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I think the Democratic leadership learned from the last debt ceiling debacle, where they did whatever the GOP and Trump wanted and got pelted with figurative rotten eggs by everyone who was paying attention.

The Obamacare subsidies are an easy hill to die on. They are available to anyone who makes less than a high middle class income, and for a great many Americans, they are the absolutely only way they can afford health insurance.

A self-declaredly populist movement like MAGA should know better than making health care unaffordable to millions to pay for billionaire tax cuts and corruption.

Don’t give up! It actually sounds really interesting.

But that would mean they come up with the dumb ideas themselves! I don’t think they deserve the credit.

Sometimes I wonder if Rupert Murdoch has a Fox News for billionaires channel that I don’t know about, where they get all their stupid, destructive, and sociopathic ideas.

Who are these rubes sitting on Grand Juries that don’t see through the nakedly political nature of this type of charges?

“In our current discourse, it seems to me, partisanship is creeping its way into the court.”

Creeping its way? Some of the recent SCOTUS decisions are so horribly written, you’d think the whole point is to parade partisanship around. In that respect, making decisions on the shadow docket at least avoids the embarrassment of having to push out that garbage.

It does have a certain “von Trapp family trying to escape the Nazis” quality to it, doesn’t it?

A good moment to reflect on the fact that Congress can take the power to set tariffs away from the President if and when it wants. Right now, if I am not mistaken, the President is operating on “emergency” powers.

I don’t think his persona allows for that. He seems to consider himself innocent in all this.

Republicans remained more split in their responses — with 28% arguing that [groceries] are easier to afford

In what currency, Trump coin?

I know the feeling, but I think the reliably Republican states are much worse.

Bingo Bango you diagnosed me with terminal Americanity. Too bad I am not American.

Well, I mean, the moment you start thinking of the United States of America as being like the good ole’ Soviet Union, you know something is wrong.

Canceling is usually performed against someone that offers their product by the people that the product is offered to. If I can spend my money on anything I want, and performer X says that I am a loser, I am not going to give performer X my money. I can choose things that X said 20 years ago, and I can choose stupid and invalid things to not give them my money. I think that’s understood: It is X’s responsibility to make sure that I want to give them my money, neither mine nor the government’s.

You give a good example in a different comment of a company (Disney) firing someone (James Gunn) because they were concerned about fallout from cancellation. That part is iffy, as we have seen with the Kimmel fiasco. Corporations have a hard time figuring out what is okay and what isn’t. The Coors Light debacle shows that even the best intentions can spectacularly backfire.

What we have here is the FBI, the Federal Law Enforcement agency, targeting an employee for perfectly legal conduct that was considered perfectly normal under the circumstances. People can and do judge, corporations can judge, but it’s risky. The Federal government is barred by the First Amendment from infringing on free speech. That includes the speech of its own employees.

The person fired seems to have been in their probationary period, and that might hold up in court. It’s still a shocking example of government persecution of retroactive thought crime.

I am surprised they are so blatant about this, because of course the same logic applies in reverse, too - in the future, should Democrats return to government, anyone could get fired for being a member of Truth Social, or having posted something pro-Trump on Facebook. Which just shows you that this Administration doesn’t consider it possible that they’ll ever have to leave office.

he had displayed an improper “political” message in the workplace during his assignment in California under President Joe Biden

The gay pride flag was displayed during his assignment in California under President Joe Biden? That is completely ridiculous. Thought crime is one thing, but retroactive thought crime is delusion.

If I had to come up with the most un-American thing (as in American self-image) anyone could say, this is probably it.

“Send 50% of your production to America. We are going to learn how to make the chips but we are TOTALLY not going to look the other way when China invades and annexes you!”