[pilowsky]

Another important announcement by Kayleigh's replacement Karoline about Krocodiles in Florida.

[barmar]

The Senate just passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill. There were 3 GOP defections, but Vance broke the tie. Now it's back to the House, where I can't see any reason why it won't pass, unfortunately.

The amendments that the Senate added do seem to be improvements. They removed the provision that blocked states from regulating AI, and removed the excise tax on wind and solar projects. So it's slightly less eggregious.

[pilowsky]

barmar, on 2025-July-01, 13:52, said:

...So it's slightly less eggregious.

They're still playing chicken with the world economy.

[WasWinM]

barmar, on 2025-July-01, 13:52, said:

The Senate just passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill. There were 3 GOP defections, but Vance broke the tie. Now it's back to the House, where I can't see any reason why it won't pass, unfortunately.

The amendments that the Senate added do seem to be improvements. They removed the provision that blocked states from regulating AI, and removed the excise tax on wind and solar projects. So it's slightly less eggregious.

Only killed half of the poor people; kept a few around as kindling.

[shyams]

barmar, on 2025-July-01, 13:52, said:

The Senate just passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill. There were 3 GOP defections, but Vance broke the tie. Now it's back to the House, where I can't see any reason why it won't pass, unfortunately.

The amendments that the Senate added do seem to be improvements. They removed the provision that blocked states from regulating AI, and removed the excise tax on wind and solar projects. So it's slightly less eggregious.

Curious that exactly 3 Senators defected on the bill.

Mitch McConnell hates Trump, and he is not running for reelection. Yet he voted to approve the bill.
Lisa Murkowski often votes against such bills. This time, she gave some dumb excuse to vote in favour of the bill.

Others who protested (or should have protested) numerous sections of the bill --- like Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee --- quietly voted in favour of the bill.

It's all carefully staged political theatre.

[WasWinM]

The GOP has openly declared war on the poor. Let’s ask Louis XVI how well that works out in the long term.

[benellis58]

The GOP is filled with spineless pieces of dirt who pretty much always give in to that that piece of garbage Trump.

[WasWinM]

There has been the first armed attack on ICE. How long now until the Insurrection Act is invoked and Martial law.

[benellis58]

Scary times indeed.

[barmar]

shyams, on 2025-July-01, 19:50, said:

Curious that exactly 3 Senators defected on the bill.

Mitch McConnell hates Trump, and he is not running for reelection. Yet he voted to approve the bill.
Lisa Murkowski often votes against such bills. This time, she gave some dumb excuse to vote in favour of the bill.

Others who protested (or should have protested) numerous sections of the bill --- like Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee --- quietly voted in favour of the bill.

It's all carefully staged political theatre.

Jon Stewart remarked on this on last night's The Daily Show. The GOP carefully arranged for exactly 3 "defections" so that Vance could supposedly break the tie.

Murkowski did get an amendment that benefited her state, so it looked to her constituents like she did her job. But when a reporter asked her about this, she just stared at him without answering.

[WasWinM]

The courtier press keeps using its megaphone to hype Trump’s propaganda by parroting over and over “Big Beautiful Bill”.

[WasWinM]

The Moron-in-Chief: first the penny; now the copper. What’s next, Coppertone? 1000% tan tariffs?

[pilowsky]

Now that Trump's campaigning for the Nobel Peace prize, is there any chance he'll try to do something peaceful?

Tom Lehrer said:

Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

[jillybean]

If the news coming out of the USA wasn't so horrific, it would be funny. I'm not laughing anymore. All we can do is watch while a concentration camp is built.

[barmar]

Deborah Sirotkin Butler, an appellate and trial attorney, published this opinion piece in YourArlington this week.

How 'Alligator Alcatraz' echoes Dachau​

Quote

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” contains a 16-fold increase in ICE’s budget, turning it into the largest single (secret, masked) police force in America, along with, in aggregate, close to $100 billion to build a new series of “detention facilities” all across America.

If this bill is signed, as expected, soon the country will be pockmarked by concentration camps. As Trump said July 2: “Well, I think we'd like to see them in many states, really, many states. This one, I know Ron [DeSantis is] doing a second one, at least a second one, and probably a couple of more. And, you know, at some point, they might morph into a system where you’re going to keep it for a long time.”

Let’s stop pretending. Let’s stop dancing around the language, around the morality and around the history.

What’s being built in the Florida Everglades, for example — what they’re calling “Alligator Alcatraz” — is not just another immigration facility. It’s a political prison engineered not merely to detain, but to humiliate, dehumanize and broadcast terror.

It’s America’s first open-air symbol that our democracy is not just dying: It is being dissected publicly, cruelly and with calculation.

The article goes on at length to describe all the similarities between Trump's (and co-conspirators like Ron DeSantis) and Hitler's detention agendas.

[jillybean]

Deborah Sirotkin Butler said:

America stands at a crossroads. Down one road lies the fragile promise of democracy: messy, imperfect, but built on the belief in human dignity and the rule of law. Down the other lies the swamp — literal and figurative — where cruelty is policy, and fear is law.

America?

[pilowsky]

jillybean, on 2025-July-09, 20:49, said:

America?

It's a fairly common synecdoche for the USA.

[jillybean]

pilowsky, on 2025-July-10, 02:32, said:

It's a fairly common synecdoche for the USA.

Yes, America, wth are you going to do?

[WasWinM]

Sean Connery to Kevin Costner in The Untouchables: “And then what are you prepared to do?”