Go Take a Flying Great Leap Forward!

 

Scott Bessent: Federal layoffs will help fill factory jobs created by Trump tariffs https://t.co/q2RE8JGYoF

— The Hill (@thehill) April 7, 2025

When the bureaucrats are manning the assembly lines, we will enter a time of prosperity in the reorganization. Next on the list, the decadent professors will be removed from their ivory towers and returned to the soil.

Farming?

If they are lucky!

I'm trying to be appropriately glib--I truly don't think we're listening to rational people in this administration. They see things are coming apart and have reached for a tube of strong glue. They then proceed to sniff it.

These are the same folks who will tell you that they foresee the factory pound-y-screw-y types of jobs will be done by robots, and the think-y-talk-y jobs will be done by AI. After all, you could solve most of your labor problems if you just didn't have people doing the labor, which is similar to the problems of voting. 

I'm still wondering about the sort of Field of Dreams approach to reindustrialization. If you build an empty space for the factories, will they come?

It has been a long, stupid day. I am very certain these people don't have a good handle on history.

The Real Social Security Fraudsters, He Says

 

Howard Lutnick, late of Cantor Fitzgerald, who is not, by any stretch, a poor man, has sorted out who the real fraudsters and abusers of Social Security might be--the people who would complain if they failed to receive a check. If they failed to receive their check, that they were counting on, because they paid into the system during their entire working life? I mean, say what, now?

“What we have to do is stop sending money to someone who’s not hurt, who’s on disability for 50 years,” he claimed. “It’s ridiculous, and they have another job.”

At one point in the wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation, Lutnick also said that if Social Security “didn’t send out their checks this month,” his “mother-in-law, who’s 94, she wouldn’t call and complain.”

“She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining,” the billionaire businessman said.

A Transformative Arc of Potential Energy

 

Several Tesla vehicles were set on fire in Las Vegas early Tuesday morning, according to police.

This is wrong—violence and vandalism are never the answer.
pic.twitter.com/01l75YXARH

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) March 18, 2025

I have a deep and intractable vein of cynicism that runs through the entirety of my being--are all the Tesla fires politically demonstrative, or  is it possible that arson and cutting short the life of a piece of technology is not symbolic of a rage against the machine-manufacturer, but a smoke signal that the brand's issues are more immediate? I have wondered what the resale value of a Tesla is and whether that picture is likely to improve. Also, what flat sales mean for Tesla dealerships. And also, whether insurance payouts might be a motivator in some instances.

I'm not accusing people of a widespread conspiracy of bad faith. It's just if there WERE opportunists in the mix, I would totally not be surprised. 

As for me, I dislike criminality as a form of immediate protest. It gets one in more trouble personally than its effectiveness generally warrants and threatens to negatively color the message instead of raising the right kind of consciousness. I like protest movements to follow the rules of drama--start small and build to a place of pity and fear. I am very on the side of Swasticar Art and so on. Damaging other people's property, however, is a TERRIBLE TERRIBLE THING--which can also be done in entertaining ways and might be instructive, but by all means, I do protest it! How Awful! My stars and garters!

Boos for the US

Trump's tariffs are an incredible unforced error nationally on our part, because we never had that level of animosity with our neighbor to the north before (I guess since the war of 1812). I don't know that Trump understands what Candian energy means for New England states in winter, or to what degree imposing these tariffs makes him the asshole, but we are going to readily see the problem in action because our good allies are going to reciprocate--because why shouldn't they? 

Trump doesn't understand water conservation in California and probably thinks BC needs to turn a spigot somewhere so I'm not going to try to parse his wrong-headed grievances. The last North American Trade agreement was the USMCA which was a Trump Administration coup! (As far as successful Trump Administration coups go!) and now he wants to say it's all been problematic? 

We Have Met the Stupid, and it is Us

 

I have talked about the stupidity of using polling as a "story" for news purposes before. People are measuring opinions, but you can't measure facts. If an opinion is just wrong as to the facts, what did you learn? People might not answer honestly. They might be just vibing and have never thought about your question before. It might be useful for a news organization to see what sorts of things the public needs to be more educated about--but is it news?

Look, the above chart is from two years ago, about when I wrote the post I linked to. Yougov.com found that people wildly misestimate the size of various groups. When you see that people are estimating 21% of the population is transgender, bathroom panic starts to make more sense, until you ask yourself if people responding to the question even really understand fractions. Do people really think one out of five people are trans? Do they think like one in four are Muslim, and that one in three are atheist? 

These numbers don't jibe with anything in people's actual lived experiences. What this poll shows is that people are innumerate. Their mental math is broken. They aren't converting their concept of how many people per are anything--they are just really bad contestants on "The Price is Right".  

Taxation Without Representation and Mad King Don

 

REPORTER: I've spoken with some economists about your tariff proposals and they say they don't see how it won't make items cost more--

TRUMP: I don't need Congress, but they'll approve it. I'll have the right to impose them myself if they don't. pic.twitter.com/YuRHvzCkE3

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 23, 2024

Mad King Don is pretty sure this would constitute an official act and he would get away with it. Sure, it raises prices (he knows it would "punish" John Deere if he put a heavy tariff on their products, so he understands the mechanism when he wants to).

But keep in mind that this is the same person who says that the stock market is up because people are anticipating he will win, when his own stock, $DJT is plummeting, and even its CEO, Devin Nunes, is selling. Something seems pretty sketchy with that reasoning. 

The Trump solution is here, though-- never fear: because something something crypto, something something also a commemorative coin. And the hem of his garment, which possibly cures scrofula. 

Have you even ever met someone with scrofula? You don't know!

Coleoptera

Minus the Southern patois that sounds like Senator John Kennedy as rendered by bad AI, Donald Trump talking about groceries sounds like Jerry Lewis talking about "coleoptera" at about 2 minutes in. 

Just so we are clear, Trump thinks no one can afford bacon and we need to show ID at the grocery store to buy anything.  But long story short, if we made more gas and had less windmills and had huge tariffs on food not made here, you could probably buy a banana for ten dollars. Isn't that what a banana should cost? 

Now, I totally understand how windmills are killing the pork industry because that is exactly what you would expect--when pigs fly. Somewhere in Trump's mind, he's got it imbedded that if the costs for goods in the US market were higher because of tariffs, they (I think, China) would have to produce at a lower cost, which means they deregulate (snerk), and try to whoop up more "productivity" at lower costs from their workers. 

The Harris Plan--Supporting Our Values

 

What if the way to support families and the middle class was to put our money where our values are and invest in the changes we want to see to make life better for the average American? 

It's a loaded question, and I get why some folks would be mad--supporting new families and encouraging homeownership are fine things for people who want to talk about financial security for households to reference, but actually doing something about it? Isn't that the business of other people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps about? 

Look, I used to do a feature on this blog about our "Know Your Class War" and just like "Climate Sunday", it fell by the wayside because we have a first-world economy with disastrous outcomes in terms of health, happiness, and upward mobility in general. Democrats have, through measures like Social Security, Medicare, the ACA, and others--actually tried to do something about this. Republicans usually dub these measures "Communism".  (See Reagan and Medicare.)

What Are the Odds He Believes This?

 

Trump: A tariff is a tax on a foreign country. A lot of people like to say it’s a tax on us. No… It’s is a tax that doesn’t affect our country. pic.twitter.com/NNyNthZbKg

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 17, 2024

This isn't how tariffs work. People have been pointing out this is not how tariffs work. The benefits of tariffs are mixed. But if consumers are concerned about high prices, tariffs are not going to do anything about them. Economists say it would result in Americans paying more--it is a tax on us. Trump's concept of a trade war against foreign countries is just not how things in a global economy work. The answer--inflation. 

I'm not 100% Trump understands what his immigration policy would do to supply chains here in the US, and I'm relatively sure that if he hasn't got the tariffs thing right in his head, he definitely doesn't understand how devaluating the dollar is also terrible for consumers.

But you or I might be thinking about things from the point of view of people with "normal" incomes. We do things like work for a living or have a "fixed" income from a pension. We would actually feel those costs--the people who help set Trump's economic policy and the people who can afford Trump country club memberships would not. I don't think it matters whether Trump understands these policies, I think it's that he does not care and will say absolutely anything to be elected.

Devin Nunes is Just Asking Questions

 

Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes says he has hundreds of thousands of smaller MAGA investors in Trump Media, and they are calling him asking why the stock is tanking, so he filed a complaint with the SEC and says Biden is conspiring with Wall Street bankers to screw him. pic.twitter.com/ZxTEmxeN0J

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) April 20, 2024

Something about Truth Social puts me in one of those "can't place where all the emotion is coming from" moods, somewhat akin to when Trump gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Art Laffer. I guess it's my strong feeling that shitty economics threatens livelihoods and personal savings--it isn't a game. Supply-side economics does not work in practice. It's an upwards transfer of wealth that has led to increased income inequality and which holds back growth because there is no incentivization for long-term investment or worker protections. 

Something about Trump, the man, the myth, the legend, is trapped in a 1980s elephantine "greed is good" vision of worshipping sacred golden calves. He's wealthy, so he is supposed to be a job-creator--look at how he created a job for Devin Nunes, a man so intelligent he sued an internet cow for defamation for linking to true stories like a thin-skinned goober who never heard of the "Streisand effect".  

Trump is like an icon of a different time. "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and all that. That time sucked and the people sucked.  Even Trump's rivals kind of sucked. (Everything was the worst.) 

Anyway, Nunes is looking beyond the Trump Media fundamentals, to blaming the "naked short sellers" for the devaluation of the stock he had to answer for when frankly, the business hadn't done anything yet. (And they will do something--they will be a streaming service for stuff you just won't get anywhere else on the internet, which I promise you is not a thing.)

Trump's Revealing Post

 

This morning, Trump made a post to his Truth Social that was almost certainly ill-advised. Probably because he consulted only the legal brain trust of Ego, Superego, and Id, LTD. After his lawyers took pains to try to get a stay of the judgment day for his fraud civil trial settlement by claiming the impossibility of putting up a bond, Trump is now telling everyone he has it in the form of cash. Which is just fine--I am sure no one would like to hear that more than Letitia James. It does make me ask some questions though:

1) Why did thirty companies refuse to give him a bond, including Chubb, the source of his defamation civil trial bond? 

2) If you just have the cash, why have one's lawyers pretend you don't just for a stay?

3) And per the post on Truth Social, since when does he spend his own money on his political campaigns? And how would Engoron know he was planning on this stunning change of heart regarding using his own money for anything, when even his legal fees are being picked up by OPM? 

There's a good chance, if I understand how Trump uses social media by now, that this was a reaction to comments like those from Anthony Scaramucci regarding his Big Bad Brokeness. But here's the thing, it's like this post happens in a separate universe from the one where the Truth Social merger with DWAC is supposed to make him $3 billion richer. It happened, and the IPO goes public in a very weirdly timed way--like if this was a soap opera, we'd be complaining about the writers just pulling this convergence of events together as being contrived.

And yet--it doesn't fix his little red MAGA wagon and send him on his way, does it?

The Debt Ceiling Crisis Has Been Averted

 

Breaking news: The Senate has passed a bipartisan bill to suspend the debt ceiling and curb federal spending, sending the legislation to President Biden to sign into law before Monday’s deadline to avert an unprecedented U.S. government default. https://t.co/UjfjMKELsT

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 2, 2023

I need you to know, first and foremost, I hate this shit in theory. The debt ceiling thing should not exist. We should just pay our debts the way the Constitution says we must. If we are concerned about spending, the Congress should act on this with an actual budget that reduces spending and perhaps, and this the important part--considers raising revenues by going for the people who have money. 

But I am very happy that the Democratic House Members under the leadership of Hakeem Jeffries agreed to a bitter debt ceiling deal that was not clean, and that the Democratic Senate also voted to avert a financial catastrophe. The next debt ceiling deadline is in 2025--when maybe a second Biden term will have an even better hand to work with. 

We need to give Shalanda Young from OMB her flowers, because she was a crucial negotiator in this battle. She was determined not to let this default happen. 

And let's really bask in the accomplishments of the Biden economy. Record low unemployment. And a significant lowering of inflation over last year. 

I don't understand anyone wanting to fuck up a good deal for Americans.  I don't understand rooting for failure. I think patriotism is when you want your countrymen and women to do well, right? And I think the side that doesn't do that is...problematic. Maybe they should even be unelectable. Because I don't think anyone should be rewarded for any attempt to screw up the economy upon which so many depend. It is too serious a thing for silly assholes to play games with. 

Climate Sunday: Water Everywhere, Except Where We Want it

 

The UN convened a global conference on water--which is something absolutely basic to life on earth. I shouldn't actually have to say something as dull as "Water is important to life" but apparently, this kind of true thing isn't obvious to everyone. I have it top of mind at the moment because thousands of gallons of latex-related chemicals just got dumped into the Delaware Rive late Friday and we are finding out now that we probably want to drink bottled water here in Philadelphia. 

Water is necessary to the entire food chain, and we threaten to tip weird chemicals into it all the time. Even from fracking and oil spills and whatnot. And that's a real problem, Because we're already overtaxing our aquifers, and have been for a while. And we really can't afford to fuck up our drinking water.

So says the CSO of PepsiCo. They bottle a lot of water and soft drinks and looking at a timeline of TWO THE FUCK YEARS! for half the world to be in scarcity for drinking water is very uncomfortable. It's their business, and they are looking at the logistics of transporting water to where it isn't. 

This isn't just about thirst-quenching, though--it's about agriculture. Right now, Argentina is having an insane drought. Just a total loss on all major crops, with devastating effects for feeding livestock (this is a glimpse from last year). Some can say there's no obvious relationship to global climate change, but some areas have gotten wetter--like the floods of Pakistan, and the barrage of atmospheric rivers that have buffeted California. And it is devastating. In California, crops are wiped out by flooding and a whole lake appears where once was farmland.  So while we lose a Lake Mead in one place, and a Lake Tulare comes back--but no one can plan for that happening in a whole minute!

It's really no joke--the Great Salt Lake is not so much, and the Great Lakes themselves are becoming Meh Lakes. And the solutions to this problem aren't going to be easy at all.

Combine this with the realization that increased CO2 isn't actually going to be the monster bonus to global greening, and you have a potential agricultural nightmare. Some crops never start, some drown. And don't get me started on what is happening to our pollinators, because if I start thinking about the problems of the birds and the bees, I won't sleep tonight. 

Anyway--we should probably ship chemicals very carefully, use fossil fuels less, conserve water religiously and not be greedy arseholes as a society. It's literally life and death. Like, literally.  Because you can't drink oil and you can't eat coal. 

I Say Mint the Coin.

 

OMG, is it debt ceiling season so soon! I mean, no sooner than Republicans have control of the House of Representatives with a Democratic president in office, and they party like it's 2011?  Look, I hate this conversation. My first opinion is: Take the Uzi from the Babies.  Democrats should have nuked the debt ceiling thing when we had the chance because the Republicans were telegraphing that they are not by any means good faith partners in doing crazy regular things like paying the government's just debts like the Constitution says we should, and like responsible people who don't want a credit crisis would do. 

Barring that, it would have been greeeeaaat if Democrats could have been advertising "SCOREBOARD" every time asshole Republicans pretended they are the fiscally responsible people, when all Republican presidents do is pass tax cuts and run up the deficit. Trump put damn near 8 trillion on the debt. He passed tax cuts. His COVID response was a deadly stupid wasteful expensive mess. And he lost net jobs, which is amazeballs--no one else did that. 

But all Republican presidents recently have run up the debt, fail to really do wonders creating jobs and fuck up the economy. They can't help themselves. They get help from the Republicans in congress after all. 

Is it a Bank Run? (UPDATED)

 

It certainly looks like there is a high demand for currency withdrawal, but maybe I'm just band wagoning. You could certainly see where the ruble could be in danger of being further devalued. They had been keeping heir interest rate steady--but will they continue to? And what about the rumor (only a rumor, I'm sure) that Russian depositors will see their savings converted to government bonds?

All I know is what I see on Twitter, and it would be very irresponsible for rumors that Russia's economy is about to pancake to widely and loosely spread. I think it would, however, be quite a story if a country that used propaganda about tightening energy supplies and rising costs in an attempt to weaken the resolve of their European neighbors who back Ukraine found itself in a vise between money-supply and buggered credit--

Meaning that Russians would have trouble paying to feed and heat themselves this winter as well.

UPDATE: You know, we can make jokes about Russia, like how so many oligarchs are falling out of windows that the new national anthem should be "It's Raining Men", but it isn't really funny when Dmitry Medvedev gets on Elon Musk's Twitter site to troll us with risible 2023 "predictions":

While making predictions for the forthcoming year, Medvedev further stated that Civil war will break out in the US, California as a result of which Texas will become an independent state.

He also added that Elon Musk will win the presidential election in a number of states, after the new Civil War end. Currently, Musk has been facing some criticism for major policy changes on the social media platform.

Taking to Twitter, the Russian official tweeted, "Civil war will break out in the US, California. and Texas becoming independent states as a result. Texas and Mexico will form allied states. Elon Musk will win the presidential election in a number of states which, after the new Civil War's end, will have been given to the GOP. All the largest stock markets and financial activity will leave the US and Europe and move to Asia."

It's fun to read about a prediction of US civil war and states seceding. It's a fun thing that Russian trolls promoted during the 2016 campaign.  That Russia has been using social media for influence campaigns against the west shouldn't be new.  But it strikes me as fascinating that steps taken by Twitter in 2020 to tamp down on disinfo are now being undermined by Musk and his pet "journos" as being some kind of overreach on the company's part in the "Twitter files". 

The Republicans who want to ignore what Trump calls "Russia, Russia, Russia" don't seem to be putting together that Ukraine, this war, and undermining the West's ability to stop Russian expansion is something they have been supporting and benefitting from.  Why else has Russia been trying to stuff money into the GOP anyway they can? 

The ones who actively have become Russian mouthpieces themselves (Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz) don't even seem to be ignoring it--they are onboard. How "America First" is that? 

I see support for Ukraine and opposition to Russia as being not just about European national security, but that of the US as well. 

And yes, I am rooting for a Russian collapse. 

Defining the GOP

 

Is that a pizza menu Rep. Elise Stefanik holds in her hand in the picture above? Why, no, it is the Republican party's plan to define itself ahead of the midterms! Many GOP legislators, we are assured, worked long and hard to boil down what the party plans to do in their Commitment to America, and while I think what's on offer is long on goals and short on policy specifics, I can already envision what the party will do, because they have been telling us.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, I think, has done the best job of defining the party: it's about a federal abortion ban.  He has literally said the words "defines our party" regarding this issue, and I sure as heck don't disbelieve him, because even if they can't manage it federally, you can be sure GOP governors and state houses are ready to exercise their "states' rights" to take away the rights of people who can become pregnant. 

They have goals regarding crime and inflation, and also oversight of the White House. I think we can predict fairly well what House Republicans would do with their opportunity--pretty much nothing useful for the economy (tax cuts for the rich and "cutting waste" really won't accomplish much) and maybe they are only concerned about crime regarding some people, but as long as Biden is president, they have a great incentive to not make things better and to, I dunno. Try impeaching him for something. Anything, really. 

They say they want to protect Social Security and Medicare, and Sens. Rick Scott and Ron Johnson have given us a good window into their thinking about that--they are going to destroy the village to save it. 

From the skimpy pamphlet that GOP House leadership brandished, to the video that contained a lot of stock footage from...Russia (Really? A national party won't foot the bill to contract a videographer to shoot B-roll out in Indiana or wherever?), you can really see the loving, thoughtful work that has gone into their messaging. 

Even the comments of their probably-planted concern-mommy let you really know what they are all about:

"Critical race theory; diversity, equity, and inclusion; gender identity ... anti-bullying programs ... These are all Marxist-style programs targeting our children."

— A mom at the House GOP's "Commitment to America" agenda rollout, as Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy nods along pic.twitter.com/AiLhVvX07f

— The Recount (@therecount) September 23, 2022

So, you understand, they will defeat classroom communism with a commitment to be....pro-bullying, anti-inclusion, and definitely crack down on that diversity and equity stuff. You bet! In sum, f you want a party that stands for culture war, inaction on kitchen table issues, the Big Lie, book-banning and making kids carry their rapists' baby to term, well, the GOP have well and truly demonstrated who they are! 

And Forgive Us Our Debts

 

In another BFD kind of day, President Biden announced the forgiveness of student loan debt up to $10K for borrowers with incomes up to $125,000 ($250,00 if filing jointly) and up to $20K for Pell Grant recipients. This is going to help so many people--

The White House said that 43 million student loan borrowers will benefit and that as many as 20 million borrowers will have their full remaining student loan balances wiped out.

That will be very significant for those households. Due to debt obligations, people have put off on home-ownership, starting their families, and more. Adjustments to the payments owed will also give people whose debt has not thoroughly been retired welcome breathing space. It may not be what they hoped for, but it is a change in the right direction.

Of course, people have to complain. I'm not going to focus on the more left-based criticism that the debt forgiveness should have gone further because I'm in agreement with it--I am a Gen X kid whose working class to middle class family was able to manage my education, and I acknowledge my privilege. My degree was invaluable to me, though, and I encourage people to get a good education because the broader your horizons, the better your damn time here on this earth. I got a BA in English Lit., which is one of the most humanities of the humanities degrees. It means I am proficient in my mother tongue and can discuss works people have been reading for pleasure for a long time. 

Is There a Better Way?

 

The White House released a statement that basically says, "if you are vaccinated, we have your back, but if you are unvaccinated, there's only so much we can do." That's some pretty stark stuff, but I'm not actually sure how many ways are left to tell the actual grown adults (not the under 5 year olds who can't get the vaccine, or the eligible minors who might be prevented by their grown adult parents) that play-time has been over. Here we are, over 800K US people dead of COVID-19, and there are still people who want to claim it's the government taking away freedoms--not their bullshit ideas of freedom taking away other people's lives. 

There's only so much you can do with people who won't be vaccinated, won't social distance, and won't mask up. They made their choice. They insisted on it. Lecturing is supposed to be useless because it makes them double-down. Doom-saying supposedly just makes them more paranoid. What's left? Once the anti-responsibility folks start pretending they've been Nuremburged and Mengeled, other than a firm sock to the snooter I don't know what course-corrects their deluded asses. 

Especially when conservative vice-signaling seems to rely in part on vaccination-defiance. There really doesn't seem to be a point to trying not to politicize the vaccines since that ship is sailing away, setting a course for the Virgin Sea. Because they have to be free...free to... 

Look, I'm not the one to tell the Biden Administration they are fucking up the messaging just yet, but in part, they are. The thing with mutations is, you don't know what you are going to get, ever. That's why I'm pissed off at people who already want to declare that the Omicron variant is less deadly than Delta--we don't know that because hospitalizations and deaths are a lagging indicator anyway, and because post-infection syndromes exist. Also, there is likelihood the reinfection and a double-team of Omicron and Delta could occur, and we already know Delta is really deadly. 

What Rhymes With "Ineffective Stunt"?

 

We all take ourselves to the porcelain refuge at one time or another, that watery bastion of comfort, release and repose. Sometimes we go for all the obvious mechanics of our digestive requirements, and at other times it is simply a place of solitude, a place to check one's clothing seams and makeup, or maybe even to escape protestors. 

I'm sympathetic to the idea that one should feel secure in the loo. I am also, however, not feeling charitable to someone who has set out to leave her principles in such doubt that we don't even know why she isn't sticking with what she told us were her principles, but is instead of doing her constituents' business, going to fundraisers and not even answering questions about what she does stand for. 

The activist who cornered Sinema in the ladies' room is an undocumented immigrant young person whose grandparents were deported. Our screwed up immigration and naturalization policies keep families separated for reasons that are needlessly stupid and cruel. We should do better in this country, but aren't. Sinema knows the terrain, but isn't showing follow-through on the mission: taking care of residents of Arizona who need their citizenship status fixed. It's a part of the Democratic agenda, but she's being capricious about that right now.

And she's shown disrespect to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which to me is very concerning. Senator Sanders points out that rather than thinking of Pelosi delaying a vote on legislation as being what Sinema called an "ineffective stunt", it was a procedural move based on the votes--totally within her prerogative. It's not about Kyrsten Sinema's preferences as a first-term senator, but all of Pelosi's understanding of how Congress works. And in the meanwhile, the legislation in question is unquestionably about benefiting her constituents (not ahem! the donors).

Now, you might look at the title of my blogpost, and assume I'm implying something not at all feminist. My goodness people, don't you know me yet? It rhymes with "sometimes you bunt". What matters is getting on base. But Sinema is being very off-base right now. 

We are not retiring shit without a run in this inning. That's how this game is played. I don't know what game Sinema is playing but she isn't playing it in the bathroom. 

Labor Day: Is It A Crime?

 

The $7.25 minimum wage can’t pay all the bills in any state https://t.co/wTk5JHdYNQ

— Vixen Strangely (@VixenStrangely) September 7, 2021

We talk sometimes about "working for a living", so I just want to interject that working doesn't always provide a living. It provides the barebones of existing, maybe feeding oneself and ones' kids, inadequately, going into soul-disrupting debt at times, relying on various kinds of assistance at others.