NER430
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ner430.bsky.social
NER430
@ner430.bsky.social
880 followers 1.5K following 2.3K posts
I care about social justice issues.
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ner430.bsky.social
What do Republicans get out of these decisions? Well, they stand to save nearly $1 trillion in federal spending over a decade, largely because so many workers and small businesses insured through the ACA marketplaces or Medicaid expansion won’t be able to afford the skyrocketing premiums or handle the process required to stay enrolled. That trillion or so will help Trump & co. realize their true priority—tax breaks predominantly for wealthy individuals and corporations. Trump is nothing if not a loyal friend to the exceedingly well-heeled, no matter what the cost to everyone else. That, too, is terrible politics, and there’s no sign he and most Republicans are rethinking anything at all.
December 9, 2025 at 3:04 PM
ner430.bsky.social
From Jack Goldsmith's [Harvard Law prof, former head of OLC] excellent analysis of the laws of war that apply to strikes like this one.
According to the Post, Bradley at some point argued that “the survivors were still legitimate targets because they could theoretically call other traffickers to retrieve them and their cargo.” That is wrong. The theoretical possibility of calling other traffickers for help is not the test. The incapacitated survivors simply may not be targeted unless, as Section 5.9 of the Manual says, they affirmatively committed a “hostile act” or “attempt[ed] to escape.” If the Post’s facts are in the vicinity of the truth, that could not have happened. (The Intercept, which reported the kernel of this event in September, said that the survivors were “killed shortly after in a follow-up attack.”)
December 1, 2025 at 2:13 PM
ner430.bsky.social
Late last year, Mr. Trump’s transition team refused to sign an agreement with the General Services Administration that would have required it to publish the names of its contributors and the amount of money they donated within 30 days of the inauguration in exchange for more than $7 million in federal funding and administrative support. Prior administrations, including Mr. Trump’s in 2016, signed that agreement, which in addition to the disclosure obligation caps individual donations at $5,000 and bars foreign contributions. By declining to sign, the second Trump transition sidestepped those strictures and presumably could accept far larger contributions. Almost exactly one year ago, Susie Wiles, now serving as Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, described the decision not to sign the G.S.A. agreement as a way to “save taxpayers’ hard-earned money.” At the time, she also pledged to disclose the names of donors and to ensure that no noncitizens contributed to the transition
November 26, 2025 at 2:36 PM
ner430.bsky.social
I think Lydia Polgren makes an excellent point: we could make something positive from this experience if it leads us to sweep away the powerful that were part of Epstein's sex trafficking conspiracy and choose new leaders who are untouched by this corruption and can pass a moral litmus test.
Polgreen: And it’s kind of gross because the answer to the question of should there be accountability should just be yes. Rather than who’s going to get hurt? Which side is going to get more hurt by it? But there’s been a lot of talk about Epstein and the circles that he ran in, that this is actually going to affect more Democrats than it is Republicans. I mean, I don’t know about that. But I have a slightly different view, which is that I think it’ll actually be a really good thing if this whole network and constellation of powerful men who are part of this, in varying degrees — some of them not criminal, some of them just creepy, some of them just really bad judgment. I think if all of those figures, regardless of what their politics are, are swept away and pushed into retirement and sent off to live out the last of their days in some kind of shame, that that would not necessarily be a bad thing. And I would say it’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially for the Democratic Party. You need this renewal. You need new figures who are untouched, who were never part of these awful power games and networks that they used to play. I almost think of it as being a little bit like the dividing line between Democrats who opposed the Iraq war and those who voted for it. It’s an imperfect analogy, obviously, a different situation. But I think that there was something really healthy about that, becoming, in effect, a kind of litmus test to have a clear moral point of view about whether the Iraq war was a huge mistake or not.
November 22, 2025 at 11:26 PM
ner430.bsky.social
Overseeing these decisions are dozens of political appointees who previously worked for industries regulated by the DOT. The agency’s top posts are now occupied by lobbyists and consultants, former airline and railroad CEOs, alumni of autonomous vehicle technology startups and shipping and infrastructure firms, and ex-lawyers for pipeline and trucking companies. Some of the appointees previously battled against the DOT divisions they now control. Some took industry jobs after prior stints at the agency and have now cycled back into the upper ranks of the DOT. ProPublica identified 32 political appointees at the DOT with industry ties, including 11 who recently held investments in transportation companies and adjacent industries. Those appointees disclosed between $12 million and $52 million in stock holdings and other financial interests in airlines, railroads, oil and gas corporations, transportation technology firms and other businesses whose work is close enough to the agency’s purview that the appointees pledged to divest or recuse themselves from matters involving those companies. Such investments by DOT leadership may be far greater, but financial disclosures are not publicly available for all of the appointees. The agency has not fulfilled a request by ProPublica for any disclosure filings from other appointees that are subject to release under federal law.
November 20, 2025 at 1:42 PM
ner430.bsky.social
From the Civil Servants Coalition to Congress and All Americans: Intensify the Fight for Democracy
November 16, 2025 at 1:54 AM
ner430.bsky.social
Meanwhile the obvious solutions Trump could adopt mostly involve reversing his own agenda. He could stop canceling all those energy projects around the country, for instance. He could stop deporting the agricultural workforce, which his own administration acknowledges is threatening higher food prices. And he could cool it with the tariffs. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that current tariff levels raise costs by the equivalent of $1,800 for the average household, though we haven’t felt the full effect yet.
November 14, 2025 at 2:05 PM
ner430.bsky.social
Bauer noted that the current work requirements box out those who may lose their jobs, but rely on SNAP to put food on the table. “Let’s say you lose your job and you can’t find a job for three months,” she explained. “Because you can’t find a job for three months, you incur a penalty every month. On that fourth month, you are kicked off the program and you are not eligible to receive SNAP for the next 33 months.”
November 14, 2025 at 11:53 AM
ner430.bsky.social
Remember Your Oath Rally, Union Station, DC. 1:00 pm 11/11. Free Ben & Jerry's ice cream served on site.
November 11, 2025 at 1:44 PM
ner430.bsky.social
Clark Construction is the contractor. Here's a contact form:
www.clarkconstruction.com/contact-us

Here's a list of their offices:
www.clarkconstruction.com/about-us/off...
According to AI, Clark Construction is the contractor for the ballroom. The lead architect is McCrery Architects, and tge lead engineering firm is AECOM.
October 21, 2025 at 12:42 PM
ner430.bsky.social
#NoKingsDC
Woman dressed as Trump's entry in the Epstein birthday book, next to a man dressed as Trump, wearing a sign that says "I am your greatest emergency."
October 19, 2025 at 1:32 AM
ner430.bsky.social
Snipers on the roof of the National Gallery
.#NoKingsDC
October 18, 2025 at 4:36 PM
ner430.bsky.social
Spread the word: History Teach-In in Defense of history and Museums on Sunday, 10/26
October 10, 2025 at 11:32 AM
ner430.bsky.social
Neither Roberts nor any of the supposedly originalist members of the court seem to either know or care that the presidency, as envisioned by the framers. was meant to be insulated from direct popular influence, not an expression of it. The Electoral College was a single-use legislature designed to stymie factional feeling, and electors were to be chosen by each state legislature. The president was more politically accountable than a justice of the Supreme Court (with lifetime tenure) or a member of the Senate (serving six-year terms and appointed by their state's legislature as well), but far less accountable than a member of the House of Representatives, which was designed to be the most politically accountable institution in the federal government, with two-year terms for each representative.
September 24, 2025 at 1:59 PM
ner430.bsky.social
I want change. No one deserves to be treated like this. To have no rights. It’s just crazy to think about––that they can just mask up and take someone off the street, no questions asked, and you’re just gone. If they feel like it, they can just take you. No. Someone has to be held accountable. I hope change happens in the way that ICE goes about their business. I hope they get proper training. I hope that they’re just not able to racially profile people and just take people off the streets. I hope the government acknowledges that they could do wrong. I hope they take accountability. My case is a perfect chance for the government to say, Okay, we fucked up. You’re right. This isn’t right. And we’re not gonna try to hide it. We acknowledge what we did was wrong.
September 11, 2025 at 2:14 PM
ner430.bsky.social
No Kings, Free DC
September 6, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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“Our more moderate members in both the House and Senate — this is not something they would be inclined to do,” said Gregg Keller, a Republican strategist in Missouri, the next red state expected to redraw its maps. “However, when it became clear that these calls were coming directly from the president, directly from the White House, that this was part of a larger national strategy, they realized they were going to need to go along with it whether they liked it or not.”
August 26, 2025 at 4:20 PM
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"It's like the death of an ideal."
That death is already underway. Around 4,000 NASA staffers are scheduled to leave the agency this year, either through what the Trump administration calls “deferred resignation”—a kind of delayed, voluntary layoff—or what NASA is branding “normal attrition,” which includes people like Rader who are leaving of their own accord. That represents about a quarter of the agency’s total staff and includes more than 2,000 senior leaders, according to a report in Politico.
August 21, 2025 at 2:07 PM
ner430.bsky.social
Sometimes the news is what it seems to be, meaning, in this case: No deal. The day began with a hellish war in Ukraine, with air-raid sirens in Kyiv and fierce battles in the east, and that is how it ended. The only difference is that Putin got one hell of a photo op out of Trump, and still more time on the clock to prosecute his war against the “brotherly” Ukrainian people, as he had the chutzpah to call them during his remarks in Alaska. The most enduring images from Anchorage, it seems, will be its grotesque displays of bonhomie between the dictator and his longtime American admirer.
August 16, 2025 at 3:10 PM
ner430.bsky.social
No other president, with the possible exception of Lincoln, was Washington’s equal. But for nearly the entirety of American history, up until a decade ago, Washington set the standard. Presidents had to at least appear to be better than they were, offering the tribute that vice pays to virtue. No more. Donald Trump’s corruption is borderless, in ways we’ve never quite seen before. But what’s also precedent-shattering is that he doesn’t try to hide it. His depravity is all in the open.
August 13, 2025 at 4:07 PM
ner430.bsky.social
There are lawyers in the current Trump administration who have refused to take actions they believed were wrong. In February, Danielle Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, quit rather than obey orders to drop the federal corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams. Many other lawyers in the Justice Department have quit or announced plans to quit, including at least 69 of the approximately 110 lawyers in the federal programs branch, which represents the executive branch in civil litigation. Actions like theirs should be taught as a model for ethical conduct at every law school in the country.
August 9, 2025 at 12:37 PM
ner430.bsky.social
There’s something more than craven political expediency going on here. After all, precisely because Mills’s seat is safe, Republicans could break with him without worrying that he’d be replaced by a Democrat. That, however, would violate the spirit of Trump’s Washington, which grants near total license to the president’s allies. This administration glories in thuggish transgression; nothing Mills is said to have done puts him crosswise with its fundamental values.
August 8, 2025 at 12:14 PM
ner430.bsky.social
“On your call with individuals in the public integrity section, did you state, suggest or imply that the section’s career attorneys could be fired if none of them agreed to sign the brief dismissing Mayor Adams’ indictment?” Durbin asked. “No,” Bove said. “Did you state, suggest or imply that any individual who agreed to sign the brief would be rewarded?” Durbin asked him. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow the question,” Bove said. “Well, you needed somebody to sign that brief … was there any suggestion they be treated any differently because of it?” Durbin asked. “No,” Bove responded. But people familiar with the meeting said Bove specifically mentioned that people who agreed to sign the motion might become “leaders” in the office Ed Sullivan, the single trial lawyer from the section who ultimately signed the motion, was later promoted to become head of the section.
July 30, 2025 at 12:34 PM
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It is also striking that the court seemed less willing to grant emergency relief to President Joe Biden than to Mr. Trump. In 2022, for example, the Biden administration petitioned the justices after a district court blocked the Education Department from carrying out Mr. Biden’s student-debt forgiveness program. The justices declined to act, leaving his plan paused for half a year while they considered the case on its normal, slower docket. The justices also declined to take up his administration’s broader complaints about universal injunctions — orders from a single lower-court judge blocking a policy nationwide, as happened with the debt-relief program. After Mr. Trump took office, by contrast, the justices issued a ruling restricting those universal injunctions. Why was Trump’s Education Department policy an emergency that required immediate relief but Biden’s policy was not? Why did the court allow universal injunctions to block Mr. Biden’s policies, only to restrict them after they blocked Mr. Trump’s actions? Once more, the justices might have had reasons for making these distinctions but have not offered them. By failing to do so, the justices breed doubt.
July 28, 2025 at 12:46 PM
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"President Donald Trump was struggling Wednesday to contain the fallout from his administration’s decision not to release the Epstein files, as a House subcommittee for the first time voted to subpoena the administration for the files...."
Gift link wapo.st/46UEwh1
July 24, 2025 at 1:03 AM