Ain't That America IV

Well, what a week or so it's been in America … chickens are now less safe to eat … a two-year-old girl was deported … Black History is removed from the Smithsonian … The Felon refuses FEMA aid to Red States … a con woman was pardoned by a con man … and more:

The USDA is withdrawing a rule to help prevent food poisoning from poultry contaminated with salmonella. Under the Biden Administration effort poultry companies would have been required to keep salmonella bacteria levels under a certain threshold and test for the presence of six strains most associated with illness. If any of those strains were found or standard levels were exceeded, the poultry couldn’t be sold.

Last Thursday the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Services ended the proposed rule “to further assess its approach for addressing Salmonella illnesses associated with poultry product.”

Further assess its approach? They have no approach.

A federal judge says a two-year-old US citizen was deported to Honduras with her mother and sister without due process, amid the Fascist Regime’s drive to ramp up deportations. The child—known only as VML—and her family were apprehended during a routine appointment at a Louisiana immigration office.

The judge wanted to speak with the girl's mother but was told by a government lawyer that it "would not be possible because she (and presumably VML) had just been released in Honduras."

The immigration status of the girl's mother, father and sister remains unclear but, once again, the two-year-old is a US citizen although I’m guessing The Felon will claim she’s a member of MS-13?

This new regime is once again trying to erase Black history, which is also American history, by physically removing the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth’s lunch counter exhibit from the National Museum of African American History and Culture—AKA the “Blacksonian”—because of its “improper ideology.”

The exhibit features portions of the original lunch counter and highlights the story of four Black male students from North Carolina A&T who were brutally attacked after sitting at the whites-only counter February 1, 1960, and refusing to leave when denied service. Their defiance sparked a wave of lunch counter sit-ins across the South and became a major flashpoint in the Civil Rights Movement.

Improper ideology because … oh yeah, it makes white people look racist.

Kristi Noem, AKA DogKiller, AKA Where’s My Purse, AKA Border Barbie, has a new publicity campaign aimed at discouraging illegal immigration but it’s off to a rocky start as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has urged Mexico’s Congress to fast-track a law that would outlaw transmission of the ads on major TV and radio channels and calling it “propaganda.”

The campaign has raised questions in the US about its overtly political messaging and its price tag of $200 million over two years as the ads are appearing at a time when Leon Skum’s DOGE is slashing federal jobs.

This past week, under orders from Hair Furor, FEMA has denied federal assistance for tornadoes in Arkansas, flooding in West Virginia and a windstorm in Washington state. It also has refused North Carolina’s request for extended relief funding in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckleberry Sanders is especially upset at the aid being denied her state since she spent years lying to our faces for The Felon.

Oh Sarah, you’re as dumb as your daddy.

NIOSH’s congressionally mandated Health Hazard Evaluation program is one of many health and safety services on which firefighters depend that’s been shrunk or eliminated by HHS Secretary, and Heroin addict, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “reduction in force” of more than 10,000 employees.

Firefighters are regularly exposed to toxins and chemicals that affect their physical and mental health. The Center for Firefighter Safety, Health and Well-being researches why first responders get sick and die and how to prevent it and now services for hundreds of thousands of people exposed to toxins on 9/11 are hampered by these cuts to NIOSH.

First responders, first to have care cut.

The Felon has pardoned former Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore weeks before her sentencing for wire fraud.

In October 2024, a jury convicted Fiore, suspended in July 2024 from her position as justice court judge after deliberating for two hours. The panel convicted her on one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and six counts of wire fraud for taking money meant for fallen police officers’ memorials and spending it on herself.

Grifters helping grifters. They call themselves the party of Law and Order except when they’re screwing Law and Order.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned states that they will lose federal funding for roads, bridges and other infrastructure projects if they continue to foster DEI programs; impede The Felon’s immigration enforcement efforts; or defy other directives from the administration.

Duffy laughably claims this is all part of an effort to protect Free Speech but only the speech of the criminal regime.

A 25% U.S. tariff on pharmaceutical imports would increase US drug costs by nearly $51 billion annually, boosting U.S. prices by as much as 12.9% if passed.

But The Felon said …

And speaking of tariffs, The Felon is claiming that he’s already “made 200 deals” on tariffs and has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who denies that any talks have taken place.

When asked to confirm that number, The Felon muttered “100%”—but could not elaborate on what countries he’s solidified deals with or the terms. And to be clear, there are only 195 countries in the world.

Maybe he included the Penguins?

Leon Skum’s DOGE says it has saved $160 billion through its push to root out wasteful or fraudulent government spending. But in order to save $160B it will cost US taxpayers $135B this fiscal year.

This is what happens when ill-informed racist idiots vote a criminal back into power.

FBI Director Kash Patel said, in a since-deleted social media post, that his agency had arrested Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, Hannah Dugan for allegedly helping an undocumented defendant avoid arrest from ICE.

Dugan is accused of escorting the man and his lawyer out of her courtroom through the jury door after learning that ICE agents were seeking his arrest. The man was taken into custody outside the courthouse after agents chased him on foot.

This is not America.

This week The Felon went to the Vatican to pay his respects to the passing of Pope Francis. Protocol suggested he be seated in the third row but somehow the fat gelatinous tub of diaper wearing narcissism was seated in the front row … where he fell asleep.

How respectful. Of note is Melanie, appearing to clutch her rosary and wish for her husband’s death.

Nineteen Blue states—led by California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York—are suing The Felon regime and the Department of Education’s order that they comply with The Felon regime’s all-white, all the time anti-DEI rules.

Stand up.

Demonstrators gathered last week on the steps of the Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] for a “die-in” over proposed funding cuts that could devastate programs addressing LGBTQ+ health disparities.

Health Secretary, and Heroin addict, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sought to radically reshape HHS by cutting funding to programs geared toward treating and preventing HIV, a virus that in the US disproportionately affects gay and bisexual men.

Kennedy, not a doctor but in need of psychiatric counseling, has claimed that poppers cause AIDS and has questioned evidence linking HIV to AIDS, a discovery that won a Nobel Prize in 2008.

And so people will die, but I guess it’s just gay and bisexual men so it’s okay?

As part of his effort to overhaul the federal workforce and give that extra money to Billionaires Needing Tax Breaks, The Felon signed an order stripping collective bargaining rights from government employees at the departments of State, Defense, Justice, and HHS, among others. It also impacts the CDC, the FCC, and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But last week a federal judge blocked The Felon’s illegal move and also found that a key section of The Felon’s executive order allowing more than a dozen federal agencies to end collective bargaining with unions to be unlawful.

Resist.

This is an actual question asked by The Felon regime:

“Why should coal miners pay for PBS?”

A typical stupid question but it begs others:

Why should a poor Black family in Detroit pay for a President to golf every weekend?

Why should a single mother of three in Louisiana who works two jobs be denied healthcare so that the CEO of AETNA can get a tax break?

Why is the guy washing dishes in Des Moines paying for the president’s wife’s Secret Service protection so she can live anywhere but the White House?

We could do this all day …but here’s the real question The Felon and the corrupt complicit chicken shit GOP need to answer:

Do you have a heart? Did no one teach you to care about your neighbors? Do you know what ‘empathy’ means? Did no one ever teach you to ‘share’ when you were in kindergarten? Have you ever heard the phrase ‘do unto others’?

I cannot think of a group of people who need to watch Sesame Street more than the GOP. Perhaps if they did they would learn some common decency.

George Santos, the former GOP congressman liar from New York was sentenced to 87 months in federal prison on Friday.

Standing before a judge in Federal District Court a very subdued—some say he was crying—Santos seemed far removed from the swaggering lawmaker whose lies—that he was a college volleyball star and a Wall Street financier with ties to the Holocaust and 9/11, to name a few—turned him into a national punchline and led to mocking impersonations on “Saturday Night Live.”

Sorry, not sorry.

News from the Swamp: Chad Wolf Gives His wife's Company $6 Million

The Berkeley Research Group, a consulting firm where Hope Wolf, the wife of the acting Homeland Security Secretary, Chad Wolf, is an executive, has been awarded more than $6 million in contracts from the Department of Homeland Security [DHA] where her husband is the acting Homeland Security Secretary since September 2018.

Wolf became chief of staff at the Transportation Security Administration [TSA], a DHS agency, in 2017 and then became chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in 2018. He took over as acting secretary in November 2018 and has been nominated to become secretary.

Although the Berkeley Research Group has a long history of federal contracts, it did not do work for DHS until after Chad Wolf became the TSA’s chief of staff in 2017.

His confirmation hearing before the Senate is scheduled for today. I wonder if he’ll have to explain any of this or if the GOP will just look the other way.

I kid; they’ll look the other way.

The Funny Papers

Darrin Bell, Jack Ohman, Clay Bennett, Nick Anderson, Bill Bramhall, Ted Littleford, Antonio Rodriguez Garcia, Michael de Adder, Ed Hall, Kevin, Siers, Steve Benson, Rick McKee, Dave Whamond, Chris Britt, Mike Luckovich

Barbara Boxer Reads The GOP ... And It's Brazilliant

Last month, Barbara Boxer announced she is retiring from the Senate, but this week she spoke to the Senate regarding the GOP threat of a Department of Homeland Security shut-down, and much like her fellow Democrats Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, she nailed it:

"This is a self-inflicted crisis, made up by the Republicans. It is dangerous, it is the height of irresponsibility, and it's unnecessary."

Boxer was taking no prisoners in this speech — and, I say, it’s about time we had more politicians like Boxer, Sanders and Warren — and here are a few more excerpts [you can hear the full speech at the link below]:

“We all know Republicans won in huge numbers in the 2014 election, and they took over the United States Senate and they run it. They run it. Or at least they're trying to run it. And let's be clear, less than eight weeks after they took  over the Senate, we are facing a shutdown; a shutdown of the very agency that protects the health, the safety, the lives, of the American people - the Department of Homeland Security.

They're shutting down the program that funds our police officers back home, our firefighters, our first responders. Any way you look at it - this is a national disgrace. And think about what our friends abroad, and those who are not our friends, are thinking about this.

Republicans say, 'Oh, we're in danger, we have to go to go to war, put combat troops on the ground!' But they're willing to shut down the department that protects Americans here in the homeland, from a terrorist attack.

How does it make sense, at a time when we're facing serious threats to our national security, to furlough 30,000, thirty thousand, department of homeland security workers, and to force more than 100,000 frontline homeland security personnel to work without pay?

Why don't these senators go without their pay?

Give up your pay! Give up your healthcare, give up your benefits, if this is so important to you. Oh, no, they'll collect their pay!”

Senator Boxer then reminds Congress — and all Americans — that this shutdown threat is just another GOP kneejerk, cry-baby reaction to President Obama's recent plan for immigration, and she talks of those at risk of being deported, and the children who were born to American immigrants who would be torn away from each other if the GOP had their way.

"I thought they were the party of 'family values.' Show me where that's true, ripping families apart. I thought they were the party of 'economic prosperity.' Show me how that's true, when we know from study after study show that one of the greatest things we can do for our economy and job creation is get people out of the shadows so they can go buy a home and hold a good job. They (Republicans) can't or won't pass an immigration bill. They will not do their job. So when the president steps in and does his job, they say, 'Oh, this is terrible! Let's shutdown a totally unrelated department. The Department of Homeland Security.”

To make her point about GOP “family values” hypocrisy, Boxer brings up the GOP's claimed concern for 'fiscal responsibility' and executive orders.

“The Center for American Progress, states it would cost more than $50 Billion to deport the entire population that the president is protecting.

And here's the deal - I've never heard of a Republican … and I will stand corrected if any Republican corrects me … I've never heard of a Republican complaining when President Eisenhower used his executive order power to help immigrants, when President Nixon did the same thing to protect immigrants, when President Ronald Reagan, their hero, protected immigrants, when George Bush Sr. protected immigrants, when George W. protected immigrants, they all used their authority.

Show me one Republican that stood up and said, 'Oh, this is outrageous! Let's impeach the president!' But it's president Obama.

And they're annoyed because he won twice. Sorry. Sorry. Wake up and smell the roses. He IS the President. And he is doing the right thing for America, because he loves America.”

Boxer then tells the story of a young woman name Anna, born to hardworking undocumented immigrant parents, who has come out of the shadows and is now studying to be a bilingual first grade teacher:

“So tell me, Republicans, how does it make sense to deport people like Anna, split her up from her parents, when all they want to do is contribute to the country that they love. How does it make sense?

How does it make sense? Because you're too incompetent to hold a vote on your immigration plan? You want to kick people out of the country? Put it to a vote! Let's go. You want to deport 11 million people? Put it to a vote. Don't hide behind the Homeland Security Bill, holding the President's work hostage. You never did it to the other presidents.

Our national security is at stake, our family values are at stake. And our economy is at stake here. So get over the fact that you don't like the president. We get it. You couldn't beat him. Too bad for you. But you're in charge here, in the Senate. Do your job!

Don't hold it hostage to your hatred of this president, and I use that word because that's what I think. That's what I think….

So I say to my Republican friends. There's a presidential race coming. Forget this last one. Get over it. Okay? Let's work together. Listen, I served with five presidents. I'm a strong Democrat. Everyone will tell you that. But I respect the office of the presidency. If I didn't agree with Ronald Reagan, I came down here and said it. But we had the respect back and forth. If we lost, we lost. And we moved on. And that worked both ways. I know what it is not to like the policies of a president. I get it. But don't overdo it and make it so personal. Get on with it. Grow up. Do your job, you know? Do your job! Have respect for the office of the presidency.

Don't suddenly say executive orders are bad when the president you don't like does it, but you don't say one word when a Republican president does the same thing!”

Barbara Boxer is not speaking for Democrats; she speaks for all of us, who are tired of this blatant racism and hypocrisy of the GOP. We need to take a stand against the lies and hypocrisy of the GOP. We cannot let The Do-Nothings get away with this.

via Daily Kos

Karma Baby

This morning, while having breakfast and listening to the news, I heard a rather remarkable bit of information.

Apparently the Deptartment of Homeland Security is looking into the formation of radical conservative groups bent on terrorizing the United States because we had the audacity to elect a man of color as president. These so-called fringe groups are threatening terrorist acts against their own country in response to both the economic crisis and the fact that there's a Black man in the White House.

They're mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore.

But how are the Conservatives responding? Are they wanting to take a hardline approach to domestic terrorism? Are they asking Homeland Security to look closer at these fanatic radicals?

No, they are pissing and moaning over the idea that Homeland Security is calling the groups "radical conservatives" because it gives conservatives a bad name, equating the conservative movement to terrorists.

Let's ponder that a moment.

Wasn't it the conservative movement who, after 9/11, wanted to round up all the Muslims in America because Muslims were terrorists? I remember all those rightwing-nuts back then yammering and stammering over the Muslim population in America and how we are all at risk because "they're out there....plotting."

Well, conservative ladies and germs, the shoe is on the other foot, and you don't like the fit. You have a one-sided view of the world, an us against them view, and now, according to reports, you're them. And you don't like it.

What goes around.......