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Evening Shade---Resistance Rising---Sunday [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-02-16
(Or NOT As the CASE MAY BE)
YOU WILL FIND in the DIARIES a LOT of POLITICS
THE PERSON who MAKES the FIRST COMMENT WILL GET TWO CRITTERS
EVERY PERSON WHO COMMENTS WILL GET A CRITTER
RULES IN THE DIARY
WHEN YOU FIND SOMETHING in the DIARY that you LIKE
YOU CAN REPOST IT AS COMMENT in the DIARY
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Impeach President Musk! New Mexico leads 14 states suing to get rid of him.
“Musk’s seemingly limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen, or click of a mouse, is unprecedented,” the plaintiffs said. “The sweeping authority now vested in a single unelected and unconfirmed individual is antithetical to the nation’s entire constitutional structure.” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez (D) spearheaded the lawsuit, filing it with his counterparts in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. “Empowering an unelected billionaire to access Americans’ private data, slash funding for federal student aid, stop payments to American farmers and dismantle protections for working families is not a sign of President Trump’s strength, but his weakness,” Torrez said in a statement.
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What if Trump chose not to comply with courts? NYT (paywall) explains the steps courts could take (generally against subordinates rather than Trump himself) and all the dodges Trump could respond with, including ordering US Marshals to refuse to enforce court orders and pardoning those who land in jail. But in the end it won’t work.
The chaos precipitated by so radically destabilizing the judiciary and the rule of law might well have serious economic consequences, including in the stock markets. Foreign investment would likely flee the country; the dollar would fall. This would bring added pressure on the White House to comply with the courts and on Congress to demand such compliance. Judicial independence and the stability of the rule of law take generations to establish in a credible, durable way. A foolish administration that seeks to defy the courts for short-term political gains or simply to show its “dominance” of other institutions would soon seek shelter from the whirlwind it would undoubtedly unleash. (NYT)
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Most Americans are not vaccine deniers.
In the last five years, national coverage [of kindergartners who have received the measles, mumps, rubella shot] has fallen to 93 percent, from 95 percent… Some 92 percent of American children received the polio vaccine by age 2, and more than 90 percent were vaccinated against hepatitis B. Nearly nine in 10 Americans — including 86 percent of Republicans — say the benefits of childhood vaccines outweigh the risks… Eight in 10 adults have received at least one Covid-19 vaccination. Four in 10 get the annual flu vaccine, which prevents severe illness but not infection. That number rises to 70 percent among older adults. (NYT: paywall)
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Although many of the Trump/Musk attempts have been stymied in court, at least temporarily, they are still pressing on. Given that intelligent federal workers are struggling to figure out what’s going on in all the chaos, how is this supposed to work?
x Musk is working on replacing contract workers in the Department of Education with AI chatbots, aiming to use generative AI to handle student and parent inquiries. — Alt National Park Service (@altnps.bsky.social) February 16, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Follow that move to its illogical conclusion and...
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Love this item for the masterful use of the word “slither.”
x Donald Trump promised to lower costs, in his own words, “on day one.” Now, Trump and Elon Musk are gutting the consumer agency, which will increase costs on working people. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
[image or embed] — Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) February 15, 2025 at 9:40 AM
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Warren has scrambled to fend off attacks against the CFPB. An attempt to terminate some of its employees has been put on hold. But the attempt was a display of the Trump regime’s clumsy haste: they forgot to fill in the blanks of the termination template.
x BREAKING: CFPB probationary employees just received a termination notice without the pertinent information filled out. Click to see all of it.
[image or embed] — Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.bsky.social) February 11, 2025 at 7:32 PM
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As Trump attempts to cut a deal with Putin over Ukraine, leaving Zelenskyy out of the discussion, a reality check:
x Fact check: nearly 70 percent of US money for Ukraine actually went to US defense industry to replenish the stocks of OLD stuff that went to Ukraine to use. Much of which we would have paid to destroy as their lifespan expired. — Adam Kinzinger (@adamkinzinger.bsky.social) February 16, 2025 at 9:55 AM
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Republican congresscritters pipe up, “Wait, the leopards weren’t supposed to be eating faces in MY state!” And so it begins.
x At some point very soon, republicans in Congress will have to choose between pleasing Trump to avoid being primaried, and helping their constituents to avoid being primaried. — Mueller, She Wrote (@muellershewrote.bsky.social) February 15, 2025 at 7:46 PM
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Sunday Science
A new study shows that the massive rainfall in California in 2023 barely recharged aquifers low from drought and pumping.
Overall, the team notes, only about 25 percent of the water lost from the region’s aquifers since 2006 was replenished by the storms of 2023.
But especially interesting is how researchers know.
Ellsworth and his colleagues looked at how the water that had percolated down into previously parched layers of permeable rock affected the speed of seismic waves traveling through them. Previous teams have used ever-present seismic noise — both from small quakes and from human causes such as traffic and industrial activity — to map faults and other subterranean characteristics. By analyzing vibrations of different frequencies, Ellsworth and the team could identify any changes due to water infiltration as deep as hundreds of meters below the surface.
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Why some of Carla’s birds are so bright: Birds of Paradise are biofluorescent:
Researchers have found 37 of the 45 species show biofluorescence – in other words, patches of their plumage or other body parts absorb UV or blue light, and emit light at lower frequencies. “At a minimum, it would make these biofluorescent areas brighter – a yellow feather may be more green-yellow, a white feather may be brighter and slightly more green-yellow,” said Dr Rene Martin from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was first author of the study. (The Guardian)
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It’s National No One Eats Alone Day!
x YouTube Video
And National Do a Grouch a Favor Day. If you dare.
x YouTube Video
It’s also National Almond Day. Befriend an almond today!
x YouTube Video
And live from New York, it’s Saturday Night! Only it’s on Sunday night: the show’s 50th anniversary celebration is tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on NBC and Peacock. So if it gets very quiet around here then, you know why.
x YouTube Video
Tomorrow is National Cabbage Day, National Random Acts of Kindness Day, and also — just for 2025! — National Not My President Day.
[END]
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