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bolverk

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  1. Follow up on someone's previous post about the new Canadian PM purposefully snubbing the US for obvious reasons. I'm sure we've all noticed the almost total silence of this board's cowardly "conservative" contigent the last month or so -- even in DT. New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney seeks alliances in Europe as he deals with Trump MONTREAL (AP) β€” New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Paris and London on Monday to seek alliances as he deals with U.S. President Donald Trump’s attacks on Canada’s sovereignty and economy. Carney is purposely making his first foreign trip to the capital cities of the two countries that shaped Canada’s early existence. At his swearing-in ceremony on Friday, Carney noted the country was built on the bedrock of three peoples, French, English and Indigenous, and said Canada is fundamentally different from America and will β€œnever, ever, in any way shape or form, be part of the United States.” A senior government government official briefed reporters on the plane before picking up Carney in Montreal and said the purpose of the trip is to double down on partnerships on with Canada’s two founding countries. The official said Canada is a β€œgood friend of the United States but we all know what is going on.” β€œThe Trump factor is the reason for the trip. The Trump factor towers over everything else Carney must deal with,” said Nelson Wiseman, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. Carney, a former central banker who turned 60 on Sunday, will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday and later travel to London to sit down with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer in an effort to diversify trade and perhaps coordinate a response to Trump’s tariffs. He will also meet with King Charles III, the head of state in Canada. The trip to England is a bit a homecoming, as Carney is a former governor of the Bank of England, the first noncitizen to be named to the role in the bank’s 300-plus-year history. Carney then travels to the edge of Canada’s Arctic to β€œreaffirm Canada’s Arctic security and sovereignty” before returning to Ottawa where he’s expected to call an election within days. Carney has said he’s ready to meet with Trump if he shows respect for Canadian sovereignty. He said he doesn’t plan to visit Washington at the moment but hopes to have a phone call with the president soon. Sweeping tariffs of 25% and Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st U.S. state have infuriated Canadians, and many are avoiding buying American goods when they can. Carney’s government is reviewing the purchase of U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets in light of Trump’s trade war. The governing Liberal Party had appeared poised for a historic election defeat this year until Trump declared economic war and repeatedly has said Canada should become the 51st state. Now the party and its new leader could come out on top. Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto, said Carney is wise not to visit Trump. β€œThere’s no point in going to Washington,” Bothwell said. β€œAs (former Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau’s treatment shows, all that results in is a crude attempt by Trump to humiliate his guests.” Bothwell said that Trump demands respect, β€œbut it’s often a one-way street, asking others to set aside their self-respect to bend to his will.” Daniel BΓ©land, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it is absolutely essential that Canada diversify trade amidst the ongoing trade war with the United States. More than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. BΓ©land said Arctic sovereignty is also a key issue for Canada. β€œPresident Trump’s aggressive talk about both Canada and Greenland and the apparent rapprochement between Russia, a strong Arctic power, and the United States under Trump have increased anxieties about our control over this remote yet highly strategic region,” BΓ©land said.
  2. I'd been planning to travel abroad this summer. Not now.
  3. Held in solitary confinement for nine days. German Tourists Detained for Weeks, Then Deported From U.S. Amid President Trump’s border crackdown, German news media have closely followed the treatment of two tourists who say they tried to enter the United States legally. Chained, detained for weeks and eventually deported, two German tourists trying to enter the United States were recently tangled in a system responding to President Trump’s push to sharply restrict entry and deport people en masse. The cases of Jessica BrΓΆsche, held for 46 days, and Lucas Sielaff, held for 16, and accounts of their rough handling by immigration officers, have grabbed headlines in Germany as a sign of what being caught on the wrong side of the White House’s immigration policy could mean for European travelers. Tourists from most European countries, including Germany, generally enjoy visa-free travel to the United States for up to 90 days. But Mr. Sielaff and Ms. BrΓΆsche were stopped, separately, at the San Ysidro border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, told that they were being denied entry and sent to a crowded detention center, according to their own accounts and those of their friends. Mr. Sielaff said he was denied a translator and had trouble understanding what was happening to him. Ms. BrΓΆsche’s friends said she was kept in solitary confinement for nine days. By their accounts, both were flown back to Germany without a clear understanding of why they were detained in the first place. β€œSometimes I just wake up because I have nightmares of this situation and what happened,” Mr. Sielaff, 25, said in an interview. β€œAnd I just try to go for walks and calm down.” The family of a tourist from Britain, Becky Burke, 28, says she has been held for more than two weeks in Washington State, similarly caught up in the system but unsure why. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, did not respond on Thursday to requests for comment on their cases. Cont'd: https://archive.is/MDDcs
  4. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/16/us/brown-university-rasha-alawieh-professor-deported.html A kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school has been deported from the United States, even though she had a valid visa and a court order temporarily blocking her expulsion, according to her lawyer and court papers. Dr. Rasha Alawieh, 34, is a Lebanese citizen who had traveled to her home country last month to visit relatives. She was detained on Thursday when she returned from that trip to the United States, according to a court complaint filed by her cousin Yara Chehab. Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the Federal District Court in Massachusetts ordered the government on Friday evening to provide the court with 48 hours’ notice before deporting Dr. Alawieh. But she was put on a flight to Paris, presumably on her way to Lebanon. In a second order filed Sunday morning, the judge said there was reason to believe U.S. Customs and Border Protection had willfully disobeyed his previous order to give the court notice before expelling the doctor. He said he had followed β€œcommon practice in this district as it has been for years,” and ordered the federal agency to respond to what he called β€œserious allegations.” Customs and Border Protection did not respond on Sunday to questions from The New York Times about why Dr. Alawieh had been detained and deported. Lebanon is not included on a draft list of nations from which the Trump administration is considering banning entry to the United States. A hearing in Dr. Alawieh’s case is scheduled for Monday. Court documents related to the case were provided to The New York Times by Clare Saunders, a member of the legal team representing Ms. Chehab, who filed petitions to prevent her cousin’s deportation, and then to request that her cousin be allowed to return to the United States. Ms. Chehab’s petitions name several members of the Trump administration as defendants, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Peter Flores. Thomas Brown, a lawyer representing Dr. Alawieh and her employer, Brown Medicine, said that while the doctor was in Lebanon, the U.S. Consulate issued her an H-1B visa, which allows highly skilled foreign citizens to live and work in the United States. Brown Medicine, a nonprofit medical practice, had sponsored her application for the visa. According to Ms. Chehab’s complaint, when Dr. Alawieh landed at Boston Logan International Airport on Thursday, she was detained by Customs and Border Protection officers and held at the airport for 36 hours, for reasons that are unclear. Ms. Saunders, the lawyer, said in an affidavit that she went to the airport Friday and notified Customs and Border Protection officials there β€” before the flight to Paris was scheduled to depart β€” that there was a court order barring the doctor’s expulsion. She said that the officers took no action and gave her no information until after the plane had taken off. Dr. Alawieh graduated from the American University of Beirut in 2015. Three years later, she came to the United States, where she held medical fellowships at the Ohio State University and the University of Washington, and then worked as a resident at Yale. Before the new visa was issued, she held a J-1 visa, a type commonly used by foreign students. There is a shortage of American doctors working in Dr. Alawieh’s area of specialty, transplant nephrology. Foreign-born physicians play an important role in the field, according to experts. Fear over immigration status could β€œharm the pipeline even more,” said Dr. George Bayliss, who works in the Brown Medicine kidney transplant program with Dr. Alawieh. Her patients included individuals awaiting transplants and those dealing with the complex conditions that can occur after a transplant, Dr. Bayliss said. He called Dr. Alawieh β€œa very talented, very thoughtful physician.” β€œWe are all outraged,” he added, β€œand none of us know why this happened.” In a Sunday letter to members of the university community, Brown’s administration advised foreign students, ahead of spring break, to β€œconsider postponing or delaying personal travel outside the United States until more information is available from the U.S. Department of State.”
  5. Krasnov's election has Netanyahu also feeling his authoritarian oats. Netanyahu’s Move to Fire Shin Bet Chief Reflects Wider Push for Control The effort is part of a dispute between Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance and its opponents about the nature and future of the Israeli state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s sudden attempt to remove the head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency is the latest salvo in a two-year campaign by the Israeli government to exert more control over different branches of the state. Mr. Netanyahu’s plan to hold a cabinet vote on the future of Ronen Bar, the head of the agency known as the Shin Bet, was announced less than a month after his government announced a similar intention to dismiss Gali Baharav-Miara, the Israeli attorney general. It also came amid a renewed push in Parliament by Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition to give politicians greater control over the selection of Supreme Court justices. These moves mark a return to Mr. Netanyahu’s failed efforts in 2023 to reduce the power of state watchdogs that had acted as a check on his government’s power, including the Supreme Court and the attorney general. That program β€” often described as a judicial overhaul β€” proved deeply divisive, setting off months of mass protests and widening rifts in Israeli society. The campaign was suspended only after the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023 revived a sense of national unity. Now, amid a shaky cease-fire in Gaza, the easing of tension appears to have ended. β€œThe removal of the head of the Shin Bet should not be seen in isolation,” said Amichai Cohen, a law professor and fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group. β€œIt’s part of the general trend of taking on these independent agencies and increasing the power of the executive.” β€œThe judicial overhaul is back,” Professor Cohen added. The immediate context to the attempt to fire Mr. Bar was a personal dispute between the security chief and the prime minister. For months, Mr. Bar had angered Mr. Netanyahu by investigating officials in the prime minister’s office over claims that they had leaked secret documents. Mr. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing. The final straw for Mr. Netanyahu, analysts said, was most likely a rare public intervention last week from Mr. Bar’s predecessor, Nadav Argaman. In a television interview, Mr. Argaman said he might reveal further accusations of wrongdoing by the prime minister if he believed that Mr. Netanyahu was about to break the law. Such comments from a close ally of Mr. Bar were β€œtoo much” for Mr. Netanyahu, said Nadav Shtrauchler, a former adviser to the prime minister. β€œHe saw it as a direct threat,” Mr. Shtrauchler said. β€œIn his eyes, he didn’t have a choice.” But the broader context, analysts said, is a much wider dispute between Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance and its opponents about the nature and future of the Israeli state. Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition is formed from parties that variously represent ultrareligious Jews seeking to preserve their privileges; and settler activists aiming to deepen Israel’s control over the West Bank and further curb Palestinian rights. For years, these groups have resented the independence of watchdogs like the judiciary, the attorney general and the security services, which have variously moved to limit some privileges for the ultra-Orthodox; block certain moves by the settler movement; and prosecute Mr. Netanyahu for corruption. He is standing trial on charges that he denies. The government and its supporters say that reining in the judiciary and other gatekeepers like the Shin Bet actually enhances democracy by making lawmakers freer to enact what voters elected them to do. The Shin Bet has β€œpoked their noses into matters of governance, control, values, social cohesion and, of course, democracy,” Eithan Orkibi wrote in column on Monday for Israel Hayom, a right-wing daily newspaper. After Mr. Bar’s dismissal, Mr. Orkibi continued, the Shin Bet will β€œslowly be returned to their natural professional territory.” But the opposition says such moves would damage democracy by removing a key check on government overreach, allowing Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition β€” the most conservative and nationalist in Israel’s history β€” to create a less pluralist and more authoritarian society. β€œWith a submissive coalition of yes men, Netanyahu is on his way to dismantling all of Israel’s gatekeepers,” Barak Seri wrote in a column for Maariv, a center-right daily. β€œTo dismantling everything that is protecting Israel as we have known it since its establishment.”
  6. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/trump-ukraine-invasion-accountability.html The Justice Department has informed European officials that the United States is withdrawing from a multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, according to a letter sent to members of the organization on Monday. The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which the Biden administration joined in 2023, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s move away from President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s commitment to holding Mr. Putin personally accountable for crimes committed against Ukrainians. The group was created to hold the leadership of Russia, along with its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, accountable for a category of crimes β€” defined as aggression under international law and treaties that violates another country’s sovereignty and is not initiated in self-defense. β€œThe U.S. authorities have informed me that they will conclude their involvement in the ICPA” by the end of March, Michael Schmid, president of the group’s parent organization, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, better known as Eurojust, wrote in an internal letter obtained by The New York Times. The group remains β€œfully committed” to holding to account β€œthose responsible for core international crimes” in Ukraine, he added. The United States was the only country outside Europe to send a senior prosecutor to The Hague to work with investigators from Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland, Romania and the International Criminal Court. A department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday night. The Trump administration is also reducing work done by the department’s War Crimes Accountability Team, created in 2022 by the attorney general at the time, Merrick B. Garland, and staffed by experienced prosecutors. It was intended to coordinate Justice Department efforts to hold Russians accountable who are responsible for atrocities committed in the aftermath of the full invasion three years ago. β€œThere is no hiding place for war criminals,” Mr. Garland said in announcing the organization of the unit. The department, he added, β€œwill pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.” During the Biden administration, the team, known as WarCAT, focused on an important supporting role: providing Ukraine’s overburdened prosecutors and law enforcement with logistical help, training and direct assistance in bringing charges of war crimes committed by Russians to Ukraine’s courts. The team did bring one significant case. In December 2023, U.S. prosecutors used a war crimes statute for the first time since it was enacted nearly three decades ago to charge four Russian soldiers in absentia with torturing an American who was living in the Kherson region of Ukraine. In recent comments, President Trump has moved closer to Mr. Putin while clashing with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky β€” going so far as to falsely suggest that Ukraine played a role in provoking Russia’s brutal and illegal military incursion. β€œYou should have never started it,” Mr. Trump said in February, referring to Ukraine’s leaders. β€œYou could have made a deal.” He followed up in a post on social media, calling Mr. Zelensky a β€œDictator without Elections” and saying he had β€œdone a terrible job” in office. The Trump administration gave no reason for withdrawing from the investigative group other than the same explanation for other personnel and policy moves: the need to redeploy resources, according to the people familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the moves publicly.
  7. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/business/social-security-doge-ssa.html When Eleanor H., 66, called the Social Security Administration last month seeking details about her retirement benefits, she didn’t expect to comfort the representative who answered. The woman started sobbing. β€œI asked her what was wrong, and she said she and her co-workers were informed by email to accept a taxable $20,000 payout or risk termination,” said Eleanor, who lives in New Jersey (she asked to use only her first name out of privacy concerns). The rep still answered all of Eleanor’s questions. β€œThrough her tears she said, β€˜What am I going to do?’” The Social Security Administration, which sends retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month, has long been called the β€œthird rail” of politics β€” largely untouchable given its widespread popularity and role as one of the country’s remaining safety nets. But in recent weeks, the Trump administration, led by Elon Musk’s crew of cost cutters at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has taken its chain saw to the agency’s operations. The agency has announced plans to cut up to 12 percent of its work force, at a time its staffing is at a 50-year low. It has also offered early retirement and other incentives, including payments up to $25,000, to the entire staff. Many current and former Social Security officials fear the cuts could create gaping holes in the agency’s infrastructure, destabilizing the program, which keeps millions of people out of poverty and large percentages of retirees rely on for the bulk of their income. The actions have caused Social Security employees and former commissioners and executives of both parties to sound alarm bells, saying it would be difficult to repair the damage, which could threaten access to benefits. β€œEverything they have done so far is breaking the agency’s ability to serve the public,” said Martin O’Malley, the most recent former Social Security commissioner under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. He said he feared that Mr. Musk’s team had taken most of the actions necessary to create a total system collapse, whether in skyrocketing wait times for customer service, system interruptions or a timely payment of benefits. Rest of article: https://archive.is/QLOGq Some quotes: Michael Astrue, a former agency commissioner appointed by President George W. Bush, said it appeared that Mr. Musk has imported the strategy he used when he bought Twitter, β€œwhere you go into some place established, level it and then figure you’re going to improvise your way out,” he said, speaking at a briefing on Thursday held by the National Academy of Social Insurance. β€œIt’s extremely destructive.” Jason Fichtner, who held several positions at the agency, including deputy commissioner and chief economist, put it even more bluntly at the briefing. β€œIt’s more like a drunk operating a wrecking ball,” he said. ***** Tiffany Flick, the agency’s former acting chief of staff with 30 years of service at Social Security, recently recounted the events around that episode, which also led to her retirement. She expressed deep concerns about the safety of the confidential data and the program overall, according to her sworn testimony on March 6 in a federal lawsuit. The data, she said, has already been misinterpreted and used to spread misinformation. ***** Mr. Musk has said that he wants to cut waste, fraud and abuse at the agency, but he and President Trump have continued to repeat false claims that millions of dead people are collecting benefits. In fact, the Social Security Office of the Inspector General, which is charged with uncovering fraud and inefficiencies, published a report in 2023 that explains why these people don’t have recorded deaths, but also do not collect checks. β€œBoth Musk and Trump are grossly mischaracterizing the death data,” said Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and a former agency adviser. (Mr. Trump also fired the acting inspector general.)
  8. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/17/us/politics/federal-job-cuts-nuclear-bomb-engineers-scientists.html They handled the secure transport of nuclear materials β€” dangerous, demanding work that requires rigorous training. Four of them took the Trump administration’s offer of a buyout and left the National Nuclear Security Administration. A half-dozen staff members left a unit in the agency that builds reactors for nuclear submarines. And a biochemist and engineer who had recently joined the agency as head of the team that enforces safety and environmental standards at a Texas plant that assembles nuclear warheads was fired. In the past six weeks, the agency, just one relatively small outpost in a federal work force that President Trump and his top adviser Elon Musk aim to drastically pare down, has lost a huge cadre of scientists, engineers, safety experts, project officers, accountants and lawyers β€” all in the midst of its most ambitious endeavors in a generation. The nuclear agency, chronically understaffed but critically important, is the busiest it has been since the Cold War. It not only manages the nation’s 3,748 nuclear bombs and warheads, it is modernizing that arsenal β€” a $20-billion-a-year effort that will arm a new fleet of nuclear submarines, bomber jets and land-based missiles. Since the last year of the first Trump administration, the agency has been desperately trying to build up its staff to handle the added workload. Though it was still hundreds of employees short of what it had said it needed, it had edged up to about 2,000 workers by January. Now, with the Trump administration’s buyouts and firings, the agency’s trajectory has gone from one of painstaking growth to retraction. More than 130 employees took the government’s offer of a payout to resign, according to internal agency documents obtained by The New York Times that have not previously been reported. Those departures, together with those of about 27 workers who were caught up in a mass firing and not rehired, wiped out most of the recent staffing gains. Engaged in top-secret work, tucked away in the Energy Department, the agency typically stays below the public radar. But it has emerged as a headline example of how the Trump administration’s cuts, touted as a cure-all for supposed government extravagance and corruption, are threatening the muscle and bone of operations that involve national security or other missions at the very heart of the federal government’s responsibilities. Free link for rest of article detailing specifics and how it hurts: https://archive.is/htd1I A couple of quotes: The [Energy] department has said that most of the fired employees handled administrative and clerical tasks that were not critical to the agency’s operation. But an analysis of the internal documents by The Times, coupled with interviews with 18 current and former agency officials, shows that is not true for the bulk of people who took the buyout. Many who left held a top-secret security clearance, called Q, that gave them access to information about how nuclear weapons are designed, produced and used, officials said. The offer allowed them to go on administrative leave with pay through September, then resign. ***** β€œThis whole process of trying to downsize the government is being handled in the sloppiest, most irresponsible kind of way that one could imagine,” Mr. [Senator Angus] King said.
  9. Wordle 1,367 3/6 πŸŸ¨πŸŸ¨πŸŸ¨β¬›β¬› β¬›πŸŸ¨πŸŸ¨πŸŸ©β¬› 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #645 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 πŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺ πŸ™‚ Daily Quordle 1148 8️⃣7️⃣ 4️⃣5️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩 ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬜🟨🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 ⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  10. Archived version of article: https://archive.is/iMLUJ Archived version of memo cited in article: https://archive.is/JHYOU
  11. Full article from link: Elon Musk Shared, Then Removed a Post Absolving Dictators for Genocide The post falsely claimed that Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong were not responsible for the murders of millions of people, but rather public sector workers were. Early on Friday, Elon Musk shared a post written by an X user about the actions of three 20th century dictators β€” then quickly deleted it after it sparked a backlash. The post falsely claimed that Joseph Stalin, the communist leader of the Soviet Union until 1953; Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi party in Germany; and Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China, didn’t cause the deaths of millions of people under their watch. Instead, the post said, their public sector workers did. Mr. Musk shared the post without any other comment. He removed it soon after users on X criticized the post, saying it was antisemitic and dismissive of genocide. Historians have widely chronicled that millions of people died under Stalin, that millions of Jews were massacred under Hitler during the Holocaust, and that millions of Chinese were displaced or killed during Mao’s cultural revolution. It was the latest post by Mr. Musk to devolve into controversy. In 2023, Mr. Musk endorsed an antisemitic post on X as β€œthe actual truth” of what Jewish people were doing, prompting advertisers to flee. And after an assassination attempt on Mr. Trump last year, Mr. Musk wrote β€” then deleted β€” a post suggesting it was odd that nobody had tried to kill former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. or former Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Musk has long appeared to favor strongmen and has promoted right wing modern-day leaders. He has repeatedly used X to support politicians like Javier Milei of Argentina, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Narendra Modi of India, leaders in countries where he also has business interests. Most recently, he threw his support behind the hard-right Alternative for Germany party, hosting an online town hall for its candidate for chancellor. β€œIt is deeply disturbing and irresponsible for someone with a large public platform to elevate the kind of rhetoric that serves to undermine the seriousness of these issues,” the Anti-Defamation League said in a statement about Mr. Musk’s sharing of the post. Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Musk frequently uses X as a megaphone to share everything from juvenile memes to major U.S. policy proposals, blasting his opinions to his more than 219 million followers. But his viewpoints are drawing more scrutiny since he has become a close adviser to President Trump helping overhaul government spending. Mr. Musk has transformed X, removing many rules around hate speech and disinformation and allowing thousands of accounts banned by the company’s prior leadership for problematic posts to return to the platform β€” including Mr. Trump’s. Around 2:30 a.m. on Friday, Mr. Musk shared the post written by an X user that said, β€œStalin, Hitler and Mao didn’t murder millions of people. Their public sector workers did.” Mr. Musk in recent weeks has battled with public sector workers in Washington as part of his work with his cost-cutting initiative, known as the Department of Government Efficiency. He has accused federal workers of trying to conceal fraud and encouraged them to quit their jobs. The post sparked backlash from federal employee unions, among others. β€œAmerica’s public service workers β€” our nurses, teachers, firefighters, librarians β€” chose making our communities safe, healthy and strong over getting rich. They are not, as the world’s richest man implies, genocidal murderers,” Lee Saunders, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said in a statement. Mr. Musk on Friday shared several comments on X defending himself from accusations of antisemitism and claiming his critics were the ones aligned with Nazism. Mr. Musk also recently came under fire for a making a gesture that resembled the Roman salute, which is also known as the β€œFascist salute” and was later adopted by the Nazis. β€œLook at what they did to President @realDonaldTrump,” Mr. Musk wrote in one post. β€œHe was loved by democrats until he ran for president. Now they call him Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc and try to kill him,” referring to another dictator, the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
  12. Watchu got against the ding dong daddies, huh?
  13. 2024 population estimates were released by the Census Bureau last week. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/03/13/texas-urban-population-census-2024/ https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/population-estimates-counties-metro-micro.html
  14. I'm sure the penthouse on the 15th floor has lots of stories to tell. From what I've heard, it was basically run like a casino up there. I bet they did good business, too, between all the airmen at the base (Webb AFB, now closed) and area oilmen/cattle ranchers. Alas, we were just born too late.
  15. Let's just hope it doesn't spread to Puh-flugerville.
  16. No, I'm a Mighty Steer, but I did go out to Glasscock County with the same crew I mentioned looking for y'all's glowing grave late at night. I graduated in the same class as Pze and was a good friend of a friend of Tex (RIP). If you're from the Big Spring/Garden City area, you've likely heard of that family. The hotel reopened in 2012, so it's been open a little while now. It's got a nice restaurant and bar on the ground floor that's a good place to get together with friends when visiting town. csb: The painting is the mom of local native Brint Ryan (Ryan LLC), to whom he dedicated the hotel's restoration. If I remember the story right, his parents had just gone through a rough divorce when he was a kid, and his mom went out partying at a local bar. This would've been the late 70s/early 80s. Anyway, near the end of the night, she was out in the parking lot and was accidentally run over and killed. So that painting and plaque underneath it were dedicated to her. another csb: The dad of one of my best friends used to tell us that back in the day before it closed, the folks who ran the place were in cahoots with drug smugglers who'd fly in their product from Mexico. The story went that if they knew the cops were waiting for a flight of smuggled drugs to come in, the owners would only light up part of the sign to where it would read "HOT SET," like a hot setup or something. The story was likely bullshit, but a lot of old-timers have similar stories about the hotel being a vice den with gambling and prostitution back in the 1970s.
  17. Good piece on the impact of retaliatory tariffs on specific industries and their geographies in the US, suggesting they're targeted to hurt areas that voted a certain way in this past election. The story also provides links to studies from Brookings and MIT showing similar results. Some pulled quotes: The jobs that could be hit by retaliation are especially concentrated in pockets of the upper Midwest, South and Southeast, including many rural parts of the country that are responsible for producing agricultural goods. It also includes areas that produce coal, oil, car parts and other manufactured products. The message foreign countries are trying to send, he said, is, β€œYou think you can bully us, well, we can hurt you too. And by the way, we know where it really matters.” Rural parts of the country are once again at risk from retaliation. Agriculture is a major U.S. export and farmers are politically important to Mr. Trump. And rural counties may have one major employer β€” like a poultry processing plant β€” that provides a big share of the county’s jobs, compared with urban or suburban areas that are more diversified. Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, said that many of the counties affected by retaliation were rural, and β€œhard red territory.” The geography of Mr. Trump’s political support, he said, was β€œno secret to our trade partners.” β€œThey’re very cognizant of these industries, the geography of these industries, and how American politics work,” he added. Sharing gift link so you can move your cursor around over counties to see the number of affected jobs and their share of the total in each place. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/15/business/economy/tariffs-trump-maps-voters.html?unlocked_article_code=1.4U4.EjUu.clGohPPmoEo_&smid=url-share Top Ten states with the highest share of impacted jobs (4% in Texas):
  18. Back in the late 1980s, when it was still a derelict shell of a building, my high school crew may have snuck in it and gone exploring a time or two. Exterior:
  19. Wordle 1,366 4/6 πŸŸ©β¬›πŸŸ©πŸŸ¨β¬› πŸŸ©πŸŸ©πŸŸ©β¬›β¬› πŸŸ©πŸŸ©πŸŸ©πŸŸ¨β¬› 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #644 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 πŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺ πŸ™‚ Daily Quordle 1147 4️⃣6️⃣ 5️⃣7️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟩🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜ 🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
  20. Wordle 1,365 5/6 β¬›πŸŸ¨πŸŸ¨β¬›πŸŸ© β¬›πŸŸ©πŸŸ¨β¬›πŸŸ© πŸŸ©πŸŸ©β¬›β¬›πŸŸ© πŸŸ©πŸŸ©β¬›πŸŸ¨πŸŸ© 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Connections Puzzle #643 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 πŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺπŸŸͺ 🟦🟦🟦🟦 πŸ™‚ Daily Quordle 1146 5️⃣8️⃣ 7️⃣6️⃣ m-w.com/games/quordle/ 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 🟩🟩⬜⬜⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟨⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜🟨🟩⬜🟨 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟩 🟨🟨🟩🟨⬜ 🟨⬜⬜⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜ ⬜🟨⬜⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
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