It's a philosophical thing ...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/03/trum...l-markets.html

Well the markets are tanking, the economy is likely going to crash, we are in a trade war with our two biggest trading partners, a megalomaniac billionaire has control of all our data but at least we have preserved the integrity of high school girls field hockey.

And now we’re pausing the Mexico tariffs.

I’m so glad we are back to the whim of this clown who changes his mind every 10 minutes based on what he sees on social media and Fox News.

The discussion on sports highlights to me an Achilles Heel of the left on these issues: caring about facts more than about where the culture actually is. Yes, objectively, the percentage of female sports participants impacted by having to face a biological male is likely extremely small, but the right has been brutally effective in blowing the issue out of proportion. This Politico piece from this morning actually discusses this specific issue: Just a moment...



Bottom line: "a lot of people care way more about this than they should, so the solution is lean into the issues and lecture them on why they shouldn't care about this" might make you feel morally/intellectually superior, but it ain't how you win elections when--we should be PAINFULLY aware by now--a good chunk of those critical swing voters aren't paying any attention to the nuances of these issues.

I think I mentioned on here about hearing an anti-trans ad on Pandora clearly aimed at black fathers, but even if I did, it bears repeating at this juncture. The entire ad basically sounded like a bunch of bruthas in a barber shop complaining that Kamala wants our daughters to have to play against boys. At the time I thought that campaign was a complete waste of time and money...then Trump basically DOUBLED his numbers among under-45 black males from 2020 to 2024. It appears that he pulled over a third of that demographic. 35%. Let that sink in. I'm not suggesting all of that was because of the trans sports stuff, but it absolutely was a significant factor. (Overall, his black male support only went from 19% to 21%.)

It looks like it was more than a whim. More like hard bargaining.

MSN

I bet he has some demands on Canada and even China

I'm on the left, I believe in protecting marginalized groups and the rights of the lgbtq+ to exist and be supported. I also think that if that if you've made a choice to transition for the betterment of your own life that you shouldn't participate in sports beyond the rec level, period. We all have to make compromises in life. Which one of these things is more important to you personally. It's not stepping on rights, it's not taking away support, it's saying that you have the consciousness about it to do the right thing for others, the same as you're asking of them.

Related comments on "swing" voters (really starting to think we should call these "simplistic/casual" voters...) Honestly, the more I look into and think about this stuff, the more I believe that silly gas prices meme floating around before the election also probably swayed wayyyyy more people than I'd care to believe. Gas prices were way lower when Biden was elected than when he left, because demand was historically low because...you know....that pandemic thing. However, I suspect a number of these folks saw a version of that meme and never thought past the comma in my previous sentence.

No one wins elections on nuance.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

I guess I'm lucky that my trans daughter wasn't interested in sports in high school. Being autistic, she was never much good at sports anyway.

As for the bathroom issue, she does her best just not to use public restrooms at all.

The concern now isn't just about trans rights and if they can play sports anymore. It's about the current administration making all lgbtq+ dissappear from all of society and any recognition of them. I remember when I laughed about Putin saying there were no homosexuals in Russia. That mindset is the final goal of the current administration.

Right. Push hard on issue A, foster a general anti-trans sentiment. Then legislate against A, B, C, D, E...

She caved pretty quickly but probably wanted to come to a deal before Trudeau, who in r/wsb, is affectionally known as a "bag holder" (aka odd man out).

Also, an interesting criticism from Canadian billionaire Lutke. The pragmatic vs idealistic approach to Trump. I know Trudeau is already on his way out and he is pretty unpopular, wonder if this current standoff buys him any love ... my guess, is no.

Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke defends Trump tariff demands, slams Trudeau

Well, if we don't need nuance, then Dems need to just message the following:

The US is in the midst coup because a trans girl finished 4th at a swim meet 1 time. Or
because we're scared brown people are trying to do what we did a hundred years earlier. Or
Because black people like having jobs. Or
Our tech companies have gotten so fat they have to steal from the government to survive.

I have a cousin who is a teacher in a heavily Latino area. A third of their students are absent today.

The Politico piece hits an enormous point right at the beginning: common sense.

I'd wager that 80-90 percent of Trump voters have uttered some version of the phrase "it's not so common any more". And it's why so much of the opening days of this term have so many of us mostly on the brink of downright giddy.

Good GRACIOUS it appears that a lot of people who aren't full-on MAGA seem to care wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more about being "forced" to see pronouns in an email signature than I can fathom. The volume and intensity of celebratory social media posts because government employees were told to get rid of them was...something.

Common sense makes a small return, people who value it rejoice.

Considering the near-death state of it in the past few years, I can't say I'm surprised.

Yeah, a demand for stationing 10k troops on a border which already has...15k troops is brilliant.

Because people (see above) love being assholes and/or can't expend any effort to change their behavior. They would rather deadname my kid and insist on using she/her than to do something different.

(Not everyone, obviously. At work -- in a male-coded job -- coworkers actually use he/him. Younger Child has joked that they feel like they're "undercover." They don't correct them. They all use their preferred name - that's how they were introduced - though I'm certain their boss knows their legal, obviously female, name is in the computer system/badging.)

My work necessitates dealing with a fair number of people via email only, so I always find it helpful when an email-only person named Pat/Tracy/Kelly/etc uses them. Further, since March 2020, 100% of my work has been remote, and there are some situations where it's actually beneficial to my job performance to be able to begin to ascertain political leanings based on use/non-use of them in an initial video call with a client. There can be some politically-adjacent aspects of some of my client interactions, so having a sense of where they're coming from can be quite helpful in knowing how to approach certain issues. For that reason I often do basic cyber-research on my clients, and pronouns are sometimes a useful shortcut. ;)

And fwiw, those pronouns? Often kinda helpful. When I have to onboard folks for systems, they are people I haven't met or seen and have names where I don't know if they are male or female (especially true of non-Anglo names, but also because names in general are all over the place these days).

If I have to refer to someone in this case? I will use the generic "user" or even...the dreaded "they."

edit: what Ben beat me to

YMMV, I can accept that as possible but I dare say I'm closer to the norm in having literally never once ever seen that particular use for them. It's always been a political signaling, typically personal although on a few rare occasions something forced upon them by their employer.

Show me on this doll where the pronouns hurt you.

It actually has made a big difference in the polls. Out of 388 seats available, the conservative party was polling around the 220's, and today they are at 195. Still in strong majority area, but a really big swing, and all of it went back to Trudeau's party, the Liberals.

Nothing brings a country together more than having their sovereignty threatened. And he did give a really good speech about it Saturday night when he announced Canada's response to the tariffs.

It is exactly what came to mind for me. It seems like common sense to HAVE pronouns in emails because people can't see your junk in an email. Well, they shouldn't be able to see your junk in an email.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

Curious - are they also celebrating being able to say words like "retard", "faggot", "dyke", etc.?

(Won't go too far into the "etc.")

The new mindset is that I have the freedom to call you by whatever pronoun I want and if you don't like it, you can fuck off, that's my right.

Grr, stupid embeds don't work.

@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social on Bluesky

"Donald Trump’s new State Department appointee."

edit: nor does the image tag!

I agree. And I think where the left loses on this issue, ultimately, goes back to climate change/Covid - "trust the science." You can't use that argument on one hand and then completely ignore the physiological differences between males and females that makes sports participation such an obvious fairness issue.

There's no question that even a transitioning male-to-female has certain physical advantages that you can't ignore in service of the fact that they choose to now be female. That just doesn't work. And it's even worse when you've just spent 4+ years lecturing the right on Covid and vaccines and pretty much everything else they want to ignore science on.

Oh, I'm not saying that's usually the motivation. I'd agree that it's almost always political signaling, yes. (Otherwise, it wouldn't be the reliable shortcut that it is for me. ;)) It's just that knowing the gender of a Kelly/Pat/Tracy in my particular work situation can be useful.

SIDE NOTE: At my junior high school, there were THREE kids named Tracy Jenkins, one white male, one black male, and one white female. We had a black principal, so there exist no recordings from my home town of some white dude over the intercom saying "black boy Tracy Jenkins" or "white boy Tracy Jenkins" had made the honor roll or whatever, but I think he must have specified in that way at least twice a month. :lol::lol::lol:

FWIW, I don't think trans athletes should be allowed to compete against girls. Like someone said upthread, that should be a concession they make in exchange for not being vilified by people who are intolerant of others who are different.

I'm guessing that the Venn diagram intersection of "people who like to go there" + "people who wouldn't go there until Trump was re-elected" is, uh...pretty small. ;)

Elon's update to the resignation email: Agencies can exempt certain jobs and any paperwork outlining the terms of the agreement are up to the agency. So they could refuse to let you just stay at home and get paid.

I mean, there was this (which I can't read anymore), which suggested at least young people may have been holding back with it but feel more unfettered now: I Saw What New, Young Post-MAGA Trump Supporters Look Like

More mixed-company settings, I guess. For some groups I imagine it's more a case of "well, everyone in my selected group thinks that way, so that's just what we do."

To switch gears, this is mildly terrifying:

Trump isn’t Joking About Lebensraum | transpost.social

It depends on when you transition. Like, you can't convince me somehow someone like Kim Petras has any sort of athletic advantage. (Of course if you make puberty blockers illegal, yeah.)

I love the idea of a sovereign wealth fund. What's not clear to me is the governance of its use.

I'm going to guess that Trump wants this as his checkbook to use to invest in/buy stuff on "behalf of the US". I can see this as a foreign policy tool, impact the economy (would it be inflationary?) etc. and I wouldn't want him alone making the investment decisions. So, like the concept, need to understand the details ... (and balance the budget first).

Trump orders creation of US sovereign wealth fund, says it could own part of TikTok

This is just nationalizing companies but not reaping any of the profits from it.

Very Communist.

This is pretty crazy and if there was any opposition party in this country they'd be seizing on it.




Seizing it with what? What exact police force do you believe the Democrats have? The best they can do is file suits, which they have done.

I think he means making a helluva big noise about it, not physically seizing anything. Instead... crickets.

Yeah, even I read that as "seizing upon, not any sort of physical "seizing".

Ok, if it is seizing upon, then they are. Dem politicians all over my timeline speaking about it.

Dola: Just to add what how the hell do you seize on any individual thing whenh they have flooded the zone with so much? Trump just said if Ukraine wants our continued help they are going to have to sign over their natural resources, as well as the only thing that will stop the Canadian tariffs is if they become the 51st state.

Like I haven't seen any leaders mention how the USAID stuff is just Elon making China happy. Pretty big conflict of interest that he's shutting down an agency for a foreign country so that they don't punish his car company.

Haven't seen them talk about taking down direct file through IRS which was extremely popular.

Not a peep from a leader about the largest aviation disaster in a quarter century happening right after the head of the FAA was forced out and they asked for the resignation of tons of ATCs.

I guess Schumer tweeted over the weekend that guacamole would be more expensive for the Super Bowl or something stupid that no one gave a shit about. Just the biggest fucking losers.

Watch CSPAN. They are talking about it, There was a big rally outside the USAID offices today.

Well at least the 14 people watching CSPAN will get to see this. Good thing they gave a 75-year old with throat cancer a leadership position over the young woman with access to millions and millions of young voters online.

I'm sorry but Chuck Schumer spent the weekend tweeting about how guacamole might be more expensive during the Super Bowl. Hakeem Jeffries did a fundraiser for a group wanting more money for Israel. That's your party leadership!

We live in an oligarchy. If you are not worth 25 million life will probably suck because AI and Robotics will take a majority of the jobs.

Yeah, Chuck has to go. His tweets were exceedingly lame.

It is the Democrats fault that news organizations suck? They are speaking out. Finding someone who is listening is the bigger issue.

I don't what timeline you have, but mine is full of repost of Dems speaking out in outrage.

Timeline? You mean on Twitter? Sorry, I don't do that anymore.

I mean, they're on BlueSky too. They have to keep at it so it becomes impossible for media to ignore. Like, nightly news top story level.

It was also good to pass on the really smart guy who transformed Wisconsin's electoral politics to run the DNC because he dared say he would look through the books to see where the party was wasting money and getting no return.


Everyone else's fault. Just a giant conspiracy to keep the Democrats down. Can't possibly be they have ineffective leaders who don't know what to do and mostly don't give a shit either way.

Like at some point maybe it's time to realize Chuck Schumer isn't the guy to run the show. Having someone who isn't in their 70's spreading a message might be a good idea.

I've given up on Twitter-like social media. But I haven't seen a peep from anyone on the news. Will be interesting to see what's on the national news tonight.

I'd expect emergency weekend meeting-level stuff, not "mean Tweets."

The Democratic party needs to work on their messaging and probably pull away from the fringe elements of the party. Whoever is the next superstar of the party needs to be put in position now and protected.

If the strategy is to speak up on Twitter and other social media, why did you give a leadership position to a 75-year old with throat cancer and 80k followers over the young woman with over 12 million followers who routinely has viral moments?

This guy now has a senior level post at the State Department.

Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.

Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.

— Darren J. Beattie 🌐 (@DarrenJBeattie) October 4, 2024

And now the Canadian tariffs are postponed...
reuters.com

lol Elon says he's deleted the ability for taxpayers to e-file for free.

This was an incredibly popular tool too. It had like a 90% satisfaction rate or something.

My guess is that he'll try to get people to file through X.

THEY UNANIMOUSLY APPROVED THE GUY WHO IS DOING THIS JUST A WEEK AGO!

I think we now know Trump's playbook on Denmark on Greenland. And he'll use tariffs to encourage the other EU countries to sway Denmark.

I do think the odds are way against it, but if somehow Greenland becomes a 51st state/territory/commonwealth etc. in the next 4 years, is there something that will allow Greenland to break free under the next Dem administration (or will they even dare "give it back")?

Well if it plays out like this, Trump will threaten tariffs till the last hour and then say the base we already havev in Greenland is some kind of concession and delay it for 30 data till he makes up some other nonsense. Everything he "won" from Canada was already happening.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

Yes. He's already talked about becoming some sort of payment processor/bank. I didn't think it would happen this directly.

We'll probably end up voting through it too.

The only thing this is accomplishing is it's pushing countries to build up supply chains and the infrastructure needed to avoid trade with the US in the future.

I’m thinking Dept of Education is coming up soon.

Now that Darren Beattie has been tapped to serve at the State Department, the ADL has dutifully removed the press release on their website where they call him a Nazi white supremacist. https://t.co/4UsLSXfgJg pic.twitter.com/OAyO6QkSpi

— Isi Breen (@isaiah_bb) February 3, 2025

It’s going to be bad. The department is already promoting homeschooling as an official stance. Not that it’s a bad thing but the push to cripple the school system is going to wreck havoc on the poor communities who are going to be sent to underfunded schools. Segregation but with income inequality.

With all the talk about Canada and Mexico, we forgot about China. Her response ...

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/04/chin...ng-feb-10.html
"Certain cars" is interesting, wonder if Tesla is included or not

Fighting back with rare earth (and other) metals exports.

Been to China a couple times. Google isn't that big there. Googling says Google made $3B in revenue (2018) out of $340B (2024). Would have hurt more if it was Apple.

I've read China has not been in compliance with Trump 1.0 trade deal (but then, wonder if the US is in compliance also). So, I'm sure this will be another escalation point.

#Evergreen

Very true. Trump is moving so fast that it's hard to keep up.

Source: see the Dems lack of coherent response.

I do hope the Dem strategist are really talking about how to win back at House and/or Senate in 2026. But right now, not impressed.

Glad to see Hakeem Jeffries introduced legislation that won't even see a committee to stop Musk from doing things that are already a crime under existing laws. That'll teach 'em!

I've already seen lazy reporting/writing from local news people about Trump's tariff threats forcing Mexico/Canada to give something up in exchange for the 30 day pause. As I understand it, however, Mexico is pledging a minimum border security force of 10K when they already have 15K on the border (not 10K extra, just that they won't have less than 10K), and Canada re-announced a 2-month old $3.1B border security program. The art of the deal!

It's cute that people think that there will be real elections in 2 years.

I'm just waiting to see if the liberals who say they never want kids and love all the things they claim to love will actually put their money where their mouth is before it's too late.

Ralph Nader makes a good point(not something I'll say often). The way the tariffs were announced and rescinded was a perfect opportunity for connected folks to insider trade.

Ralph Nader is still alive?

Oh, I saw that point made elsewhere a number of times, yes. (Even before they were rescinded.)

Far-right commentators already pushing for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act due to Dems going to USAID. Obviously ridiculous, but with Hegseth at DoD, who knows?

dola

In case things weren't shitty enough, Trump is now all in on vaccines cause autism.

They do not.

I feel like Trump is trying to get in all 4 of his presidency years in the first 2 weeks.

Do it before people have a chance to figure out how to stop it. Why do you think even the shittiest teams have success on their first possession of the game.

They did the "scripted first 15 plays" thing, except they put the plays on the internet for everyone to find and yet everyone is surprised this is happening because Trump lied a couple of months before the election about not knowing what Project 2025 was.

I don't think he lied, I think he has a vague outline of an idea and doesn't give a fuck what gets done so long as it doesn't hurt him. He's basically Tony Dungy at Arizona State. He hired guys recommended, had a vague sense of what was going to be called, but was hands off and just the voice.

When we say Trump is doing X or Y, it's more just for shorthand. The problem is his followers think he's responsible for everything, since, ya know, cult and all.

The Bannon playbook is flood the system and neither congress or the media can catch up.

With a child on an iep and 504 I’m scared to death about what the closure of the dept of education means for her schooling.

I have no alternatives planned and they public schools are way better at handling kids with adhd then private schools unless you put them in a private school that has kids with very very severe limitations (think non verbal type handicaps).

I think you mean Herm Edwards.

Well, I went full racist, didn't I

The good news is, you live in a state pushing vouchers, right? Like we're taking our kid out of private school right when they're about to get vouchers pushed through in SC, so we are obviously brilliant.

At this point I think Costco has done more to push back against the Trump administration than anyone else.

He just killed USAID for them. They aren't going to punish him.

It's pretty wild because their other official stance is we need like 5 million Indian H1-B workers because we don't have enough educated Americans.

That's not particularly contradictory.

More of an indictment of the current state of public ed, which is not due to a money problem.

I don't think there's anywhere near the interest in the resignations that Musk was hoping for. They're leaking to the media that there will be lay offs if enough don't accept with just a day left on the offer.

Layoffs in the federal government aren't easy and take time. I'd be surprised if they could get any going before September plus you'd then be eligible for unemployment. I don't see any reason at all to take the resignation offer and I don't know of a single person here that's taking it. I'm sure some will, but it doesn't sound like very many at all.

This isn't even getting into the muddy waters of the legality of the offer, the fact that the government is only funded until March 14th and Congress would have to carve our an exception to pay anyone that resigns, and other issues.

In the latest email from Elon's team they said that any signed agreement will come from your agency, who could then decide your job is too critical and refuse to let you stay at home. This thing is a mess.


EDIT: Bloomberg reporting only 20,000 accepted the offer so far.

American programmers in general are much more skilled and educated in coding. Sure there are exceptions at the top, but most I've seen brought in were actually engineers who took a bullshit 3 month crash course.

We're seeing the long term effects of this strategy as China and other countries have surpassed us in so many ways. American tech companies are good at making money, not at making products. That's why we have to ban actual competition.

Isn't part of the issue that the government is funded to March and doesn't have the authority to offer severance through September or whenever? You also have to trust Elon Musk that the deal will be honored and he has a long history of not being trustworthy.


Unless you have something else lined up or not interested in the job, just seems like only suckers would take that offer.

Yeah Congress would have to specifically budget for them after March 14th. The 2 groups this would be appealing to would be anyone still in their probationary period that don't have RIF protections and anyone that wanted to retire after September 30th and but before the end of the year. In that case you're still rolling the dice that Congress protects your severance that isn't really a severance.

The only people this isn't a massive risk for would be those that had one foot out the door or those that can land somewhere quickly.