Not Going Away

 

The thing in the closet is the reason for the Greenland Gambit, a major distraction.

Awareness

 

Assisted Living

 

Today I will talk about a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.

On the other hand, I would like to tell you that the other countries, especially intermediate powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.

The power of the less power starts with honesty.

Talarico, Shaking Things in Texas

 

I've written about Texan James Talarico, the young Christian progressive running as a Democrat in the primary for US Senate, the John Cornyn seat. Talarico charmed even Joe Rogan. Rogan said to him on air, "You ought to run for president."

So I got a kick out of the Talarico campaign making hay out of something Cornyn said that was supposed to ring alarm bells. It's an old campaign trick to take your opponent's negative jibe and make it a positive.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Is Gonna Crap in Watauga's Hat (and in every other county's hat in the state)

The "One Big Beautiful Bill" is one of the most significant unfunded mandates and one of the largest shifts of administrative and economic responsibility that our state and our counties have seen in generations.”

-- Kevin Leonard, executive director of the N.C. Association of County Commissioners

Paige Masten reminds us today what an "unfunded mandate" can do to state and local government.

One major piece of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress last year, made big changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), both of which are largely administered through local government, especially county commissions that control social and educational programs. The new law has Medicaid work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. Masten: "Those requirements create new administrative burdens and challenges. The state will have to hire and train more staff, update technology and create data systems to handle the new processes." Counties too.

The bill also contains the largest-ever cut to SNAP funding, forcing states to bear more of the financial and administrative responsibilities of administering the program. It also will require states to pay a percentage of the SNAP benefit costs if they make too many payment errors. According to ProPublica, North Carolina will likely have to start paying out an estimated $420 million annually in SNAP benefits under its current error rate. That means that the share of the state budget required to fund SNAP could rise by 352% in North Carolina, an analysis from the Georgetown University Law Center estimates. 

 It’s a mess....

Masten on the obvious and most likely political fallout:

Politically, it’s going to be a particularly big mess for Republicans, who will bear responsibility for any potential disruptions to, or termination of, benefits. That’s primarily the case for congressional Republicans who voted for the legislation. Some Republican members of Congress have a higher percentage of constituents who rely on Medicaid and SNAP, so any loss of benefits could affect their districts deeply.

 

 

 

The Enemy Is Both Lethal and Stoopid

 

If you say that someone is "in the soup," you mean they are in trouble.

--Google A.I.

"We're in the soup... We've got to do 1914 over again."

--H. G. Wells, Holy Terror

Yeah. That's where we are. But those aren't white potatoes and carrots floating around us. Those are members of an armed, secret fucking army of men prone to violence with a broad license from the president, exhibiting total, even fanatical loyalty to Trump (and a notable hatred for the people they brutalize -- "Fucking lesbian!"). It's just a fact that Trump is willing to send that thug force into cities and states that have offended him, and when that frontal attack doesn't work to silence opposition, he sics the blond in the Department of Justice on his enemies.

Suspending the elections this year ain't just his little "sarcasm." It's an idea a-borning. He has the army to perfect it. It's all about the intimidation. They want us afraid. People like Renee Macklin Good aren't afraid. And she didn't see Jonathan Ross coming.

Trump's handmaids like the three on the State Board of Elections (Four Eggers et al.) are eager to help. Where there was a chance to snuff out Sunday voting for Black folks, Eggers & Co. seized it. They also completed Dallas Woodhouse's scheme to squelch the youth vote. Local Republican-controlled boards of elections in several university counties wanted to eliminate established on-campus Early Voting sites at places like Western Carolina, NC A&T, and UNC-Greensboro -- undoubtedly part of Dallas Woodhouse's private "training" of just the Republicans on local boards. Naturally, Eggers & Co. sided with the Republican majorities on Early Voting plans.

For every attempt to make his enemies afraid and cowed, Trump is always capable of stepping on his own dick, looking weak and pathetic and needy, like the little boy whose father never loved him -- so very devastatingly small.

Can he stop the tide that's building?  Maybe not, but they sure as hell can try to baffle the impact of that wave. The assault on Early Voting plans for the March primary is just one example. Think what they'll try to do to Early Voting plans as we approach November.

Their Gestapo cosplay isn't wearing well and has served best to make the people angrier and more determined to resist. The resistance will be our votes, but in the intervening eight months before we get there, we may be called on in other ways to put our bodies on the line, our breathing into the danger zone, and our rest and quiet to rack and ruin. I have my whistle.