Notices by Tom Sullivan (tomsullivan@mstdn.social)

Can We Stop Pretending Now?

The Trump administration is an exercise in an addled, 78-year-old man-child flexing autocratic power and encouraging cruelty for cruelty’s sake. He’s in charge. He’s not in charge. He’s in charge. He’s….
https://digbysblog.net/2025/05/10/can-we-stop-pretending-now/

DOGE moved 4 million people onto Social Security's Death Master File in a "digital attack on citizenship." Your credit cards get canceled & your bank account's shut down or frozen.
A functioning agency might have helped you correct that, but they've fired 25% of its staff.
https://the.ink/p/how-elon-musk-built-a-button-to-shut?utm_source=substack&publication_id=70374&post_id=163208184&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=false&r=riq9&triedRedirect=true

"Some U.S. travelers are expressing uncertainty about how they’ll be received in parts of Europe."

Hell, this uncertain U.S. traveler is worried my own country won't let me back IN or might exile ME to El Salvador.

https://bsky.app/profile/nycsouthpaw.bsky.social/post/3lnb5ckc3ms2b

America, you chose ... poorly.
https://digbysblog.net/2025/04/09/pick-the-wrong-president/

Trump claims tariffs:
1. Won’t increase prices, b/c foreign producers will absorb the cost
2. Will cause a large shift in U.S. demand away from imports to domestic production
3. Will raise huge amounts of revenue

Makes no internal sense, Krugman explains.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/stop-looking-for-methods-in-the-madness?utm_source=substack&publication_id=277517&post_id=160404589&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=riq9&triedRedirect=true

@GottaLaff My mother, 93, would like a word with him. https://digbysblog.net/2025/03/29/every-day-this-gets-harder/

@GottaLaff Been in and out. Has anyone asked if Goldberg is free to publish the nonclassified thread? (I wouldn't recommend it, for Goldberg's sake. They'd nail him to the wall.)

"Many" deported Venezuelans lack criminal records, said ICE. That doesn't mean they pose no threat. It "actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”

* I * lack a criminal record/profile!
https://www.opb.org/article/2025/03/18/judge-demands-more-answers-about-deportation-flights/

Trump is looking for an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and declare martial law. With his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, he’s not even trying to conceal his intentions.
https://digbysblog.net/2025/03/16/bad-moon-rising/

Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 35, a researcher at Brown Medicine on an H-1B visa, was detained at Boston-Logan airport for unknown reasons upon returning from visiting family in Lebanon. Immigration officials deported her in defiance of a federal court order. 1/
https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2025/03/15/rhode-island-doctor-rasha-alawieh-deported-despite-federal-court-order/82441360007/

These are things most of us already know. But reading Tina Nguyen’s first-hand account as a og/product of the conservative farm system carries a lot of punch.

https://digbysblog.net/2025/03/13/read-em-and-weep-2/

Who wants to be caught at a joint session of Congress when Trump aligns the U.S. with Putin's Russia against Ukraine and our E.U. allies?

After last week's Oval shouting match, are you sure that won't happen on Tuesday, Democrats?
https://digbysblog.net/2025/03/03/tipping-toward-autocracy/

🎶Saboteurs of America
Saboteurs of America
Saboteurs of America

“Kennedy paused a multimillion dollar project to create a new Covid-19 vaccine in pill form on Tuesday, and the Food and Drug Administration canceled an advisory committee meeting on updating next season’s flu vaccine.”
https://newrepublic.com/post/192059/rfk-jr-vaccines-flu-covid-hhs?utm_source=newsletter

I thought I’d lived through history during the assassinations of the 1960s, the moon landing, Watergate, September 11, and the election of the first Black president. With Trumpism comes the upending of constitutional order that feels more like the end of that history.
https://digbysblog.net/2025/02/24/living-history-overload/

Republicans in Congress are running scared, and not just for their political survival.

“In private, Republicans talk about their fear that Trump might incite his MAGA followers to commit political violence against them if they don’t rubber-stamp his actions.”
https://digbysblog.net/2025/02/20/trump-is-a-russian-puppet/

Trump Administration Wants to Let Banks Jack Up Your Overdraft Fees

Trump 2.0 wants the people to know that they still have *none* out of three branches of the government working for them, and, yes, it's this bad.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-admininstration-banks-raise-overdraft-fees-1235271368/

Slava Ukraini

For all their experience, the Democrats’ gerontocracy is bringing 20th-century knives to a 21st-century gun fight. Too many learned politics in the 1980s. Even if they could learn new tricks, they’re not the ones to bring it now.
https://digbysblog.net/2025/02/10/a-prophecy-of-passivity/

By Digby:

Musk is doing something so outrageous that we seem to be unable to wrap our minds around the enormity of it. Josh Marshall took a crack at it and it’s hard to believe but from what I’ve been reading all day, I think he’s got it right:
https://digbysblog.net/2025/02/02/a-cyber-coup-is-taking-place-in-america/

@GottaLaff @mossyfoot @briansullivan

Can't get your grant-funded drug?
Can't access Medicaid?
Can't get your Meals on Wheels?
Can't access your kid's Head Start?
What else?

White House switchboard: 202-456-1414