Tuesday Stuff

Rachel Maddow reports on the whole mess with Trumpers Mike Waltz and Pete Hegseth revealing the Houthi air strike to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, using the unsecured Signal messaging app, to say nothing of the fact that Goldberg wasn’t cleared either (though he was circumspect with the info he got, to his credit)...yep, a truly astonishing blunder to not check to see who else was in the group chat, but why should we be surprised with this bunch? And I absolutely share Maddow’s sense of disgust/astonishment at about 5:20...”A crowd that’s not ready for prime time”; I have some issues with Mark Warner periodically, but he’s absolutely right here...many problems revealed here, including compromising the lives of our service people, which this regime of utter frauds and hangers-on apparently doesn’t care about (in a timeline that was actually sane, people in this garbage presidential administration would be gone by now and congressional hearings would be taking place to figure out potential legal liability for those still taking up space in An Oval Office, though it does sound like hearings may be forthcoming, which should happen at a minimum)...



Update: Looks like Hegseth fails his own standard here.

Update 1 3/26/25: I also think we need to follow the "Gabbard precedent," as noted here.

Update 2 3/26/25: In the immortal words of Casey Stengel, can anybody here play this game? (here)

...and John and Brett Erlich of The Damage Report let us know that boycotts against companies that are “bending the knee” to the Gropenfuhrer (when it comes to DEI policies in the case of Target) are having a financial impact...and I would be tempted to cheer on a decline in the stock price such as what Target experienced, but the problem is that the brunt of that will likely be borne by workers who get laid off...and as far as Tesla is concerned, Elmo’s company can’t do the “big swirl in the hopper” fast enough to suit yours truly...I think Brett was trying to point out the inherent illogic of pursuing a purposefully non-DEI policy when what drives your business decisions is trying to obtain a product to sell for the lowest possible cost...



...and Farron Cousins of Ring of Fire tells us about business leaders trying to come up with a plan to deal with the beyond-ridiculous tariffs from Cantaloupe Capone, and for the Repug-friendly types in charge of these outfits, apparently they’re hoping the “D” team comes riding to the rescue in four years...boy, would I like to tell these idiots what they can do (and is Cousins ever right about the ridiculous ebb and flow of electing a Repug who breaks stuff, then electing a Dem who fixes the mess, then electing a Repug to break it worse, then electing a Dem who has a harder time fixing everything, etc. etc...mildly NSFW/H)...



...and Brian Tyler Cohen tells us about Bernie Sanders getting up and almost leaving an interview with Jonathan Karl when Sanders is asked about AOC running for the Senate, which (as Sanders and BTC both point out) is indeed “inside the Beltway” BS (and “the ESPN-ification of politics”...how apt)...yep, our supposedly august fourth estate is indeed focused on horserace nonsense (and “bending the knee” to the Gropenfuhrer) and showing a typical allergic reaction to actual policy, aa Cohen correctly notes...



...and Kyle Kulinski tells us about Texas AG Ken Paxton arresting a midwife and her assistant for performing an abortion (practicing medicine without a license is the charge, though I would guess that midwives have been performing abortions for centuries)...Kyle is apparently inaccurately claiming that a doctor is getting locked up, though the whole mess from Paxton is putrid on its own I’ll admit (and Kyle is about 150 percent right on Paxton’s corruption)...I have to admit that I didn’t know about Paxton’s claim that Biden would have won Texas in ’20 if it weren’t for Paxton throwing out mail-in ballots...the High Court of Hangin’ Judge JR is scummy mainly for Citizens United, but gutting the pre-clearance provision of the Voting Rights Act is another big stain on its awful record, enabling Paxton to pull garbage like this with elections...and “maternal deaths in Texas have surged since it enacted its abortion ban”...surprised? And more on TRAP laws is here (and Joe Rogan is truly an idiot...”'freedom' is how they virtue signal” indeed...NSFW/H)...



...and RIP Brian James of The Damned.