walk it back may

once again there is confusion and signs of a conflicted administration as may mailman walks back the demands made on harvard that led to its refusal to knuckle under and the freezing of funds...all due to a "misunderstanding"...ms.mailman said all harvard's lawyers had to do was pick up the phone and call to talk over the mistakenly sent list of demands but instead, "went on a campaing of victimhood"...one wonders when rejecting a series of unreasonable and biased demmands, which boiled down to "don't say anything negative about israel [ no matter how factual ] or there will be consequences. we will frame the debate to fit our fundamentalist base"...among other demands harvard must apologize to its students for fostering a campus where there was antisemitism...antisemitism, not anything like an open expression of views...so much for the marketplace of ideas...critical thought about motivations and actions has become bias in the eyes of don's minions...there's room for further discussion as long as harvard caves in to all of the adminstration's demands...nothing authoritarian about that...don hates universities ( and, likely , the educated...look at his cabinet ) because people think there and the last thing he and his sycophants need is a critical look at what they are up to

we don't need no education

the federal government has neither the time nor the inclination to oversee the dumbing down of the american polity so we will devolve the responsibility of eroding budgets and bowdlerizing the sylabus to the states who can then dertermine just how stupid they would like their citizens to be...no critical thought about the machinations of the maga utopia...just mute acceptance enforced by an equally ignorant ( and utterly obsequious ) state legislatures...

we will, however, continue to monitor and bitch-slap any uppity university that allows its students to question our motives or say anything negative about israel, no matter how factual it may be...critical thought is the incubator for sabotuers and wreckers who would stand in the way of the aforementioned maga utopia...that doesn't mean we are letting go of all that student debt though...the national political agenda is debt...debt so deep for as much of the polity as we can manage wthat will leave them in the poistion of only being able to survive and service the interest on the debt while never paying-down the principal...keeping them focused on surviving rather than thinking.

rebirth

so the tariffs cause a little recession and ecomonc pain for the polity...it's the long-term we're looking at here and if it engenders an era of manufacturing rebirth it's worth the short-term hardship...bearbrand hsoiery will resume knitting amd gary screw and bolt will splutter back to life and thread again...the JOBS are what it's all about...there are some questions in mind though don...are these going to be union manufacturing JOBS? are they going to pay a living wage? are people going to be able to recover from "the pain" ( egg prices are not going down don...you punted that one ) you are handing them without crippiling themselves further ( many are under water now ) with debt in the short term?

here's what the MIT living wage caluculator has to say about who needs how much in the county i live in...have a shufti at the "minimum wage" versus "povery wage"...i see only two small categories whaere the minimum wage coud lift someone up into poverty...for the rest you are on your own...so...are you going to usher in a new era of "prosperity for all" with a strongly unionized workforce...or reinforce "right to work" with a stacked NLRB bard and a continuation of national and local union busting policies leaving the prosperity for the rentier class ( your natural constituency despitwe the economic situation of your voting base )? we will see how this pans out...thinking i will see familiar results.

walking backwards

the concept of limits...even for don...may be beginniong to filter into the adminstration's consciousness...they may not have as much control over events as they imagine...for instance...

the alleged second in command, co-president, puppet-master, apartheid guy, muskateer, muskatel, whatever you care to call him had a run-in with rubio at a cabinet meeting ( what cabinet post does muskie hold? ) and forced don to intervene to calm the boys down...cracks continue to form...don says he has asked iran to open nuclear talks...tarrifs on canada and mexico have been "paused " for thirty days because prices are staying stubbornly high as merchants indulge in profit taking while the market tanks...and don is "seriously considering" sanctions on russia to force some sort of peace deal...of course that could be something he and vlad the impaler cooked up...vlad was in the spook world for a while...then again don might be angling for that peace prize...hard to know with all the "alternate facts" "fake news" and outright lies going on in whoretown...meanwhile words like: • accessible • activism • activists • advocacy • advocate • advocates • affirming care • all-inclusive • allyship • anti-racism • antiracist • assigned at birth • assigned female at birth • assigned male at birth • at risk • barrier • barriers • belong • bias • biased • biased toward • biases • biases towards • biologically female • biologically male • community diversity • community equity • confirmation bias • cultural competence • cultural differences • cultural heritage • cultural sensitivity • culturally appropriate • culturally responsive • DEI • DEIA • DEIAB • DEIJ • disabilities • disability • discriminated • discrimination • discriminatory • disparity • diverse • diverse backgrounds • diverse communities • diverse community • diverse group • diverse groups • diversified • females • feminism • fostering inclusivity • GBV • gender • gender based • gender based violence • gender diversity • gender identity • gender ideology • gender-affirming care • genders • Gulf of Mexico • hate speech • health disparity • health equity • hispanic minority • historically • identity • immigrants • implicit bias • implicit biases • inclusion • inclusive • inclusive leadership • inclusiveness • inclusivity • increase diversity • increase the diversity • indigenous community • inequalities • inequality • inequitable are bing flagged as ones to avoid in documents emanating from federal agencies...hard to be a monist bent on crushing differences rather than engendering ( is that a banished word? ) tolerant unity when you use words like "diverse"...the history of this adminstration grinds on.

does $36 trillion in debt minus $2 trillion in spending cuts = $5000?

the national debt clock has the national debt pegged ( approximately...it moves quickly ) at $36,537,459,150,833 and growing at about a grand a second...and yet my friends at doge claim to have slashed $2 trillion off the total and, as a memeber of one of the 79 million tax-paying households, they want to give me a share of 20% of that total via a check for $5000...either the reportage is grossly mistaken or there is some flaw in the math and, per bertie russell, the logic...20% of $2 trillion is $400 billion, however 79 million times $5000 is $395 billion...there are 5 bilion dollars lost somewhere...and if i get a cut of 20% where does the other 80% go? and there are more questions than that...which terminated federal employee's pocket did they pick to pay me and do i want that? is the $5000 in lieu of a cessation of social security/medicare/medicad payments? is this more smoke and mirrors to cover a counter-constitutional coup? are spending cuts actually money? if i have a $10000 balance on a credit card and return $2000 worth of merchandise to pare the balance down to $8000 do i have $2000 or just less debt? since money is simply an abstract expression of work ( a $20 bill is just a piece of paper with some green ink on it ) this is all just playing with numbers...and as a side note the $5000 check would take an act of congress, and while they are sycophantic, subservient, and utterly hypocritical they are also tools of the elite which is whining about it being an inflationary move...and if there is one thing the elite hates and fears more than the poor it is inflation...don't plan a splurge with that five grand just yet._________________________________________________________________ 1 march 2025 one question i did negelect to include is , will terminated federal employees be eleigible for this ( if this non-starter should miraculously come about ) being they have been labeled as parasites?

cracks

so many egos combined with rank incompetence and dogmatic thinking are going to multiply their problems...the faithful will lose faith and, since the crackbrained idelogy cannot be the problem, there will be "wreckers and saboteurs" derailing the promised improvements...and the ideological police will be born.

above the law redux

this...

is why the blog is called what it is called...the parallels are not exact however they are close enough to make me think someone has briefed don on tricky dick's precedents...old dick...

didn't get away with it...there were still spines in congress in the 70s...not sycophants and conspiracy theorists.