I don’t know that I would argue it’s extremely gerrymandered (anymore/yet) but it will be (again) once the supreme court decides the voting rights act is “racist” against white people.

I would prefer to just have equality, SCOTUS term limits, less unitary decision making for all politicians, and less executive power for presidents, instead of watching politicians on both sides keep distracting America with magic tricks to one up the other in a continuous circle jerk that exists to keep left vs right pitted against each other, rather than actually accomplishing anything for the people they’re supposed to represent. But thank you, I do appreciate your thoughts and prayers.

They stopped responding or taking my calls, so I usually only contact them when they are directly involved in the outcome of a decision.

One of my senators is the pro vaccine medical doctor that was the deciding vote for RFK’s fitness hearing. I wrote to him telling him I knew he understood more than anyone else why it was important not to approve him. I guess he never got the message.

I’ve lost faith in Republicans, but I haven’t lost my faith. I haven’t given up and neither should you. If you’re cursed with life, what recourse do you have, but to live?

My senators are both Republicans so I’m pretty sure they’re happy for the distraction.

I have to say, some kind of incentive (monetary or next step of career/legacy) seems like kind of an obvious question, and it’s weird nobody has even pointed that out. Especially if most of these Dems aren’t seeking reelection.

What kind of Democrat betrays her party, and then goes on Fox News of all places to give the details?

Yes.

There’s also bird flu, and the U.S. government wasn’t really doing a great job of keeping track of that even before the shut down. I guess we’ll find out for sure eventually, but it just depends on which happens first. Government reopens, birds migrate north in the spring, or we all start spreading/contacting bird flu, and nobody will tell us why we’re suddenly not seeing as many people outside either.

I think your interpretation about Schumer’s actions just doesn’t match reality

What interpretation about Schumer’s actions? My point is not that I trust Schumer. It’s that I trust Ro Kahnna even less because I know who controls him.

Rep. Ro Khanna’s Financial Disclosures Show Investments in Palantir the Tech Company Building Immigration Tool

I don’t know why else Kahnna would be ready to go on a 24 hour press junket calling for Schumer to be ousted immediately after it was publicly announced Democrats had caved. And I don’t know why one of the earliest Democrats who turned, and helped draft the deal with Republicans, would then go on Fox News first thing this morning to claim Schumer was in on it the whole time.

I don’t give a fuck what moral high ground anyone wants to take regarding what Schumer has done. I’m not denying he needs to be replaced, but I don’t trust the way it’s happening. Using the press to manipulate the public and orchestrate a coup is the go to playbook of the same opportunist who recently publicly stated we all just need to accept that an authoritarian surveillance state may be inevitable in order for the U.S. to beat China in the AI race.

If Thiel has decided Schumer needs to be removed so suddenly, it’s not because he wants to help the democratic party and replace him with a more progressive leader.

I think they’re always on the verge of splintering, and we’ve seen that happen several times already between Epstein and the Heritage Foundation supporting Tucker Carlson.

But I think people like Peter Thiel are also constantly controlling and manipulating people within both the democratic and Republican parties on order to keep themselves afloat.

They can and do throw endless amounts of money at anyone they need to help them gain control in just about any situation, but they also strongly rely on that cult/“family” strategy to keep their base reigned in. We’re a united “family,” but the family has to accept that any member can be thrown under the bus by the paternal figures in control. For the good of the family, of course.

With the exception of Roberts though (who was on a steering committee but claims he was never a member) all of the conservative justices were members of the Federalist society.

On Friday at the annual conference for the Federalist society, the deputy AG gave a speech attacking the Bar association and declaring a war on judges for targeting conservatives with judicial activism.

Kavanaugh and Barrett also spoke about being under siege and standing strong with your conservative values in the face of withering criticism.

That is such a typical conservative cult “it’s us vs them” bullshit tactic to preemptively paint themselves as the victim even though they hold the upper hand in every possible way.

I would say not every conservative member of the Senate has the same set of values, but we’ve seen over and over again that they will go against their own values in order to further Trump’s agenda. It’s not always clear if it’s out of true loyalty or a sense of fear about what will happen to them if they get out of line.

Whatever it is, when they start pulling that us vs them bullshit, it’s hard to believe they won’t all revert back to trying to help overthrow the government.

https://www.axios.com/2025/11/09/doj-blanche-war-activist-judges-dc-bar-associations

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/07/justice-barrett-conservatives-criticism-charlie-kirk/87138931007/

That was my first thought too. On the heels of the “war on judges,” and Trump dragging SCOTUS into his battle with the appeals court on Friday, followed by a small group of Dems suddenly going rogue and caving on the shutdown, which seems so bizarre since the circuit court ruling for SNAP to be paid in full was also made on Sunday.

Then today, Trump again demanding the Supreme Court just undo what two lower court judges have now decided, after an emergency stay was granted by a democratically elected justice on Friday, specifically so the final decision could be made by the lower court, and now this very unexpected decision by conservative justices. What in the fuck is actually going on?

Like if I thought conservative SCOTUS justices actually gave a fuck about trying not to appear biased to the public, I would say they seem to be making a very strong point to do so with this decision. If that’s what this is, then yeah, it makes me nervous about wtf they have up their sleeve? Like what could possibly come next, that they would offer us this concession like some kind of deranged love bombing?

Like I wish I lived in a country where I could celebrate this, and trust that a decision like this was made without any ulterior motive or strategy in mind, but I don’t. Fuck I hate this walking on eggshells bullshit.

Only 13 Dem senators are up for re-election in 2026, so I don’t think its that surprising that none of the 8 that voted for this aren’t.

I would say it’s more surprising that

1. Any Dems caved at this point before at least seeing how the showdown between Trump and the courts would play out.

2. There have been a lot of fingers pointed at Schumer for his lack of leadership in uniting the party. While I think there’s more than enough to criticize him for (being so shitty about Mamdani, especially during the shutdown being the first and foremost thing I would say shows poor leadership), I have to say I’m holding off immediately jumping to that conclusion.

It may be true, and even though I don’t really trust Schumer in many ways, the reason I hesitate to immediately jump on the bandwagon in this case is because of the specific Democrat that was the first to start parroting this narrative, and has continued to parrot it as loudly as possible since last night.

I read this article around midnight last night:

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/trump-takes-aim-obamacare-historic-federal-shutdown-hits-40th-day-2025-11-09/

Sunday’s deal was brokered by Democratic Senators Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, both from New Hampshire, and Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, said a person familiar with the talks.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s top Democrat, voted against the measure.

Many Democrats on the Hill watched the deal unfold with displeasure.

“Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced,” wrote U.S. Representative Ro Khanna on X. “If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?"

I hesitate to trust Schumer because it seems like he has reached a point in his career where he (along with many establishment Dems) is too quick to sell out core values. However, I do think Schumer honestly may have held those values at one point in his career, but became too comfortable with the status quo.

On the other hand, Ro Kahnna has no values. He was never supposed to be trusted in the first place, and when I see the media refer to him as a progressive it makes my fucking blood boil. He exists to serve the interests of Peter Thiel, and his own interests/Palantir investments, by keeping Thiel rich and happy.

Broken clocks and what not, so he could be right in this instance. However, knowing how Theil uses the media to manipulate public opinion, and this sneaky mother fucking snake in the grass, being the first to already have that narrative ready to go from the jump, and the media being so quick to help him spread it, makes me suspicious as hell.

What reason did those 3 senators possibly have to suddenly cave, and broker that deal on Sunday fucking night after we went into the weekend with the very public back and forth on SNAP?

And then for the other 5 to join them voting for it. It’s clear where Fetterman’s loyalty lies, but the other 7 Democrats that voted for this seriously couldn’t just wait for the public to know that the circuit court sided with the original ruling to pay SNAP in full? Why is that?

Beyond controversy around the Texas self-managed abortion case, Flock has had to respond to evidence that local law enforcement agencies have used their data to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It now has offered assurances that jurisdictions proactively banning data sharing related to immigration status or abortion seeking will be excluded from national searches, as long as the local yahoo with tactical undershorts is dumb enough to put “ICE” or “abortion” in the required reason field.

But it turns out that once you’ve built a massive distributed surveillance network, it’s hard to rein in its use. The state of Washington explicitly bans sharing data or equipment with federal officers for the purpose of immigration enforcement, yet the University of Washington found dozens of examples of exactly that. Some local departments explicitly opened up their Flock data to the feds despite the state law; others had their information siphoned off without their knowledge via an unspecified technological error.

The university study and an investigation by 404 Media found another category of information sharing that also subverted state attempts to fend off immigration overreach: federal officers just asking really nice if the local guy could run a search on their behalf and the local guy happened to use “ICE” or “ICE warrant” or “illegal immigration” in the local search (tactical undies recognizes tactical undies, you know?). Worth noting: A local officer well informed about jurisdictional data-sharing limitations would just not enter “ICE” as the reason for the search, and we have no idea how many of those cannier cops there are.

We have this built in safety net that makes every user list the reason they accessed the data.

Reason for search: Not ICE

Checks out.

Already terrified? It gets worse: Flock is turning over more and more of its monitoring to AI, a feature that Flock (and the entire technology-media industrial complex) sells as a neutral efficiency. But the problem with AI is how deeply human it really is—trained on biased data, it can only replicate and amplify what it already knows. Misogyny and white supremacy are built into surveillance DNA, and using it to search for women seeking abortions or any other suspected “criminal” can only make the echo chamber more intense.

This month, an AI-powered security system (not Flock, surprisingly) tossed out an alarm to a school resource officer, and he called the police to the scene of a Black teenager eating chips. The teen described “eight cop cars that came pulling up to us [and] they started walking toward me with guns.” You can fault the resource officer for not clocking the chip bag; at least we know the point of failure.

Because judges are the only reason law and justice still exist in the U.S., and they are being targeted by dumbasses who love fascism?

What? There is nothing to appeal.

The DOJ is claiming it’s now policy that immigrants shouldn’t be allowed bond hearings. Judges are holding them anyway.

The policy is a departure from 30 years of court precedent, which allowed people in immigration proceedings to post bond if they have no criminal record, are not considered dangerous and are not a flight risk. A person’s ability to challenge detention is part of the constitutionally protected right to due process.

She did…? That’s why he was able to get out and be reunited with his family.

In a Nov. 4 decision explaining her order that Robles receive a bond hearing, U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Brasel wrote that “courts across the country have almost universally rejected” the government’s new rationale.

Jose Andres Robles holds on tight to his 8-month-old daughter Diana at home in Minneapolis. (Elizabeth Flores/The Minnesota Star Tribune)

Eat a dick bootlicker

I’m pretty sure fascist collaborators aren’t the majority. If they were, there would be no need for you to spread disinformation.

My bad, I had you confused with somebody else who was also attacking the judges Trump has declared war with because they’ve done nothing to stop him from carrying out his agenda.

Your argument was literally that JD Vance was correct in saying judges don’t have authority over Trump. You then said you believed Vance was correct because judges haven’t done chicken shit to stop Trump.

Then you continued to argue the courts won’t ever be able to stop the all powerful king, despite those no king protests that haven’t done anything. Again, you seem to know exactly what you’re doing, and who you’re actually helping by doing it. I’m done. Bye.

Again, your original argument is that the courts don’t do chicken shit to stop the administration.

Your entire argument here rests on Trump being granted a temporary emergency stay by a democratic supreme court justice. That stay is set to expire after the lower appeals court makes a final decision regarding the second order given by judge McConnell, that USDA provide full SNAP funding vs only providing the partial funding the administration already agreed to pay after McConnell’s first order was handed down the week before.

Why did the Trump administration seek an emergency stay from the supreme court in a district where they knew the case would be decided by a Biden appointee? Because the circuit court making the final decision on McConnell’s ruling, declined to grant the administration a stay when they first appealed. The Trump administration then cited the lower court’s refusal to grant a stay, to their running list of examples they claim are targeted acts of unfair “judiciary activism” by democratically appointed judges. In other words, they are claiming any orders handed down by judges that hinder the administration’s agenda are politically motivated attacks against the administration, while actually carrying out politically motivated bullshit like using SNAP funds as a bargaining chip.

US Supreme Court lets Trump withhold $4 billion in food aid funding for now

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who issued the stay, set it to expire two days after the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules on the administration’s request to halt a judge’s order that the U.S. Department of Agriculture promptly pay the full amount of this month’s SNAP benefits, which cost $8.5 billion to $9 billion per month.

Jackson, the liberal justice assigned to review emergency appeals from a group of states that include Rhode Island, said the 1st Circuit was expected to rule on the administration’s request to block McConnell’s order “with dispatch.” U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi noted the Supreme Court’s decision in a post on X, which paused a court ruling she deemed “judicial activism at its worst.”

Pretty sure you’re well aware of this already, but when you argue that judges “don’t do chicken shit,”/might as well not even exist, guess who you’re actually helping by spreading disinformation and propaganda?

DOJ’s No. 2 Official Asks Lawyers to Join ‘War’ Against Judges

“It’s a war, man,” Blanche, the deputy attorney general, told judges and lawyers Friday at a Federalist Society event in Washington, before describing instances where the government has ping-ponged between lower and appellate courts. “It’s happening over and over and over again.”

The DOJ is saying they are at war, and targeting the judges you claim with such certainty don’t actually do “chicken shit.” If you’re looking for work, you’d make a very useful tool for the DOJ’s propaganda machine. For some reason they need to eliminate those “useless” Federal judges and their meddling “judicial activism” that doesn’t actually do anything.