I wish these articles would note that Congress gets a say. I know there’s a slim Republican majority in both houses but that’s not enough in the Senate.

Obviously, a lot can be done by executive order and that reconciliation exists. The tax credit would qualify for reconciliation bills and could easily be doomed. But half these articles act like Trump won’t face any resistance, even from within his own party.

This seems unambiguously up to Congress since a “post office and postal roads” are specifically mentioned as part of Article I of the constitution but who the fuck knows in the Calvinball judicial era?

Just to be clear, it says, “may” setup a post office not “shall” and some FedEx executive with a briefcase full of cash could probably convince at least 4 SCOTUS judges to vote for something. But Jeff Bezos and whoever owns the greeting card industry — Hallmark, I guess — might have larger briefcases of cash so we’ll see who wins. (Not us. We’re losing either way. But Amazon vs. FedEx and every company that has to mail records by law — health insurance and banks probably being the big ones — means nothing is guaranteed and it’ll take decades of court cases to sort out.)

Ah, someone who played a key role in the Venezuelan coup, the most slapdick of coup attempts. It was like they dusted off a plan from 1980. They setup these staged events for TV and people with phone cameras were filming it from afar and posting on social media like, “What are these clowns doing? Are they filming a commercial?”

You can love or hate Maduro. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the planning and execution of the coup. It was downright buffoonish.

The latter. I mean, America was founded by a tobacco company and people so weird in their religiosity, they were kicked out of 17th century Europe.

I do think we can solve the oligarch problem. So, part of me was like, “We’ve met this challenge before, motherfuckers.” It wasn’t meant to dismissive but I’m pretty sure I could open hand slap Elon Musk and 24 of his 38 kids would feel it.

Oh no, what will we do if billionaires control the U.S. government.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907

And those are just J.P. Morgan.

I live in New Orleans and the police on Bourbon St. ride specially-trained, very large horses for crowd control. I’ve definitely seen some drunk tourists try to resist an officer’s command to calm down by trying to push back on the horse and the horse just being totally unphased.

I read the Financial Times despite being on the left but I find that useful because they don’t cover DC drama unless it legitimately matters. I’m not at all interested in broadening my horizons by reading American conservative bullshit. I already know what they’re going to say. I prefer to read new perspectives. To give an example, I’d rather read a novel by an African woman than learn what propaganda Fox News is pushing. I just don’t care anymore.

“Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.”

— G.K. Chesterton

I use Bitwarden as a password manager and 2FA manager. I like that Bitwarden automatically copies the 2FA number after filling a password — if you want it to — so I just hit paste and it’s all quick and easy. It’s a lot of trust to put in one product/company, obviously, but I use biometric, FIDO, or ssh keys for critical stuff (at least where I have the option).

I also use Authy, in part because I used it for years before switching to Bitwarden. I liked Authy a lot but it was just less convenient than using Bitwarden. Also, a few sites — Twilio (Authy’s parent company) ones, specifically — seem to require Authy.

Passwordless is coming along but pretty slowly. So, definitely setup 2FA. Tech companies can’t seem to wait to switch to passwordless. Other types of businesses are super conservative about logins and probably won’t adopt it for a few more years.

Trump’s economic policies aren’t neoliberal so much as mercantilist. He wants tariffs and trade wars. (There’s obviously also a dash of fascist policies where he wants companies to serve him.)