On Social Security and memes

Please oh please, do not forward memes without examining them first.

Okay, something churning around the Internet turned up on a friend’s Facebook feed claiming Social Security had been renamed “Federal Benefit Payments” and calling it a Ponzi scheme. He asked me to look at it, so I did.

My one sentence response is that if this thing does come your way, do not forward it.

Here’s why: First, it’s been kicking around the Internet for at least 14 years and has been fact-checked by Snopes (2012), USA Today (2020), and Yahoo.com¹ (2012 and 2025) and they all said the lead claim about the supposed change in name is crap. (Being professional and overly polite, they called it “false,” but yeah, “crap” is what they clearly meant.) In fact, the term “Federal Benefit Payment” has been used for Social Security outlays ever since the program was established in 1935.

As for everything else, Snopes said it well: It “gets nearly everything wrong.” It’s an anti-Social Security screed with the usual tropes that I first encountered in 2004 and which have changed very little in the decades since.

For example, it uses questionable numbers, including overstating the tax burden and making no allowance for employer contributions. It offers rosy scenarios of “coulda-beens,” of how rich you could have been if only - oh if only - Social Security taxes had not drained your ability to make market investments, while basing such calculations, as they always do, on assuming you invested 15% of your gross income every year of your entire working life, never lost on an investment, never withdrew a penny for any reason, and never had to pay any capital gains tax.

Beyond that, calling Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” is utterly false to the point of absurd if not consciously misleading. A Ponzi scheme is a type of fraud involving paying investors “returns” out of the money coming in from additional investors. It inevitably collapses under its own weight when it runs out of enough new investors. Your taxes going into Social Security are not making an investment in the hope of future profit, they are buying insurance against the impact of future events including loss of income because of retirement, disability, or loss of a spouse or parent - which is why what we think of as Social Security is more properly called “Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance” or OASDI.

The screed also says of Social Security “They took our money and used it elsewhere.” The word “elsewhere” goes curiously unexplained - maybe because “invested the money in US Treasury bonds” (precisely the sort of “low-risk” investments the author advocated) didn’t sound sufficiently conspiratorial, especially after invoking the all-encompassing scare term “they.”

What’s more, the statement “They didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed” is garbled nonsense. The Social Security system is barred by federal law from borrowing money so has assumed no such debts.

But that does relate to the final issue, the claim that “the money won’t support us for very much longer,” the by-now standard “SS is going bankrupt!” fear-mongering I first heard from George Bush in 2005 and has been a Chicken Little incantation since -including from, as I expect a number of us have conveniently forgotten, the Obama-established Simpson-Bowles Commission, which became known as the “Cat Food Commission” because of its proposal for sharp cuts in social services including Social Security and Medicare.

The point is a bit complex, so excuse me as I go on for a bit.

There is a narrow legal definition for use in bankruptcy proceedings under which being “bankrupt” is equated with being insolvent, that is, being unable to meet all current debts and without - this is an important part often overlooked - a reasonable expectation of being able to meet them in the future. In such a proceeding, the assets of the bankrupt party are taken by the court and distributed to creditors.

But no one imagines Social Security going into bankruptcy proceedings. There will be no creditors banging on its doors. And in fact if we’re going to speak in narrow legal terms, there is no way SS could go “bankrupt” because, again, it does not have “debts.” The money in the fund was not obtained by loans and it was not obtained by accepting services with a promise of future payment. In fact, by virtue of those bonds it buys, which are in effect a loan to the rest of the government, the system is a creditor, not a debtor.

What the system has are “obligations,” which are not the same thing. Obligations are promises of future behavior as opposed to legal financial commitments arising from past behavior (as debts are). As a crude illustration, consider a union which has a contract with a company under which the workers are supposed to get a 3% raise next year. The employer has a contractual “obligation” to pay that raise, but is not in “debt” to the workers. If the employer pleads poverty, threatens to close up shop and move, and pressures the union into givebacks so that the raise becomes 1%, then that is now the obligation. The employer has not failed to pay any “debt” because the obligation for that extra 2% never came due.

The obligations Social Security has are ones it has as a federal government program, that is, ones it has taken on itself as a matter of law. It’s a social contract rather than a legal one and one which the government has the legal authority to change as it sees fit. The government could, if it chose, simply slash future benefits to whatever degree it felt necessary and :poof: any “insolvency” is gone.

That - it shouldn’t be necessary to say but probably is - does not mean the government should, would, or would ever have the need to do any such thing. It does mean any claim that SS is going “bankrupt” is nonsense.

Rather, what’s being claimed as “bankruptcy” is actually the prospect that the surplus in Social Security accounts that was deliberately built up since the Reagan years specifically to deal with the demographic bulge of the “baby boom” generation² will have been used up and the system would be back on the pay-as-you-go status it has been on for most of its just-shy of 90 years of existence - and all the doom-saying is about the fact that if nothing is done and no changes are made³, benefit levels would be something less than 80% of projected ones.

But note that’s “projected,” not “current,” which is important because the way benefits are calculated means those projected benefits are higher than today’s current ones. In fact, they could wind up being higher in real terms - that is, after accounting for inflation - than current ones. And remember, that is if nothing is done, no adjustments are made, in the meantime, ignoring the fact that the system has been tweaked any number of times across its history and can be again.

So I repeat: DO NOT forward this.

---

¹ This linked article has the text of the screed, which appears almost if not completely identical to the one I saw. That was on Facebook, which I never use, and I’m not about to dig for it there to check to see if every word is the same.

² Note that this means that those “boomers,” the ‘60s generation, not only paid its share to support those dependent on the program, they in effect pre-financed a fair part of their own retirement.

³ There are already multiple proposals, the best of which and so of course the one least likely to be adopted is to remove the cap on income subject to the tax, which alone would support the system for scores of years into the future.

So I said... #18 for April 15-21

Another more-or-less weekly compilation of comment replies and random thoughts posted on other sites, this one covering April 15 to April 21.

Two notes on style: As always, at the top of each item I try to include some context, at least enough to make it clear what I'm responding to. If I need to add context here to what I originally said, it will be in square brackets ([ ]) in italics.

Also, both relies to my comments and my replies to other comments on the same original post (if you follow that) are grouped together. 

With that said, let's get to it. And oh yeah, comments and reactions are always welcome.

== 

2026-04-15
[Re a WaPo op-ed on a proposal in Connecticut to limit/regulate self-service grocery checkouts.] 

It is, of course, not surprising that a newspaper with an openly declared editorial bias in favor of "the free market" - that is, favoring corporations over the public and the bosses over workers - would carry something from "a newsletter on the consequences of overregulation" without a whisper of a concern about the consequences of under-regulation.

But as to the particular case, I refuse to use the self-checkouts on principle because I am aware of how they are marketed to the corporations.

Simply put, the pitch is that the company can boast about "service" and "speed" and "convenience" while the real impact is to get customers to do more of the work so the company can hire fewer workers. The net effect is that they are job-killers, especially of the sort of entry-level jobs long lauded by corporate America as a "way into the job market" for the young and those lacking specialized skills.
So limit them. Regulate them. It's probably unrealistic, but I'd say get rid of them as not only imposing costs on the jobs market (meaning our neighbors) but because those costs are unnecessary, recalling how long and how well we got along without them.
In the meantime, I'll deal with the "slowness" and "inconvenience" of waiting in a grocery store line. So should you.
-
2026-04-15
[“So should you?” Wow, talk about sanctimonious.]

1. There is nothing either smug or condescending about my statement. There are occasions where the wider impacts of our choices makes YMMV inadequate as a response. I say this is one. (If you want to mentally add "unless limited by physical inability/disability" to my closing, go ahead.)

2. Attempting to wave off my argument with a dismissive sneer is not a rebuttal.
-
2026-04-15
[Let the businesses run themselves and legislature keep your nose out if what they’re doing isn't illegal.]

Did it ever occur to you that everything is legal until it's not? "Don't act unless it's illegal" would have blocked every law ever passed anywhere. Say what you will about this proposal, but the principle you're applying needs much better definition.
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2026-04-15
[proposal of 8 regular checkout lanes per 4 self-checkouts required 4 cashiers on duty at all times regardless of traffic; cashiers are "jobs for buggy whip makers."]

Just for clarity, as I read this, a store with (for example) eight self-checkouts would not have to have four cashiers always on duty at a register regardless of traffic but rather that it would have to have a minimum of four such lanes that could be staffed if traffic called for it.

If it did intend what you say, I'd agree that was silly. But I strongly suspect, indeed expect, it does not but was if anything (and assuming there is an issue) the result of sloppy language that could easily be corrected by amendment.

As for the rest, as the AI-driven self-checkout wonderworld you image for grocery stores inevitably starts to spread to the rest of retail, I'd advise you to be careful what you wish for.

==

2026-04-15
[WaPo article: SCOTUS making religion outweigh all other considerations; here, allowing exemptions from public school vaccination requirements.]

I will say this and only this: We told you so. 

If you're surprised by any of this: You were warned.

If you say "I didn't know," you just weren't paying attention.

And most particularly if you say anything like "I voted for Trump, but I didn't vote for that," yes you did. It's on you. Because we told you so. You were warned. And you just wouldn't listen.
-
2026-04-15
[Atheists have worst of it. Discrimination not only tolerated, celebrated; have to follow ALL laws, can't pick/choose."]

In at least some ways, the legal question about atheists has already been answered. In US v. Seeger (1965), SCOTUS ruled that conscientious objector status under the draft was available to non-theists if they had beliefs that if I recall the term correctly "occupied the same position" in their life as a traditional religion would. In Welsh v. US (1970), the Court expanded that to make explicit that those beliefs need not be religious or called such, that a personal moral code would suffice.

In short, if you had a set of core beliefs that would guide your judgment in the same way traditional religious principles (supposedly) did, you were eligible for CO status. (It was still tough to get for anyone not a member of a traditional "peace church," but you were eligible.)

It'd be very interesting to see someone pursue a demand for an exemption from some civic duty on the grounds of their atheist beliefs being as valid as those of right-wing Xians to see if the Court would be true to its declared principles. The downside is I'm afraid such a suit would be successful, ripping out another support from the already-rickety concept of community responsibility. 

==

2026-04-15
[re article on decision of MT SupCt state constitution provided broad protection for trans rights, wondered if GOPpers in Congress would try to pass law overruling it.]

The "supremacy clause" in the Constitution says federal law can (depending on the particulars) override state law and the same is generally true about state versus local law - but here we're not talking about a state law but a state constitution and federal law cannot override that. And as I think the article notes, the guiding principle is that your rights within a given state are protected to the extent guaranteed by the state or federal constitution, whichever is greater.

This is why the efforts of The Orange Overlord and RFK "My father would be ashamed of me" Jr. to cripple trans health care have revolved not around outright bans but through threats to cut off various sources of funding, i.e., banning it through fiscal blackmail, making such care inaccessible, even though not technically illegal.

==

2026-04-16
[oral arguments on CO SupCt case ordering reopening of trans health care clinic noted trial court sympathetic to the plaintiffs, denied relief for fear of potential reactions from feds re hospital financing.]

District Court [trial] Judge Ericka F.H. Englert was wrong. She was not being asked to "call the bluff of the federal government." She was being asked to rule in accordance with the Colorado constitution without relying on speculation of what actions the feds might take outside the court system.

And, oh yeah, there is no federal law involved here. Neither an Executive Order nor an agency declaration is a law.

It's an indication of how far were have come towards authoritarianism that even a state judge is treating whatever foams out of the mouths of RFK "My dad would be ashamed of me" Jr. and hydroxychloroquine fan Mehmet "I really am from" Oz as instantly becoming law.

==

2026-04-17
[DOJ demanding Reddit turn over personal info re user who criticized ICE]

"Be careful what you say" is exactly what we should not do. Be honest, yes. Be truthful, yes. If you are asserting particular facts (as opposed to expressing opinion), be correct or at least have a reasonable basis to believe you are correct. (In other words, don't just make crap up. There are more than enough hard facts to suffice.) In any event, do not engage in the self-censorship of "be careful." Rather, be defiant.

As for this particular case, the latest news I can find is that John Doe is going to file a motion to quash the subpoena. Personally, I would think the absence of any legitimate law enforcement purpose would suffice, but we'll have to keep watching.

==

2026-04-18
[comment on YT vid: "I never imagined I'd see the rise of the 4th Reich in this country." response: because people "got complacent," ignored warning signs. then: "not that simple; super rich have been undermining the system."]

"It's not that simple" is a truism, but we should never forget that it implicitly acknowledges that the original assertion [i.e., that people got complacent] is indeed part of the cause. Shifting blame does not absolve us of our responsibility as citizens.

==

2026-04-18
[meme cited CNN story to say 62M cishet men "attend" "online rape academy" re sex with women either drunk, drugged, or asleep]

First, I found the link to the original CNN article. I also found an analysis by Snopes.

(The link is to a re-posting because Snopes.com is now behind a paywall.)

The criticism Snopes had is that the “62 million” figure is an estimate of the total traffic to the entire website over that month, which safely does not consist of 62 million individual cishet men going once each.

And please don’t anyone try to claim I’m downplaying or minimizing the horror here. It’s rather my conviction that when what you can prove is bad enough, exaggeration only invites dismissal.

Footnote: What was not clear from either the CNN article or Snopes was if the whole site is the sort of stuff that is the topic here or is it a pornsite where that is one part.

So I bit the bullet and went there.

It is indeed a site with what I suppose would be the usual range of material; I didn't even find a link on the main page to "sleep" content, although I may well have missed it or it might be deliberately buried. (The main page being as far as I went.)
 
I think this reinforces my concern about exaggeration. You never want to be in a position where your argument leans on a number where a more accurate figure could generate the response "Actually, it's only such-and-so," thereby trying to dismiss your entire argument even if the "only" number is more than enough to make the point.

==

2026-04-18
[re-post opened "Republicans just introduced a bill to force doctors [to] build a government list of trans people."]

Links, dammit! What GOPpers? Where? This reads like it’s referring to a state-level proposal in which case “where” matters in terms of resistance.

Certainly it is painfully obvious to anyone who looks that the ultimate goal is to wipe trans folks from society altogether, to drive them so far into the closet that they couldn’t even find the door even with a flashlight. But while resistance is rooted in awareness, it requires actionable knowledge to bloom.

[Posts and memes with no source provided is an on-going complaint of mine.]

==

2026-04-18
So the real estate salesman who became The Orange Overlord convincing people to vote for him on a promise of “no more wars” is now saying the federal government “can’t take care of day care ... Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”

Why? “We’re fighting wars.”

So everything that doesn't involve being ever-more ready to kill ever-more people has to be up to individual states.

I'd say "Any questions?" but if at this point you still have any, it's too late for you.

==

2026-04-18
[Re why some folks don't realize are trans until well into adulthood.]

I thank you for this even though as a cis male I have little to add to the conversation.

I do have one passing observation: When folks say "I always knew," I don't think they're saying they had "independently formulate[d] an entirely different theory of gender" but rather that looking back later, they "always knew" that things just felt, well, wrong; not that they always knew "I'm really a boy" or "really a girl," but that what was expected of them didn't fit somehow.

Thanks for adding to my understanding, including to some degree of myself.

==

2026-04-19
[Re April 17 The Fucking News.]

This certainly up to your usual standard. (How's THAT for a politician's answer?)

However, the phrase "will 'restore the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE at the CDC'" sent a little shiver through me.

"Gold standard" is a term used regularly in trying to deny gender-affirming care on the grounds that the evidence is "low quality" - most commonly by people who don't know the first thing about the scale or what it's for. 

The term "gold standard" in this context is usually taken to mean blind randomized controlled studies. The problem is that a great deal of modern medicine is not based on such studies but on observational studies, i.e., "what has been tried, what worked, what didn't," which are by definition lower quality.

What's more, it is sometimes impossible to do those kinds of controlled studies in an ethical manner. Consider puberty blockers and hormone therapy. It's well-established that they work and how they work. Doing such a study today would mean denying people needed medication, giving people undesired medication, or both.

And blind? How is a young person to not know if they are or are not going through puberty? If they are or aren't experiencing the effects of prescribed hormones?

Hearing The Orange Overlord reference "the GOLD STANDARD OF SCIENCE" in the context of the CDC does not give hope; it gives me pause. We need to watch this space.

==

2026-04-19
[Oligarch Watch: AI cos push use chatbots for guidance on personal health care.]

I thought this might be worthy of inclusion. Back in November I took a YouGov survey related to public perceptions about the use of AI in healthcare. Three of the questions asked for general responses rather than picking from among multiple choices. This is quoting my responses.

Q: What ethical considerations are most important to think about when adding AI tools to healthcare?
I was told by my surgeon some years ago “You treat the patient, not the X-ray.” The more we use AI, the more that adage is reversed. During my recent hospitalization my PCP came by on their rounds, during which they displayed not through words but tone and demeanor a genuine personal concern for my health, something of which AI is incapable of expressing or feeling, at best offering instead merely an algorithmically-driven facade of concern, a programmed pretense, which well could be likened to the comforting reassurances of the scammer.

Q: What is your overall impression of AI in healthcare?
Not ready for prime time. For now, it’s a bandwagon promising what it can’t (and perhaps never will) deliver, driven less by public health than by the profit-driven preferences of the corporate spectrum of health care (i.e., hospitals and the insurance industry) who pursue a goal of “efficiency” (read as “fewer employees”) and would, as I suggested earlier, “treat the X-ray, not the patient,” with us coming to exist less as patients than as datasets.

Q: Is there anything else about AI in healthcare that you would like to share with us?
AI is good for, indeed excellent at, analyzing large amounts of data, producing results that can be viewed and considered mathematically because that’s what they are - mathematical derivations from mathematical data. But healthcare in general and medicine within that reach involves more than mere data but also includes personalities and foibles and trust and other human interactions along with unavoidable judgment calls driven by such non-mathematical considerations, all of which are beyond its capabilities. Which makes the use of chat boxes by consumers for health information advice fraught with risk and worse as shown by recent suits against various companies whose chat boxes are accused of having encouraged teenager users to commit suicide. AI simply is not up the task to which the health care industry is trying to set it in pursuit of profit.

==

2026-04-20
[Open ended YouGov poll Q: "How do you feel about the use of AI in making movies?"]

I can see its use as a tool in areas such as special effects in ways similar to how previous technologies have been used to make them more realistic. Beyond such areas, that is, where it functions as an improved version of already-existing tools employed under the same sorts of conditions, direction, and control as those, I would strongly prefer it was not used at all.

==

2026-04-21
[Ruling en banc, 5th CCoA upheld TX law requiring 10 Commandments in every classroom.]

Wait wait wait.

"They compared it to the Pledge of Allegiance - which is also religious, with its “one Nation, under God” line - to argue that students aren’t forced to say it."

Did they actually say the part about the Pledge being religious? You say they made the comparison but don't present it as a quote, so it's not clear.

Because if they did, I clearly recall a SCOTUS decision that said the Pledge was NOT religious and "under God" was a mere "civic exercise" which had at most a "tinge" of religion - which was why having to say it did not intrude on the rights of atheists.

In either event, I have to say I disagree on one point: The majority was not "delusional." That knew damn well what they were doing and they did it consciously and deliberately.
-
2026-04-21
[SCOTUS will deny cert, and it will stand.]
Just to make it clear, it will stand in the 5th Circuit, nowhere else. However, the danger there is that it will serve as precedent for other circuits to consider. So either it will spread to significant parts of the country or at some point there will be a split in circuits, at which point SCOTUS would feel entirely justified in stepping in, even feeling obligated to.

So I said... #17 for April 8-14

The latest compilation of my comments and commentary both here and elsewhere.

A rather light week even including the exchange where I got a little testy. The outside world made its claim on my time, including a new commitment to the folks at a weekly rally I attend to doing a regular 5-7 minute presentation which is called for the moment “News Worth Knowing Which You Might Have Missed.”

As always, I’ll try to include enough relevant context to make the comments understandable.

With that said, onward. (I’d say “onward!” but again, content is a bit light this week, so no exclamation point.)

==

2026-04-10
[In comments on an article about Boise’s resistance to attempts to ban Pride flags, someone asked if the rainbow design was related to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition.]

Design of the Pride flag, by all accounts, was the work of San Francisco artist and gay rights activist Gilbert Baker. His original version, from 1978, had eight stripes in different colors and the flag went through a couple of revisions until the now-standard one with six.

Although the Rainbow Coalition itself predates the flag, Jesse Jackson’s National Rainbow Coalition postdates it. Baker said the use of colors was inspired by the hippie movement of the ‘60s and suggested it was inspired to some degree by the Rolling Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow.”

Oh, and to answer more directly, use of a rainbow in symbolism is ancient.

==

2026-04-10
[Lelaina Brandt posted on the source of the gap between polls reflecting support for equal rights for trans folks with others finding opposition to specifics.]

I will have to go back and read this closely, but I did want to throw in this immediate reaction (beyond noting it’s clearly worth taking that close read), which is what may be a quibble about the phrase “people are no longer responding to an idea; they are reacting to its implications.”

Rather than “implications,” I think a better word is “impacts,” recalling Phil Ochs definition of a liberal as “someone who is 10 degrees left of center in good times and 10 degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.”

==

2026-04-10
[Hemant Mehta posted about a Puppeteers of America “World Puppetry Day,” which included a Christian group which gave an inoffensive performance but later proved to be extremist.]

I think the statement “It seems like the group’s Board was simply unaware that a Christian group in their subculture might be problematic... even though you would think the name itself would raise red flags everywhere” is too harsh.

Without details about how any decision was made we’re not in a position to judge. For all we know, the PofA did check - enough to feel secure that nothing in the performance would be offensive and that’s what they focused on.

Contrary to the implication, being Christian does not by definition equal bigot to the point that PofA should have assumed the group was packed with bigots based on the word. “Well, they shoulda known” is not a persuasive argument.
-
[Three different people responded;]
2026-04-10
[1st person: It’s in (the group’s) constitution and bylaws. Not hard to find.]

Did they do that for all groups? Do you? Should they have? If “no,” then you’re arguing that “Christian” means “presumptively bigoted.” And I’ve known too many people in my life for who their religious faith provided a foundation for a life of courage and justice to accept that. No, you don’t need religion for such a foundation, don’t be stupid, but it was theirs and it worked for them.
-
2026-04-10
[2nd person: “NALT argument” - referring to “Not All Like That,” an attempt to downplay or excuse abuses in one’s own group and so implying that’s what I was doing.]

I doubt this will move you, but based on the median age of US adults, I can reasonably expect that I have been when we used to call a “hard” atheist longer than you’ve been alive. But thanks for confirming that you’re acting on pure presumption, not knowledge.
-
2026-04-10
[Lyndon Johnson was president when i was born.]

I stand corrected. I’ve been a hard atheist since you were in nursery school.
-
2026-04-10
[Sure, Jan.]

If you were born during LBJ’s term, you were born no earlier than the tail end of 1963. I was born in 1948 and became an atheist at around 19 or 20, i.e., around 1967-1968, when you would have been no more than 5 and very likely younger.

So yeah, nursery school. If that.

I’m done here.
-
2026-04-10
[3rd person: You should consult with your physician (in response to my comment about me being older than most).]

Median age of US adults is 39, i.e., half are older, half younger. I’ve been an atheist for 57-58 years. So yeah, good chance.

But thanks for playing.

==

2026-04-10
[OynxRose reposted a graphic about grammatical mistakes in referring to trans folks.]

The real problem with “transgendered” from my perspective is that is appears to be a transitive verb, i.e., being transgender is something done to someone, not what someone is.

On the other hand and just to maintain my reputation for persnicketiness, if you were going to make some generalized comment about tall people, then referring to them as “talls,” (e.g. “Talls tend to look down on other people”) while being, yeah, kinda weird, is not grammatically incorrect. It’s called nominalization.

==

2026-04-11
As we deal with what appears to be another horrendous case of abuse of power and sexual assault, this time in the form of Eric Swalwell, there is one thing I will not hear.

And that is one effing word from the GOPpers.

Dozens of women have accused the Orange Overlord of crimes and abuses including rape, child rape, sexual assault, physical abuse, kissing and groping without consent, and voyeurism, including both peeking under skirts and walking in on naked pageant contestants.

He’s repeatedly cheated on his wives, was close friends with a known pedophile and trafficker, and was twice found liable for sexual assault.

And still you GOPpers grovel at his feet, pleading for his favor.

Until you turn your collective backs on him, completely and permanently, you lack the moral standing to say anything at all on the matter. So shut up.

==

2026-04-11
A reality check for those who are calling for invoking the 25th Amendment to get The Orange Overlord out of office, based around I mean, have you actually read it?

Section 4 of the Amendment says if a majority of the cabinet tells the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House in writing that Trump is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office,” Vance becomes Acting President.

But - if Trump responds with a written declaration that “no inability exists,” he’s back in charge.

Except - if within four days after that a majority of the Cabinet repeats the previous assertion, Congress will decide the matter and can remove Trump and make Vance Acting President …

here it comes…

by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, which is a higher standard than impeachment, which only requires a majority in the House.

I’ll be blunt, friends and neighbors: I figure it ain’t gonna happen.

So I said... #16 for March 31 to April 7

 So another variegated conglomeration of perspectives and postulates from your couthy sesquipedalian. At or least I think it is.

As always, I’ve included context where I thought it would help understanding the comment itself along with links to the original if you’d like to check it out. With that, here we go.

2026-03-31
[Most comments in WaPo on SCOTUS oral arguments re Trump’s birthright citizenship order supported the 14th Amendment being read literally. Supporting Trump, someone wrote dismissively “Please tell me which Supreme Court case ruled where the plaintiff’s parents were in the US illegally. This reminds me of being told the 14th amendment case about getting Trump off ballot was a slam dunk, only to lose 9-0.”]

I expect this will not satisfy you but US v. Wong Kim Ark (1898) involved a child who was born to parents who were subjects of the Emperor of China and so had neither US citizenship nor allegiance but yes, were here legally. But his parents had no diplomatic exception (they were “not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China”), so he was “subject to the jurisdiction” of the US - interpreted to mean “required to obey US law.” So yes, the Court did rule on that very point. Thus, the Court ruled, Wong Kim Ark was a citizen by birth.

Bluntly, it’s hard to imagine a space in there where the argument “Yeah, but they were documented so that doesn’t count” would fit unless you were to argue that being undocumented means you’re not required to obey the law, an argument I doubt would find much support.

Oh, as for those “legal scholars,” a phrase I strongly suspect was used sarcastically, you should have asked me. I predicted it would fail, albeit on a different basis.(1)
-
[Wong Kim Ark was actually a test case. In 1884, a person named Look Tin Eli had sued the government in the US Circuit Court for the Central District of California over his citizenship. He won, as the court affirmed that a native-born person is a US citizen regardless of race or ancestry. Some supporters were disappointed that the US declined to appeal because they wanted to get the matter before SCOTUS and the case of Wong Kim Ark provided the opportunity. The Look Tin Eli case was cited by SCOTUS in its favorable opinion.]

==

2026-04-01
There should be a requirement that any client considering conversion “therapy” should be given accurate information on all risks involved, including psychological harm and increased risk of suicide, and the success rate. Then they can make an informed decision and bluntly I wonder how many would continue in that event.

==

2026-04-01
[A woman in Kansas named Samantha Boucher noted Trans Day of Visibility by openly defying the state’s new bathroom ban.]

Bravo to her.

I wonder if [Gov. Kris] Koback would try to dodge the whole thing by saying he doesn’t want to bring attention to a “stunt” so will do nothing because she didn’t really “use” the restroom, just went in and right out.

I doubt he’s that clever, but these kinds of laws are often passed with the idea that trans folks will simply disappear from the restrooms and there will be no consequences that might get attention or even some sympathy among the public.

==

2026-04-03
[Referring to a list of suggested responses to being challenged for using the “wrong” restroom.]

I’ve re-written this three or four times because I keep thinking it could by misunderstood. This is my last shot at this.

I doubt the situation described will arise for me (I’m cis and in a safe state) since the freakage level over transmen in restrooms seems quite muted (which I say supports my contention that a lot of this is old-fashioned, albeit an extreme form of, sexism) but if it ever did I would be the bystander.

I think in that case my first instinct would be to blurt out “Why?” and if anything about being trans figured in a response, follow with “Prove it.” That is, “put up or shut up,” intending to shield the target from the harassment. (It occurs to me now that a better response would be “And?”)

But my favorite among the proposed bystander responses is #3 - actually, forget the first part as unnecessary; just use the second.

[The whole #3 was ”Who polices other people’s restroom use? You’re being really weird right now.”]

==

2026-04-03
[The Ohio House passed a bill to outlaw drag shows. Someone argued that some provisions could make it illegal for transgender folks to appear in public.]

The bill is indeed bad and hopefully will be killed or at least significantly modified, but I have to say I think your description in some ways goes too far.

Specifically, the section on “adult cabaret performance” (lines 153-173 of the bill, found at https://search-prod.lis.state.oh.us/api/v2/general_assembly_136/legislation/hb249/02_PH/pdf/) repeatedly uses the terms “performance,” performers,” and “entertainers.” Applying that to “a transgender individual simply walking down the street wearing makeup” stretches the wording (the “legislative intent”) far past the breaking point.

But! That “cisgender woman playing a guitar in a park” wearing “too masculine” clothing? Oh, yeah. Just call her a performer and bang, covered by the law. Um, except wait - the section also says the performance must be “harmful to juveniles or obscene,” so just playing a guitar in a park isn’t enough, regardless of the clothing. (Yes, I looked up the definitions of “harmful to juveniles” and “obscene.” They’re all about “prurient interest” and “arousing lust.” https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2907.01)

I wholeheartedly embrace your (implied but accurate) argument that actually defining what constitutes “masculine” and “feminine” expression is a fool’s errand and I also agree that any attempt to do so, even by implication, is a threat to trans rights.

But here I’d focus on the obvious intention to ban drag shows by regarding them as de facto sexual and thus obscene. One thing I think the attempt shows is how difficult (if it’s even possible, which I very much doubt) to do that without trampling on basic rights and opening the door to “guilt by personal opinion of a cop.” Such bills can and should be rejected outright.

==

2026-04-03
Ben Meiselas reports that in a talk at George Washington University, Karoline Leavitt told the audience that her advice is to always be the most well-read person in the room - then said Trump always is.

I used to call her Levity because no one should take her seriously but this goes beyond that. She is either a pathological liar or in some other way deeply mentally disturbed.

==

2026-04-03
[The Georgia legislature ended its session with all of the nearly 15 anti-trans bills having failed.]

This is excellent news and everyone involved in this achievement should savor the moment and accept congratulations.

In passing, this raises something I’ve wondered about. This isn’t the first time a state legislature has come to the end of a session with a whole bunch of anti-trans laws dying without action.

So do some of these people sometimes introduce such legislation without really caring if it passes or not, they just want to be able to use “I introduced” or “I supported” such-and-such on the campaign trail, avoiding both the possibility of being “out anti-transed” by some opponent and the stronger pushback from the other side that could arise if it actually passed?

Just speculating; as a practical matter, I doubt it makes any difference.

==

2026-04-04
[Referring to forgiving MAGAs: “My gut instinct is to NEVER forgive them for their cruelty and greed.”]

I’ll just offer a variation on what I said about this very topic several days ago on a different site.

I’m what used to be called a fallen-away Catholic. In fact, I fell so far I fell away from theism altogether. But I can remember from my Catechism what’s required for forgiveness in Confession: contrition and penance - genuine regret and a sacrifice to make up for what you did.

The penance was pretty invariably symbolic, saying some prayers and the like, but still was a necessary part of the process of forgiveness.

The same should apply here. You want me to “welcome you into our tent?” First, give me good cause to believe you sincerely regret what you’ve done. (I think of the woman in that viral clip who said she voted for the Orange Overlord three times, punctuated with “That’s on me. Obviously, I’m an idiot.”)

Second, tell me what you’ll now do to make up for - more importantly, to undo - the harm you’ve helped to cause. Note that “I’ll never vote for another Republican” is not good enough. It is not penance and will not serve the purpose any more than a convicted robber saying “I’ll never steal anything else” does not excuse them from consequences. Tell me what positive action you will take (or have taken).

Then we can talk about forgiveness.

==

2026-04-04
So Gregg Phillips, associate administrator for FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, has doubled down on his claim of having been repeatedly teleported and connected it to his religious beliefs, claiming that the Bible refers to being “translated” or “transported” - that is, he got to a Waffle House through divine intervention.

“Here’s the real question,” he said. “What’s harder to believe? That God could move in a moment during a spiritual battle, or Jesus Christ rose from the dead and is coming again?”

In other words, which is harder to believe: 1+1=5 or 2+2=pi?

==

2026-04-04
[Various extremist Xians want women to be unable to vote.]

Whenever I read about this sort of bigoted insanity presuming a Biblical basis for their anti-democratic, anti-freedom, male-supremacist crackpot notions, I recall seeing (as part of my job at the time) a marriage manual from either the late 16th or early 17th century advising that, as near as I can quote from memory, a man who marries a woman from who he can’t get advice has a fool for a wife - and she has a fool for a husband.

==

2026-04-05
[In a comment, a parent told how their trans daughter, despite having adopted a new name at school, had declined using it at home until some time later.]

I can understand how that would hurt. But I suspect there was a reason: The whole purpose of the sort of social transitioning she did at school could have well been for her a matter of, if you will, trying it on, seeing if it fits, if it feels right, “is this me.” You said it yourself: She “tried” new pronouns and a new name.

Doing it with you, OTOH, isn’t a trial or a test, it’s a conclusion. A decision. She just needed more time to make it.

So when she did come out to you, she was saying “This is who I am. I’ve decided.” By giving her that time, you did the right thing.

==

2026-04-05
My response to “Yeah, well, all lives matter!” was to say “Yes, all lives matter. And if we actually acted like all lives matter, it wouldn’t be necessary to say ‘Black lives matter.’”

[I also used to say that in saying or thinking the phrase, the stress should be on the last word, not the first.]

==

2026-04-05
[“Some Democrats soften or side step trans rights. It doesn’t read as strategic. It reads as hesitation in the face of coordinated attacks.”]

“It doesn’t read as strategic. It reads as hesitation.”

More accurately, it reads as fear. The same old fear that has plagued the Democratic party for decades, the fear that the reactionaries might say something nasty about you in a campaign, so better to downplay the issue, even better to avoid mentioning it at all and be forever prepared to yield ground if it comes up. Consider it a political version of “duck and cover.”

Transgender rights are not the only example. There have been many over the years. The issue here, narrowly defined, is not trans rights but institutional cowardice, the kind of stark political cowardice that has had a major role in getting us into our current mess.

I know I have several times on this platform recalled seeing a survey from all the way back in the Gingrich era finding that people didn’t dislike Democrats for what they stood for but because they didn’t seem to stand for anything.

Well, that remains true today, as the intensity of Democrats’ active opposition to The Orange Overlord (TOO) is pretty much in inverse ratio to his favorability rating and the safer it looks politically on a given issue the more willing they are to go after him.

(I still cringe when I recall Hakeem Jeffries, around the time of the OBBB - the Obnoxious Barbarous Bigoted Bill - actually saying something to the effect that the Dems were waiting for TOO’s favorability rating to drop below 40% - in other words, when it was safe enough - promising that then, they’d really go after him. You can decide for yourself how well they followed through on that.)

I’ve said this before, perhaps even here, but I think it bears repeating. It’s not necessary for Dems to make trans rights the or even a centerpiece of their campaign, particularly as it ranks low on lists of people’s concerns and even Republicans in some polls say their party spends too much time on the issue.

What is necessary is to say clearly that you support trans rights and when challenged don’t evade and don’t back down.

And don’t settle for defense. Instead say something like “Of course I support trans rights because they are human rights. Trans folks have every bit as much right to grow and flourish, to go through their lives smoothly, without discrimination, and to be treated with respect and fairness the same as anyone else does. The really important question is why the other side is so damned focused on people’s genitalia instead of on” whatever issue or issues seem appropriate at the moment.

I’ve gone on long enough. Probably too long. So I’ll stop.

==

2026-04-06
The Pentagon has failed its department-wide financial audit eight years in a row.

Admittedly, US military operations are very complex, so clean audits are a challenge.

But if any “woke” program had a record anything like that, Faux News would be melting TV screens with the heat of its rage.

==

2026-04-06
I was watching the live NASA coverage of the Artemis mission. As the crew went to the Moon’s dark side (losing contact for 40 minutes) one of them just had to invoke Jesus to say “love your neighbor,” punctuated by ground control echoing the statement and adding “How great Thou art.”

:sigh:

==

2026-04-07
[Erin Reed demolished a study claiming to prove GAC actually harms the mental health of trans youth.]

Okay, I gotta be honest. I got as far as the percentages (the 9.8% before vs. 60.7% after) and a vibrantly bright red flag started flying.

Phrased rather more coherently than my initial response, it was “Wait - they’re comparing the mental health of folks who got and didn’t get GAC based on psychiatric visits after an initial one? But if someone was at that initial visit to obtain GAC, getting additional counseling would be a pretty normal part of the process of transitioning. Of course they’d have more visits than the general population!”

And that was before learning that they might have years of visits before they could even start actual medical transitioning (i.e. GAHT) - not to mention the history of the study author.

And this tripe got published? Just wow.

==

2026-04-07
[A commenter responded to Megan Rapinoe saying “They lost the battle on gay marriage” with “If they don’t lose hard enough over transgender issues, they will level their political guns to reverse that loss.”]

“they will next level all their political guns to reverse that loss”

They already are. The “LGB without the T” folks who think they’re safe are fools.
-
2026-04-07
[They are. I do think that attacking us is distracting some of the SoCons efforts from that though...]

True enough. But the reactionaries have already legitimized the notion “transgender = drag queen = sex” and it’s not that far a reach to reprising “disgusting” descriptions of “disgusting” gay/lesbian sex of the sort I remember from not that many decades ago.

The LGB/noT crowd should remember that Martin Niemöller’s poem is not just about Germany.

THAT’S IT! SEE YA IN A WEEK OR SO!

---

 

1 The 14th Amendment, Section 3, says that anyone who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the US is ineligible for public office. The argument was that Trump was thus disqualified and Colorado tried to remove him from the ballot. The Court ruled that it was up to Congress, not the states, to make the decision about ballot eligibility. I had predicted they would rule that for Constitutional purposes he couldn’t be held to have “engaged in insurrection” absent a conviction on a relevant charge.

SCOTUS: Colorado can't ban conversion "therapy"

So SCOTUS chose to mark Trans Visibility Day by taking another sledgehammer to another support for trans rights.

On March 31, the Scurrilous Six - plus two others (Sotomayor and Kagan) who demonstrated in a supporting opinion that they utterly missed the reality surrounding the entire matter - but I’ll get to that later…

Anyway, SCOTUS, by 8-1, declared that the state of Colorado cannot ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors, framing it as a “content-based regulation” of free speech while rather desperately (and largely successfully) avoiding mention of the actual real-world impact that can be expected to arise from this ruling.

Instead, the Supremes devoted an inordinate amount of time to fine-lining a difference between “speech” and “action” in order to declare conversion therapy is the former and not the latter and so is protected speech - even though the Court had long ago recognized that action can be speech(1) and speech can constitute action.(2)

The result is that the Court wound up arguing in pretty much just these words that a state expecting a licensed therapist to treat clients in accord with prevailing standards of care is an offense to the Constitution.

In fact, according to Neil Gore-much, writing for the majority, prevailing standards of care are irrelevant if indeed they exist at all.

Wholly embracing the Department of Injustice’s argument, he cited the fact that homosexuality was once considered an illness to declare that “medical consensus is not static” and may change(3) and so cannot be allowed to impact the speech of a therapist.

But if current best knowledge and practice is not to be the standard the state can expect of a licensed medical practitioner, what is the basis for any regulation? You are left, it would appear, only with regulations that are purely arbitrary (and so even less likely to be “static” because of being based on the prejudices and personal advantage of whoever has power at the moment) or with no regulations at all and anyone, even licensed practitioners, can claim anything(4) provided, that is, their targets are transgender young folks.

The idea of standards, though, raises something else I found deeply offensive in the ruling, which is the tendency of SCOTUS - especially the Scurrilous Six making up the majority of this bunch - to treat standards like modeling clay, to be shaped to whatever form fits the moment and their ideology.

Consider that in the Skrmetti decision, the Court found that Tennessee’s ban on GAC for young trans folks merely “removes one set of diagnoses,” that is, those relating to gender dysphoria, “from the range of treatable conditions,” labeling that drastic restriction on access to health care as legitimate because the state has the power to regulate the practice of medicine.(5)

But here, according to the majority, the state does not have the power to regulate the practice of medicine to remove one method from the range of acceptable therapies - even though, unlike GAC, that therapy, “conversion” or “reparative” therapy, is rejected by every major medical organization as “pseudoscientific,” “discredited,” ineffective, and downright harmful. Put less delicately because I don’t have to be, it’s claptrap and its only effect is to make things worse.

According to the Trevor Project, research shows that “LGBTQ+ youth who experienced conversion therapy are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide and more than 2.5 times as likely to report multiple suicide attempts in the past year” and the experience is “associated with long-lasting social and emotional consequences, including depression, anxiety, suicidality, substance abuse, post-traumatic responses, loss of connection to community, damaged familial relationships, self-blame, guilt, and shame.”

But all of that is irrelevant, unimportant, just collateral damage to be justified on the grounds that, as Gore-much put it, “the First Amendment stands as a shield against any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.”

But the whole damn point of conversion therapy is to enforce orthodoxy! The whole purpose is to enforce orthodoxy! Eagerly embraced by reactionary faux-”Christian” bigots, the whole notion is to turn gay and lesbian minors straight and get transgender children to identify as their birth sex rather than their true gender - in other words, to insure every child is heteronormative without regard to whether they are happy or not, whole or not.

The name itself gives it away: When it’s not called “conversion therapy,” as in “we’re going to convert you,” it’s “reparative therapy,” as in “you’re broken and we’re going to ‘repair’ you.”

Even Kaley Chiles, the therapist at the center of the case, who calls herself “a practicing Christian” who believes that “people flourish when they live consistently with God’s design” gives the game away even as she tries to hide it within carefully-chosen and movement-approved language. In the wake of the decision, she talked about “look[ing] forward to being able to help them when they choose the goal of growing comfortable with their bodies” - that is, becoming cis straight - and about “walking alongside these young people” when in reality she is behind them, consciously pushing them to a pre-determined (by her) conclusion, while (in her mind) bravely refusing “to promot[e] state-approved goals like gender transition, which often leads to harmful drugs and surgeries.”(6)

So how in flaming hell could Kagan and Sotomayor, who we thought would have some grasp of what this decision means, sign on to it?

The simple answer is that they did not grasp what it means, preferring to dwell in some ethereal realm of legal theory instead of the real world and real impacts on real people, rather like looking to use Plato’s perfect forms to deal with the daily physical reality we inhabit.

In the concurring opinion she wrote for herself and Sotomayor, Kagan bizarrely suggested that a complete ban on therapy aimed at a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity might be lawful - that is, the state can ban pseudoscientific, discredited, conversion therapy provided that it denies all youth access to any LGBTQ+-related therapy at all. Which is not only ridiculous on its face, it would effectively ban transition entirely because no one does that without counseling as part of the process. A case of “you really didn’t think this through, did you?”

It gets worse, though, because the real issue with the law, she wrote, is that “the State has suppressed one side of a debate, while aiding the other, [and so] the constitutional issue is straightforward.”

Except this is not a goddam political debate! This is not a philosophical discussion about varying perspectives on some hypothetical situation. This is about scientific fact. This is about the authority of a state government to protect its people from being victimized by bogus treatments, and banning conversion therapy should be no more controversial and with no more impact on the Constitution than banning snake oil.

And the failure of Kagan and Sotomayor to recognize that is and I’m being gentle here profoundly disappointing and bluntly they should be ashamed of themselves.

There was one person who saw the situation for what it was and is and addressed the actual impact and for that reason said “No.”

That was, of course, Ketanji Brown Jackson, who not only dissented, she did so loudly, taking the unusual step of reading her opinion (or maybe a summary of it, it wasn’t clear in the sources I saw) in the courtroom, something traditionally done by a Justice to register just how strongly they disagreed with the ruling.

And it was indeed strong, going after every aspect of the majority opinion, for example calling the conclusion that regulating speech-based medical treatments is unconstitutional(7) because the treatment is being administered solely through speech “maddeningly circular” and “based on happenstance, not logic.”

She also pointed directly to the record of damage caused by conversion therapy and accused the majority of potentially “ushering in an era of unprofessional and unsafe medical care” with some forms of treatment are effectively unregulated.

She concluded by saying that “the correct course of action here is to hold” a line set by precedent: “Speech uttered for purposes of providing medical treatment may be restricted incidentally when the State reasonably regulates the speaker’s provision of medical treatments to patients.

“To do anything else opens a dangerous can of worms. It threatens to impair States’ ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect. It extends the Constitution into uncharted territory in an utterly irrational fashion. And it ultimately risks grave harm to Americans’ health and wellbeing.”(8)

That clatter you hear is a mic hitting the floor.

For my own closing statement, I will defer to the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, who note something that at this moment it is vital for all of us, LGBTQ+ folks and allies alike, to remember:

“This case is about how conversion therapy can be regulated NOT whether conversion therapy is safe or legal. No matter how the Supreme Court ruled, conversion therapy will remain malpractice, consumer fraud, and a violation of the ethical standards that govern every licensed mental health professional in this country.”

We can, we should, we must carry it on.

---

 

1 Laws banning flag burning as protest were struck down as free speech violations because burning a flag is “symbolic speech.”

2 Slander and libel, for example, which can have real-world impacts on, can cause actionable “damage” to the target.

3 The American Psychiatric Association declassified homosexuality as a mental illness in 1973 - 53 years ago.

4 Which may in fact be pleasing to some on SCOTUS and the rest of their reactionary ilk, remembering George Will’s recognition of “Back to 1900” as “a serviceable summation of the conservative goal.” Because medical care based on traveling patent medicine shows was so cool.

5 I wondered at the time if Tennessee could just decide that, say, a diagnosis of diabetes was also outside “the range of treatable conditions” and so ban treatments for the condition and make insulin unavailable.

6 It would be interesting for someone to ask her first how many of her clients actually come to her of their own free will saying some version of “I’m gay/lesbian/queer/trans and I don’t want to be” as opposed to being brought there by parents or someone else and second how many come to her saying “I’m anxious/depressed/whatever and she turns it into “It’s because you’re LGBTQ+, that’s the problem.”

7 Technically, “presumptively” unconstitutional because what the Court actually did is send the case back down for a rehearing to examine the law under “strict scrutiny,” a standard requiring the law to be a) required to achieve a “compelling state interest,” b) “narrowly tailored” to the purpose, and c) using the “least restrictive means” to achieve it. So few laws survive that test that it’s reasonable to say it was struck down except for the paperwork.

8 I admit to getting an ego boost from the fact that parts of her argument overlapped some of my own objections.

So I said... #15 for March 22 to 30

The next issue of my occasional comments on various topics on various sites over the past week or so with, as always, enough additional context for folks to be able to tell what’s going on. A note on style: If within a comment something is in brackets - [ ] - it’s as the comment originally appeared and signified I was editing something inside a quote; if it’s in italics it’s something added here for added context.

Let’s go.

2026-03-21
[Chris Giedner (Law Dork) posted about a recent court action in a case involving employees of the US Agency for Global Media who had been placed on administrative leave during the DOGE days of defenestrations.]

Your last line - “it is likely that a number of employees have left the agency for other work” - raises something I think hasn’t been considered enough.

The minions and jesters of the court of The Orange Overlord don’t have to outright win to do significant damage to the ability of the federal government to do useful work, they just have to stall long enough for the employees booted out to be unable to wait for a resolution.

Suppose half of those employees have gone on to other jobs. The result would be a court-approved 30% cut in USAGM staff with no requirement (or reason to expect) that those open positions would be filled.

For a similar reason, I’m also concerned about another topic up for discussion which I will make bold to refer to here: The Orange Overlord’s half-brag, half-threat to issue an EO federalizing the midterms. I keep hearing it said that in that event he’d be sued and he’d lose because the law, the Constitution, and history are so clear on the matter.

But my worry is that, just like with DOGE (which I always pronounce “dodgy,” because it was/is), he doesn’t have to win - he just has to cause enough confusion and delay to screw things up, disrupt the whole voting process, in enough places to give him a reason (not a good one, just a “reason”) to declare a national emergency and start seizing ballot boxes and declaring the vote void.

This doesn’t mean he’d succeed or even that he’d try; maybe he’ll think the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) raised by his constant ranting about “voter fraud” will be sufficiently useful to convince the faithful the election was “stolen” and enough others that elections are “insecure” and voting must be restricted.

But either way, it is a potential for social chaos that we ignore at our peril.

==

2026-03-22
[YouTuber Farron Cousins posted about a report that the USPS is within a year of bankruptcy. Just to be clear, Cousins was speaking in support of the USPS.]

Thanks for the attention to this, but you left out the part about requiring the USPS to pre-finance retirement benefits out to 75 years - meaning the USPS is putting aside money to pay future benefits for future retirees who haven’t been born yet. Oh, and the rules limiting how much the prices for stamps and services can go up. And how Congress can make all these rules for how the USPS operates while - as you note - not putting a single damn dollar toward the cost.

That last is particular infuriating because the wingnuts are forever going on about how people too poor to pay federal income taxes should have to pay them in order to have “skin in the game.” Shouldn’t the same apply here?

==

2026-03-23
[A discussion about Flat Earth brought in a reference to Einstein and the Theory of Relativity.]

Just a correction about the history: Einstein did not think the universe was shrinking. He thought it was eternal, steady, neither shrinking nor expanding - because that was the accepted belief at the time. But someone (I’m embarrassed to admit I’m both unable to remember the name and too lazy to look it up) [Credit is usually given to Russian mathematician Alexander Friedman in 1922.] proved that Einstein’s universe was unstable, it had to be growing or shrinking. So he created the so-called “cosmological constant,” an arbitrary factor inserted to keep the universe stable. When it was proved the universe is expanding,, he took it out, calling his failure to trust his own work his “greatest blunder.”

==

mis2026-03-24
[A meme criticized using “they” as 3rd-person singular - and used it that way in the meme.]

Use of “they” as a third person singular has been in use since the 14th Century. At some point, apparently in the mid-1700s, some tight-ass grammarians decided it was wrong or low-class or some such crap.

The meme only serves to puts an exclamation point on how stupid the complaint is.

==

2026-03-24
[A video showed a dog aggressively defending a stray kitten during a rainstorm. A passing driver rescued both. People claimed it was AI because the dog appeared to have an extra paw.]

The argument is not entirely convincing because if the dog was leaning against the curb with its back legs sprawled out to the other side, that “extra foot” could easily be the foot of the left back leg folded under the dog’s body - particularly because the “extra” paw is turned in the way that such a paw would be in that case.

However - my problem is that I can’t see a way to trace that paw back to a leg. Maybe there is, but I’m not seeing it.

My conclusion: AI? Yeah, I suppose more likely than not - but not for the reasons people here have cited. And I’m not convinced it is.

What’s sad is not only that now we have to think “Is it real or is it AI” (Anyone else old enough to recall “Is it live or is it Memorex?”) but that it’s become an ego game to pore over details of cute but ultimately unimportant videos in order to be the first to shout “AI!” and thus demonstrate your supposed cleverness. Or cynicism, whatever.

==

2026-03-24
So now it’s “extermination” rather than “obliteration” in Iran? What, did The Orange Overlord turn the page on his “Word of the Week” desk calendar?

==

2026-03-25
A the risk of appearing in a future video about odd comments, I have to dispute one assertion you made about sex and gender. They are indeed different things, but gender is not a social construct. Gender expression, what behaviors, dress, and the like mark “masculine” and “feminine” in a given culture, is. But the concept of gender itself is not.

==

2026-03-28
[Kentucky is about to pass a bill declaring trans people to be mentally ill and barring them from being teachers. A response referred to a likely veto by Gov. Andy Beshear.]

GOPpers hold super-majorities in both Houses of the Kentucky legislature. Beshear’s likely veto is for them a mere momentary glitch.

There was a time - not even all that long ago - when it was possible to regard moves like this as cold-blooded political calculation driven by selfish interest and rooted in the the notion that it was good for votes.

But we have gone far past that. There is nothing cold-blooded about this; rather, it is the fiery blood of hatred fueled by fanaticism - and, I strongly suspect, the self-loathing over guilty fantasies turned outward.
-
2026-03-28
[By the time the red and blue states finish passing their “Soft Secession” laws, there will be no “United” in United States.]

Tgerue enough. You can get a reasonable sense of the geographic nature of that division by examining a map of the US Courts of Appeal and looking at the 5th, 8th, 10th, and 11th Circuits, removing Minnesota, Colorado, and New Mexico, and adding Montana and Idaho.
-
2026-03-28
[A different comment on the same post referred to the Kentucky bill as “stupid” because of the mixture of standards it uses.]

It’s not stupid. Offensive, hating, vicious, lots of other noxious qualities, but not stupid. They know exactly what they’re doing, picking and choosing what works and words serve their twisted impulses.

It’s much like Humpty Dumpty, who said “When I use a word” - or a citation - “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.”

I look to the time when these Humpty Dumptys have their great fall and can’t be put together again.

==

2026-03-29
[At a hearing on March 26, Minnesota State Rep. Mary Franson dismissed a panel discussing climate change because “my faith is not in climate change ... my faith is in Jesus” and the world doesn’t end that way. The post also referred to Sen. James Inhofe who once carried a snowball onto the Senate floor to deny climate change.]

To Rep. Mary QuiteContrary, who says “My faith is not in climate change.” That’s because recognizing climate change does not require faith. You have actual physical evidence and records; you have observations and measurements; you have predictions borne out by later observations and measurements. You don’t need the “evidence of things not seen” if the things are seen.

Oh, and climatologists are not predicting the end of the world, you dumb bozo. They are predicting mass damage to human civilization. You may in your delusion think they’re the same. I suspect both those who die from the coming changes and those who manage to survive them will think differently.

You might do well to contemplate Mark 8:18 - “Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?”

(As a footnote, I clearly remember five-time winner of my “Clown Award” James “RocksInHisHead” Inhofe - my appropriate name for him because his middle name was no joke “Mountain” - and his being repeatedly mocked by Sheldon Whitehouse after his stunt by going through a list of proofs for climate change and punctuating each by saying the Senate could believe the science or “the senator with the snowball.”)

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2026-03-30
A few brief thoughts on my New Kings day.

All the expected adjectives - exciting, invigorating, enthusiastic, simultaneously joyful and angry, and more - all apply. The crowd was larger than the last time (although the organizers did fall short of their hope to double it) but the growth in energy clearly outstripped the growth in numbers.

I have a decent degree of confidence in my own crowd size estimates but I do lean toward being conservative because I envision a protest crowd as a measure of potential energy and I like thinking that the energy present is more than I’m estimating rather than less. With that in mind, I estimated 4,000 were present.

Beyond that, I was surprised even maybe taken aback by the overwhelmingly favorable response by the cars coming by on this busy roadway to the point that I didn’t hear a single vulgar shout and my housemate only noticed two - and it wasn’t just a single beep going by, it was people riding the horn the length of the line.

But what really did my heart good is that when things broke up, I hopped in my car to catch the last quarter hour or so of another rally because it was in the town I grew up and the idea there was one there, well, I had to see that. As I approached, I saw a small group at one corner of an intersection, okay, maybe they turned out 200 or maybe more - only to then realize that the line actually stretched out in all four directions and there were by my guess pushing 1000 people there. And yes, that made me smile. To steal a phrase, bigly.

Next up big day: May 1.

Missing Obama outrage? Memes and meanings

[A friend emailed me a meme showing a smirking Obama next to a poster saying “I used ICE to deport three million Americans at the same time I bombed seven countries without Congressional approval. Where was your outrage then?” He asked me “Is any of this accurate?”]

The simple answer is yes, the real answer a bit more complicated.

The administration of The Amazing Mr. O was a mess of contradictions on immigration.

On the one hand, it supported things like DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and the DREAM Act, which would have provided people who came here as children with a path to citizenship.

On the other hand, it did deport more people than any previous administration and yes the total came to about 3 million over the eight years, leading immigration-rights communities to call him “the Deporter-in-Chief.”

On the other other hand, over time, particularly after a policy change in 2014, the deportations came to focus more and more on people who had actually been convicted of serious crimes, as result of which the rate of deportations pretty steadily dropped over the period 2009-2016. And a not-insignificant percentage of the deportations were I forget the technical term but were people who were caught crossing the border and were sent back immediately, so that in the technical legal sense they never entered the US but were counted as deportations - as even the administration of The Orange Overlord not only admitted but criticized as suggesting Obama was overstating his administration’s attempts to “secure the border.”

Oh, wait, I need a fourth hand. A lot of the people now targeted by the reactionaries populating what should be called the wrong wing are those who had entered legally and simply overstayed their visa. They were supposed to obtain a green card within a year. The Orange Overlord canceled a policy that said that simply not having done that by then was not by itself sufficient grounds for detention or deportation. That policy was adopted in 2010 - that is, during Obama’s first term (and therefore existed throughout TOO’s first term).

As for outrage, it was indeed muted (I have groused often enough about how the left goes silent when a D is in the White House) but not absent; thus the “Deporter-in-Chief” label and the shift in later years in the direction of the actually convicted. So yeah, definitely bad - but today is way worse.

The outrage now is driven by four differences: The open violence and racism of the approach, intentionally designed to spread terror among immigrant communities; the indiscriminate sweeping up of citizens and legal residents¹; the refusal to acknowledge and deliberate efforts to avoid providing an opportunity for habeas relief; and the openly-declared intent to deport not the roughly 400,000 per year of the Obama term, but a million per year while all but openly declaring they want the US to be a white ethno-state. (”America is for Americans and Americans only.” - Stephen Miller, October 2024)

Oh, and don’t forget the attacks on birthright citizenship and the recrudescence of family separation. (I recently learned the word “recrudescence,” meaning “the return of something bad after a period of relief,” and I love it.)

Bottom line for me: Yes, Obama deported three million people and yes that was more than any previous administration and yes he didn’t get near enough pushback. I was among the guilty on that, as immigration was a topic I only occasionally addressed prior to about 2016. I did do a three-parter on the overall topic in 2019 which I reposted in 2024; if you want, you can see them here:

https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-three-fer-on-immiagration-part-one.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-three-fer-on-immigration-part-two.html
https://whoviating.blogspot.com/2024/04/a-three-fer-on-immigration-part-three.html

As for the bombing, yeah, he absolutely did bomb seven countries (some claim eight, but that involves stretching definitions): Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Pakistan, and Yemen. And yes, it absolutely was without specific Congressional authorization.

Obama claimed the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) from either 2001 or, in the case of Iraq, 2002 gave him the authority, an assertion at best called a cheap and convenient excuse (more accurately, complete bullshit) to avoid any necessity to justify any of it and knowing he could get away with exercising extraordinary and extra-legal power because Congress was too feckless or in the case of Democrats too anxious about the horrifying prospect of challenging their popular president to do anything about it.² All he had to do was to wave around the label “terrorist” and anything goes³ - including goes “boom.”

It wasn’t only bombing, by the way. Over his time in office, he also blew through his own declared limits on US forces in Iraq, the time frame for withdrawal from Afghanistan, and no “boots on the ground” in Syria.

And again, the outrage was muted - but I had enough of my own. You might like to watch this starting at about 11:15 to see my 10 reasons I wasn’t going to vote for Obama in 2012:

I just realized that this was very likely TMI but screw it, I’m not going to edit it. Just correcting typos takes more energy than I case to devote.

-- 

¹I did note with bitter amusement that apparently when Obama deported people, they were “Americans,” not “illegal alien murderers and rapists threatening our very way of life.” Then again, a study of deportation cases in the period January 1, 2011 to September 30, 2014, discovered that over a quarter of them had to be dropped because the assumed “illegal alien” was somehow able to prove that they are a US citizen. As I said at the time, “We can only wonder how many others, unable to afford an attorney, got railroaded right out of the country in the midst of - or as the result of - rushed proceedings pushed through overloaded immigration courts without proper research or background.”

²It is worth recalling that in 2007, Obama said that “The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

³Including extrajudicial murder.