Phoenix_person

I grasp that. I prefer presidents that try to unite people rather than divide them, and who don't joke about trying to subvert the Constitution. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned.

If she's food insecure, then that's a much more immediate concern to her than a drivers license. People who live like that often struggle to plan past their next meal. They live in fight/flight mode 24/7 and it's exhausting. The best thing you could do for her is try to get her linked up with a social worker if she doesn't already have one. Might be difficult without ID, but that's where I'd start. Social workers exist to help people who struggle to help themselves.

This article breaks it down very well. https://www.axios.com/2025/03/21/trump-retaliation-revenge-biden-security-clearance I guess the people who stock his official merch missed that theory, as did his son. I don't think that bullet broke anything in Trump that wasn't already broken.

China's economy is based on ~15% of its exports? I imagine they can make up at least some of that if their efforts to strengthen trade with their immediate neighbors prove fruitful, and the rest can be made up by increasing exports to countries that are on Trump's black list. China has become the biggest exporter in the world in the last 20 years. Trump isn't negotiating from a position of strength, and China knows it. Where? Mexico? Canada? Because those trade talks are going so well? The US has become heavily trade-dependent in ways that can't be reversed in 4 years. I'm more worried about dissent suppression a little closer to home at present. Trump cares about personal loyalty to HIM above all else. And now he doesn't need to worry about winning another election, and he's acting like he has executive immunity thanks to his SCOTUS basically saying he does. There's a reason he wasn't this brazen in his first term. He (or someone advising him) understood that vindictiveness doesn't win elections. I don't want a vindictive Republican in office any more than you (or I) want a vindictive Dem there, especially if Congress isn't going to fill their role in the "checks and balances" part of governing and no one is going to enforce court decisions. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/trump-s-attacks-on-justice-department-independence--then-and-now https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/24/trump-actblue-fundraising-order-investigation-foreign-donations/83250033007/ Again, I don't see where the leverage is with Trump's sweeping tariffs. IF tariffs were to be effective, they'd have to be more strategically targeted. All he's doing is removing the US from the trade market and creating an international rush to fill the void. Because despite what you seem to think, the world economy doesn't revolve around us. How's the Dollar doing, btw?

Spokesman for the Chinese Embassy, posted Friday evening:

FWIW, I tried it because I heard several positive stories from other veterans and people with SSRI resistance and/or substance abuse history. Given the time I spent in the booze business, I know a lot of reformed alcoholics (and plenty of unreformed ones).

Meth is a big problem up here, and I know people who have used MJ to get off of it. It's also popular with reformed alcoholics and opioid abusers trying to get clean (kind of the opposite of a gateway drug). I use MJ medically for my anxiety and the physical pain I deal with as a result of my psychosis episode*. My LDS mom has toyed with the idea of using it medically, but she's on lithium and doesn't want it to interfere. *The only drug I was on was Lexapro, and I was several months sober from alcohol. I had 6 mental health crises during the two years I was on anti-depressants, and zero since switching to medical cannabis. It's true that paranoia and increased anxiety are risks for heavy users, especially if they aren't mindful of what strains they're favoring. Some "cerebral" strains will help with anxiety, others will make it much worse. I favor the pain-relieving strains, and I mostly use in the evening. Day users can be a problem if they make it too habitual.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/cybersecurity/whistleblower-org-says-doge-may-have-caused-significant-cyber-breach-us-labor-2025-04-15/ I've been seeing a lot of DOGE cybersecurity concerns in the "Resistance" corners of social media. Usually the citation work is sketchy at best, and I'm not interested in verifying every story I see on the internet, so I usually make a mental note (in case it comes up again) and move on. But this was the second time this week I've seen Russian hackers mentioned, and since there's a whistleblower complaint to Congress involved, it wasn't hard to find an article from a credible source. I hope Republicans are looking at things like this as closely as they looked at Hillary's emails.

Acknowledging that we violated the ONE agreement we made with him, that he wouldn't be sent back to El Salvador to be tortured and possibly killed, isn't the moral victory you think it is. You're right, I should vet my sources better. But I still believe this man deserved more due process than he received before having his life destroyed. And it doesn't change the fact that a directive from SCOTUS seems to have been ignored. That's really the bigger issue here, because SCOTUS is the one chance we have of keeping Trump from doing things like this to US citizens, should he choose to act on that whim. So if SCOTUS doesn't have any real authority over the executive branch, and no one in the congressional GOP will stand up to their leader, then where is the balance of power that has kept this country from falling into tyranny for the last 250 years?

If we're going to potentially send US citizens to this prison, as Trump himself has expressed desire to do, we need full transparency about the place we're sending them to. And yes, it's mostly a dumb photo op, kinda like when GOP politicians from places like Iowa go to Texas to take pictures with border patrol and call on Dems for better border security. And both parties seem to have very selective concern over the Uyghur genocide in China. It's the game of politics and selective outrage, and both parties play it. BTW, I've looked, and I can't find any documentation of Garcia's prior gang affiliation, aside from a single report from a dirty cop. The only gang ties anyone else has been able to make stem from the fact that he fled El Salvador to escape gang violence. He has no criminal record in either country. He was put through deportation proceedings in 2019 and was allowed to stay. So while it's true that he came here illegally, he was a legal resident for the last 6 years. The Trump administration admitted that he was erroneously detained and deported to a prison with a violent reputation, possibly filled with some of the very people he was fleeing in the first place. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/abrego-garcia-and-ms-13--what-do-we-know I don't like drug cartels or terrorists. I also don't like when people who preach about "rule of law" and "law and order" disappear people off the street and ship them to ruthless dictators to do the work we're too "noble" to do ourselves. It opens some very dangerous doors, and I doubt very much that it will stop with undocumented immigrants.

Agreed. I also believe that if we're going to send someone to a Central American death camp, we should be absolutely sure that they're actually guilty of what we're accusing them of. And it turns out I was likely wrong about due process not applying to non-citizens, according to the same Constitutional amendment that arguably should have prevented Trump from running a second time. Again, I agree. But again, we don't seem to be bothering to find out if these people are actually guilty of what we're accusing them of. And I don't know about you, but I'm not just going to take Trump's word for it. If we can justify ignoring the rule of law for non-citizens with legal status, how long before we're trying to justify doing so for citizens? Cool. Now imagine you're in your 20s and just started working on your 401k within the last 5 years. I don't think you'd be so confident in your nest egg. I didn't have a 401k until last year (not a lot of employers offer that in my former line of work, and I never had enough to justify trying to start my own). Let's just say I'm glad that the VA has my income sorted out for the forseeable future. You know I'm not one to make excuses for Democrats. Heck, I can't even fully blame Trump for the COVID crash. That would have happened with a Dem in office too.

The cuts at the VA were upsetting, but unsurprising. I'm also seeing a lot of frustration over widespread staff cuts at social security offices. Trump and Elon are playing a dangerous game by messing with the care and income of two of the GOP's most reliable demographics: veterans and seniors. And we haven't even seen yet what will happen to Medicaid under the Republican budget, but I imagine it will be hard to hit the goal of $800B+ in spending cuts without affecting Medicaid and SNAP, and some Republicans know it.

The fact that a Trump-friendly SCOTUS unanimously ordered his return to be facilitated, for starters. And we're not doing it because the president of El Salvador doesn't want to? I thought Trump was a master negotiator, art of the deal and all. And he's just going to cave to the dictator of a country the size of New Jersey? Trump is testing the limits of his power, and so far no one has done a very good job of stopping him. That may not concern you on your side of the fence, but it looks pretty terrifying from where I sit, especially given that Trump just yesterday floated the idea of extending deportations to legal US citizens. He wants to charge people with acts of terrorism for vandalizing cars, and his vindictiveness towards his political opponents has never been subtle. First they came for the illegal immigrants... Maybe I was just naive, but when I signed up to wear this country's uniform, I did so under the belief in American exceptionalism (I was 17, to be fair). We always prided ourselves on the fact that we are NOT North Korea, China, or Saudi Arabia and that even our allies couldn't match our civil liberties. I guess that's no longer the case. To be clear, I get the legal gist of what you're saying, and you're not wrong. My main issue isn't that non-citizen dissenters are being deported, it's that we're deporting a wide array of nondesirables to a place that supposedly makes Gitmo look like the Four Seasons. I don't think that's somethong we should be doing at all, but definitely not without due process. Yes, I know due process is for citizens (for now). But what we do with the least regarded of our residents speaks volumes about our values as a nation, and right now I'm deeply ashamed of where we are. But hey, at least the stock market has been stable and eggs are cheap again, right?

If it makes you feel better, there's a neo-Nazi teen currently in custody for murdering his parents and possibly planning an assassination attempt against Trump. https://www.jsonline.com/story/communities/west/2025/04/14/nikita-casap-case-timeline-of-alleged-homicide-trump-assassination/83082191007/ As for other neo-Nazis (and antisemitic lefties, for that matter) hate speech is considered protected speech. I don't like it either, but if the cops can't arrest the Klan when they do their hate marches, then they can't arrest anti-IDF protesters either. Free speech and all. At least that's what Elon said when he unbanned all the Twitter Nazis. And no, far-right extremists don't side with Muslims. Most of them would be happy to see both sides annihilated and Jerusalem claimed for Christianity. Don't worry, I won't be blaming the fringe if things turn violent, not while our government is threatening immigration lawyers, deporting people to an El Salvadorean hellhole without due process, and just today demonstrated an unwillingness to abide by a unanimous SCOTUS decision that the administration should facilitate the return of a Maryland man who was wrongly sent to El Salvador. You want to know why peoples' hearts are turning violent against this president? There's your answer. To many people on the left, what he's doing is nearly indistinguishable from the early days of the Third Reich. I haven't quite made that leap yet, but as you can see, I'm keeping a close eye on stories related to how the administration is dealing with perceived threats to its power. And it's not looking great. I see no antisemitism here, unless protesting against genocide is antisemitic. Antisemitism is often a shield used to protect the Israeli government from valid criticism. That's how I interpret the message in that photo, and I'm inclined to agree with it. Being against Israel isn't the same as being against the Jewish people any more than me being against religion is the same as being against the religious. Again, I acknowledge that there's rhetoric on my side that I'm personally not completely okay with, and I think a lot of college students in particular haven't thought out their stances very well. University activists are usually well-meaning, but often misguided. And they're usually the ones who end up on CNN, unfortunately. In the face of genocide, though, I don't see a problem with directing harsh criticism towards Israel, and the rhetoric of some college kids doesn't change that. Israel has a country, a strong military, and the means to turn the entire Gaza Strip into glass (which some might argue is their likely end goal). I don't like antisemitism any more than you do, I promise. I just like genocide considerably less. Israel doesn't get a pass because it happened to them 80 years ago. The Palestinian people deserve better lives than Hamas or the Israeli government can give them, and it breaks my heart to see their pain minimized because someone at an Ivy League university said something mean about Jewish people.

That's true, to an extent. In San Antonio for instance, no one likes working at bars or restaurants in the Stone Oak or Alamo Heights areas. People get pre-conceived notions of their clientele based on experience working in different areas, but a good server will still give you a chance to prove that you're the exception to the rule. And ultimately, a good server treats all customers well regardless of how much they think they may get as a tip. True story, when I moved back from St Paul after my recovery, the only furniture I got from my ex was the bed I bought myself before we were married. I went to Savers and bought a recliner, an ugly but very comfortable reclining sofa, and a desk to put the TV on for a TOTAL of about $30. I value practicality and utility, not aesthetic.