sin was to work to get candidates that aren't already in their late 70s. I can't give money to an organization that thinks their only real job is GOTV in the last 60 days before an election. I can't give money to an organization that can't decide whether to support a disgraced sex-offending Governor over a younger populist, even when that younger guy is kicking the Governor's ass in the polls and the primary by 25 points. Hell, the Governor isn't even running as a Democrat, and the DNC still can't support the Democrat? WTF?
I realize not everybody feels as I do, but in increasing numbers, long-loyal Democrats are realizing we have a major leadership problem, and that's why people like Newsom, Pritzker, Mandani, AOC, Bernie, Jasmine and many others are getting so much love from grass roots Dems these days. Folks, we already have about 100 solid progressives in the House.
2026 can be a wave election. If that wave brings in progressives/populists, people who are far more relatable to Main Street America and the struggles that most Americans are having regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, orientation or anything else (specifically, huge economic issues: the looming recession, the tariff-driven inflation, the GOP efforts to dismantle health care and all other safety nets, dismantling of new energy and the university backbone of R&D that has made this country premiere, and the massive transfer of wealth to the few billionaires at the top), we can make a real change -- the first big change in 50 years. If we elect just 15 more progressives to the House in 2026, the next Speaker can be a real progressive, putting the Democratic Party in a much stronger position to oppose Trump vigorously the rest of his days, and also showing the American public how Democrats really are different and deserve to seat the next president in 2029.
If the DNC is not lining up with where you think we need to be going, then consider the Progressive Caucus PAC. https://weareprogressives.org/
Here is their mission statement:
and that list includes: budgets that invest in America, raising the minimum wage, expanding Social Security, election reform, trade deals that put American workers first, and health care as a human right.
Personally, that's where most of my contributions will be going in the next 13 months.
Words matter. PRONUCIATION matters. Please pronounce "antifa" correctly
(Edited to correct the spelling of pronunciation, because spelling can matter too.)
Somewhere along the line, somebody decided the the enterprise of opposing global fascism should be given a cute little name that rolls off the tongue. The fascists have taken that term and turned it into a negative, an epithet. They are very good at using words as weapons, and we meekly go along with the debate on their terms.
We must stop doing that. an-TEE-fuh sounds frivolous, like a mixed drink or something and does nothing to emphasize the key issue, which is fascism.
Please pronounce it the right way, which is AN-tie-FEH. Get it? We are AN-tie FEH-cism. Let the words work for us, not against us.
OK, I'll be THAT guy. AI is a fraud.
AI is a fraud in the same sense that all the big buzzwords have always been massively deceptive and massively exaggerated. Think of "the Internet" in 1997. Everybody made wild claims about "the Internet", but very few knew what they were talking about. At the time, I worked in Silicon Valley, which was just crawling with people blathering about this.
In the end, 95% of those people and ideas were wrong. But the 5% went forward and, over the next 25 years, the Internet did become transformational. But none of what the Internet is today was predicted by the buzzword champs.
And that's where we are with AI today. There indeed are some apps where AI is doing some useful things. But in most cases, the best we get is a system that is completely unreliable, but may be able to occasionally present some "Gee whiz" results. A perfect example of this is Musk and his Swastikars. He has been promising fully self-driving "in a few months" for an entire decade now, yet the system is still at the primitive level-2 stage. It might eventually work, but it is not close today. Meanwhile others who have used different technologies, not nearly as dependent on AI, are much closer to the goal.
Another example is in the field of music. There are AI engines now that can take a pop song (e.g. from an MP3) and break that into separate rMP3s of drums, guitar, bass, piano and vocal. That is dazzling even though it is only about 90% accurate. That is to say, a trained human musician can identify 100% of the content from each instrument, but it would take a human many hours to create the separated streams, whereas AI can do it in a few minutes -- at a level that is useful, if not commercial-grade.
How much venture capital is being dumped into AI things? How much electricity is it burning? Some say AI will soon consume more than 10% of our total electricity generation.
That brings us to Musk and what he is doing to our government agencies. The big lie is that he is stealing the data because he can turn our government agencies into AI factories that need almost no people to handle everything government does. That is the fraud. So far, Musk hasn't produced a single AI solution that actually does what he promised. And this will be no different.
We have seen what health insurance companies can do with their computer systems. They can train them to deny claims faster than any human can. But it really doesn't take any AI to do that. And that is the same thing Musk is aiming for. Most of government is there to PROTECT the people. From air crashes. From pollution. From poisons. From ignorance. From rotten food. From financial scams. What the billionaires call "oppressive regulations" are actually simply consumer protections.
The game plan is to use the fraud of AI to break government completely. And you can believe that Elon intends to bill the government many billions of dollars for these fraudulent AI systems. The new systems will deny workers compensation for injuries. They will deny veteran benefits. They will send all the education money to charters. And so on. It really doesn't take AI to do all these things. And that's good for Musk because he, and AI, are frauds.
The consequences of letting DeJoy continue to kill the USPS
Many of us have been very unhappy, even outraged, that Biden seemed so oblivious to the importance of protecting the USPS. Biden simply took no interest in the USPS and we will pay a bigger price than most people believe.
And let's dispense with the lame argument that the President can't get rid of the PG. It would have been the easiest move ever to have canned DeJoy. Biden named a majority of board members and obviously could have selected only people who were willing to act in favor of the USPS. But he didn't. And Biden had 2 additional openings that sat vacant without even nominees for many months. Let's look at the consequences of not taking this simplest of all possible actions any time during Biden's 4 years. And let's not forget that Schumer was also culpable, as he gave no priority to getting Postal Governors confirmed, or insisting that they can DeJoy as condition of their confirmation by the Senate.
What are the consequences? The obvious consequences are that DeJoy continues to wreck the USPS, intentionally driving down morale and service levels in order to justify outsourcing to for-profit companies, with which he maintains major conflicts of interest.
A second issue is that the postal workers are represented by the American Postal Workers Union. Biden tried to portray himself as a friend of the union workers, yet he allowed this union-buster to stay on 4 years, and on into Trump's 4 years. WTF? How could he do that?
A third consequence is rarely mentioned. The USPS fleet of vehicles is very important. it is highly visible, symbolic, and largely welcome in communities throughout the country. And this is particularly true of rural communities, or was before DeJoy started killing rural routes, forcing many rural people to get their mail only at a box in the post office. To the credit of some of Biden's appointees, there was a good plan to convert most of the USPS carrier fleet to electric vehicles. There have been some delays, and DeJoy has fought this every step of the way, but the Governors held firm as long as they could. However, since the election, DeJoy has been acting to kill the entire order of electric vehicles, and the contractors (Oshkosh) is only too willing to keep providing gar-burners, because that means they don't have to do any innovation.
This is a major problem. The postal EVs would have demonstrated to all parts of America, especially rural America, that clean energy vehicles are practical, efficient, clean, reliable and cost-effective. This would have significantly changed the national attitude about clean energy, but it is an opportunity lost.
I realize this is forum is about "The Way Forward". It is obviously too late to can DeJoy. And it may already be too late to save the EV contract, requiring Oshkosh to deliver what they promised. But we should be pushing the Postal Governors to stand firm on this, demanding that DeJoy and Oshkosh stick with the plan.
This is so sad because it would have been so easy to have canned DeJoy and avoid this problem altogether.
Every President is entitled to a cabinet ...
of his own choosing, consisting of people he has confidence in. The founders fully appreciated that and in their wisdom decided that this must not be an arbitrary, unlimited power, but instead must meet the collective wisdom of the Senate. Article 2, Section 2 says:
This will be a moment of truth for the Republicans in the Senate.
* Of course, the President can choose an AG, but not one who is a sex offender and has practiced law only two years in his entire life.
* Of course, the President can choose a Director of National Intelligence who shares his philosophies, but he can't have an SNI who is effectively a Russian agent and could never get a security clearance in any normal administration.
* Of course, the President can choose a director of Health and Human Services, but not one who has no training whatsoever in any aspect of health, actively agitates against life-saving vaccines, and willingly spreads wild conspiracy theories that kill people.
* Of course, the President can choose a Secretary of Education, but not one whose only real claim to fame is giving a hand job in public.
We must put the maximum pressure on the Senate to do their job, just as the founders instructed them. Public hearings for every last one of them.
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