Thanks friend

GOP reps “lol, no thanks, I only care to visit you in August -September every 4 years because your votes overwhelmingly prove that is literally all that is required of me”

I highly doubt this bill goes anywhere. Democrats have a Trifecta in MN. Slim, but still. They were able to narrowly get it out of committee, but getting it to pass on the floor, or even brought to a vote at all, is a heavy lift. Id bet it never makes it to a floor vote and the Rs can say they tried. Committee votes are a very easy and non-significant way to “vote for something” without actually doing anything. Mainly because the overwhelming majority of Americans have no idea how government works and will take it at face value.

Even if it did somehow pass, no way Gov Walz signs it into law. That sends it back for a 2/3rds vote to overcome the veto and that certainly won’t happen.

Yep. I work in a government office and the contracting companies have been out in force recruiting. “Resign, we’ll hire you for six-figures. double dip pay till September” best part is, due to limited office space, all the contractors kept their telework status.

It takes forever to hire people, even without the current freeze. That gap has always been filled with well paid contractors who trade long term job security for lucrative 4- year contracts.

Not to mention triggering Article 5 for the rest of NATO and shattering every defense agreement at once. You know, Putin’s wet dream.

Unfortunately impeachment is also meaningless. I don’t see a circumstance where 67 senators would ever vote to convict.

The only thing that might work is to be barred from public office and placing the secret service under congressional control to enforce it. But since presidents are untouchable kings now, 2/3rds of Congress and state legislatures are never going to give that up when they could be the king one day themselves.

Archive link: https://archive.ph/Cy1ei

You know the saying, “death and taxes”? Well, they stopped paying taxes.

It is in the KS constitution as well. I didn’t word it properly, but it was protected in section 1 of the KS constitution. The ballot measure in 2022 was to get rid of that constitutional right. That ballot measure failed, maintaining the constitutional right to personal healthcare decisions and abortion access.

*“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is the direct wording from their constitution that has been affirmed several times in the state courts to include abortion access

The fight doesn’t end with a ballot measure, in any state. They will keep trying to ban it forever. A similar thing happened in KS. A ballot measure was created to keep healthcare decisions out of the government’s hands, which was already in the state constitution.

KS GOP said people needed to vote no and that it was in no way an attack on abortion. It had nothing to do with abortion. It was just about making sure people could get medical care, absolutely nothing would be done to abortion rights. Just let the GOP help you get healthcare, they said.

The ballot measure passed, maintaining abortion rights, and the GOP, in a shocking move, immediately tried to ban abortion…twice…in 2 years.

Maybe a bright side; filling the executive with inept sycophants might slow down project 2025. The reason he struggled to achieve a lot of his bullshit the last time was they didn’t have skilled people to navigate the legal system.

Of course, that legal system also made him a king so…all they have to do is make him say whatever they want to do. But maybe, hopefully, they’ll spend a lot of time fighting amongst themselves.

Same, red county-district-state. I would hope the same but they won’t attribute it to their dear* leader. His Tariffs and GOP policy will fuck them too, but fox and podcasts will tell them it’s the deep state Democrats keeping them down. They all were doing the “this is Biden’s America” posts in 2020. GOP can do no wrong in their eyes. Used to be child rape was a deal breaker but even that is A-OK now, as long as the Democrats lose.

Shhhh. I don’t want these two anywhere near an office or department with merit.

One more I’ve heard from the MAGAs in my workplace: Trump did not actually get a first term because the Democrats obstructed him so 2024 is actually his first term

It’s the Tragedy of the Commons defense

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

He’s been campaigning for head of the USDOE for years. His time in Oklahoma office has just been bouncing from one GOP hot topic to the next, trying to catch Trump’s eye. This is just another “daddy please” from him. Unfortunately it’ll probably work. But at least the whole US will get to use his brilliance that brought Oklahoma’s education system from 49th all that way to 49.5…

Providing he doesn’t become a dictator, which is certainly probable, his impacts on the environment will be bad, but not catastrophic.

Historically, when the incumbent is out, the president flips to the other party. Businesses plan strategy out for 5-10-20 years. Trump dismantling regulation won’t force them to reconsider their strategy entirely. They’ll use the 4 years as breathing room knowing it’s probable a democratic executive will return in 2029. They’ll slow walk progress, but they aren’t going to abandon everything and start ramping up emissions. They still have to sell products in CA and the 16 states that follow CA emissions rules. We already saw that in 2016, auto makers stayed the course. They enjoyed the extra time to get their fleet MPGs up, but they knew time would eventually out and they’d need to be competitive when that happened.

Trumps “drill baby drill” plan sounds good to idiots, but oil is still subject to supply and demand. They already lease more land than they could ever use. They’ll use trump to buy up leases that would otherwise go to renewables, but they aren’t going to start pumping oil past demand and driving their profits down. Especially considering retaliation tariffs could cut into exports as well.

The IRA benefits red states more than blue and they are already begging GOP leaders to leave it alone. Trump might be able to cut individual tax credits for the middle class. Slow some solar and EV purchases, buy that’ll cut into Elon’s business as well, so maybe he won’t even get that done.

Of course, if he goes full dictator, we’re fucked anyway. But if he stays within the confines of our flawed democracy, and money prefers he do so they can continue to buy laws forever, then there’s a chance his damage will be confined as well.

Well, yes, of course this is assuming he is stopped from going full dictator. That could easily happen, but it would be terrible for the economy so…and I never thought I’d say this…but thankfully deep pocketed lobbyists will mostly be trying to keep the current state of democracy intact. If we go full monarchy, it’s not great for business…

But again, coin flip, end times, and we’re all super fucked anyway so the ACA is the least of our concerns.

Yep, it will be up to 5 republicans in the house to save anything, ACA, IRA, Medicaid, etc. Our only hope is that they remember the blue wave rebuke of Trump in 2018 and choose to be moderate. But they can easily flip the coin the other way and know this is the end times and they need to ram through all the terrible shit fast.

I wouldn’t bet on that gun part*…he wanted to take guns away in his first term through executive action. I doubt two assassination attempts will have mellowed him out in that.

“I like taking guns away early” Trump said. “Take the guns first, go through due process second.”

Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/28/trump-says-take-guns-first-and-worry-due-process-second-white-house-gun-meeting/381145002/