Friday Potpourri: 28 February 2025
As obscene and insane as this sounds, I am amused by the House Budget vote on Wednesday night.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m completely opposed to the budget for a variety of reasons predicated on morality, decency and math, but I find humor. Dark humor.
First though, since people have asked - this is NOT the actual spending plan. This is just the framework. It has to either be approved by the Senate, or else the Senate will pass something else, and both bills will go to conference committee. After that, they’ll start looking at actual numbers. Let me know if you need more details on that.
Mike pulled the bill because he was down 5 votes, and 13 minutes later, put it back on the floor because he was able to bring 4 of 5 deficit hawks over to his side. What was promised to them was that there would be FURTHER cuts.
Earlier in the day, to get the less-extreme Rethuglicans on board, THEY were promised that the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP wouldn’t be as bad as they thought. That there were other things that would be cut instead.
Here’s why I’m amused. You CANNOT both cut more AND cut less. These people were lied to, and they were too feckless to understand that they were lied to. I am always amused by how stupid Rethuglicans are. Years ago, I had a bunch of friends who were political junkies just like me, and we’d go out for brunch in early January and cite our picks for which Rethuglican House member would do the dumbest thing during the year. We’d write the list, and then we’d go out for brunch in December, and all the losers paid for brunch for the winner. Normally, my choice was Louis “Googly-Eyes” Gohmert. Sorry, I digress.
You’d think they’d know better. All are high school graduates, and the vast majority graduated college1. Yeah, someone has to graduate last in the class, and a college degree is not a marker of “smart”, but most of us know when we’re being lied to, or at least could ferret out that you can’t add AND subtract simultaneously.
In all seriousness, that bill (passed 217-2152) was the easy part. It gets harder when they have to put in the numbers. I wrote about those blanks in this post. I’ll be writing a lot more on this topic as the numbers come out.
The other thing I’m chuckling over is that while they debate “the budget”3 - NO ONE is talking about the fact that the current CR expires on 14 March, and we’re already using extreme measures since we’ve hit the debt ceiling. March 14th? That’s 7 working days for the House, and 10 days for the Senate.
MORE MATH!!!
DOGE isn’t doing what it’s supposed to be doing. That $8 Billion in savings on one ICE contract? Actually $8 Million. Source. Fully 40% of the canceled contracts save ZERO dollars, mostly because the money was already spent. Best quote:
It’s like confiscating used ammunition after it’s been shot when there’s nothing left in it. Source.
And in case you missed it: Elmo and his band of juvenile delinquents claimed that 150-year-old people were receiving Social Security benefits. They are wrong because they didn’t understand the program was written in COBOL. For all of us who ever dealt with COBOL, or it’s offspring Micro Focus Visual COBOL, know the truth. And WE remember the COBOL Y2K problem. If you, too, remember that New Year’s Eve and Day, waiting for failure, please share in the comments.
Tis a Puzzlement
YouGov published some findings. The whole data set is here. The overall topic was potential US expansion, but this caught my eye:
Do you see what I see?
They asked people’s view of five terms: multiculturalism, assimilation, decolonization, manifest destiny and colonization. They didn’t define those terms. My guess is that most of the people polled couldn’t adequately define those terms, and give a cogent example of each. Especially manifest destiny. Because if people knew what the manifest destiny doctrine was, and it’s impacts on 19th century America, that 15% in the “Very Negative” column would be much, MUCH, higher.
Do you have a best friend?
I am extremely lucky to have a best friend. We occasionally discuss whether we met in the 1st grade or the 3rd grade (we have different memories of our first meeting) - and it really doesn’t matter since the last time we saw each other was a few months ago at our 50th high school reunion. So, we just agree to disagree.
I bring her up because the other night, while I was still suffering over the UN vote, she had a question about Walmart.
She said that she’d once gone to Walmart to see it, but she doesn’t shop there. However, she has to drive through the Walmart parking lot to get to other stores, and she sees Walmart shoppers in the parking lot and wondered why they dressed the way they did.
We ended up have a conversation about “The People of Walmart”. We laughed. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please take a look at these photos. I’m not standing in judgement, I cannot put together an outfit by myself4. But look at these photos — they are something else. Everyone should be amused on Fridays!
We then spent another hour just chatting. Like when we used to be on the phone together back in day. BEST HOUR OF THE WEEK!!!
So, here’s your assignment for the weekend: call someone you love, and have a nice conversation. NOT about politics and the slippery slope we’re on, but just a nice, chatty conversation. It will pick you up!
I’ll be back on Monday — spending another weekend at petition parties.
The data aren’t compiled for the 119th Congress, but here is information on educational attainment for the 118th Congress.
BIG shoutout to the Democratic reps who moved heaven and earth to show up to vote no. Only Raúl Grijalva missed, due to active cancer treatment. But Brittany Pettersen was there. She was out on maternity leave, but flew in from Colorado with her infant swaddled in her arms. Kevin Mullin flew in from California, still attached to his IV (he’s being treated for a blood clot and infection).
This is the budget for fiscal year 2025, which started on 1 October 2024.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am SO INEPT at knowing what to wear that when I had to wear business-business clothing for work, I had a personal shopper at Bloomies who picked my clothes, and had a seamstress put tags in them (like garanimals for kids) so I knew what went with what.
I was in IT on 1/1/2000 (I started in IT - it was called IS then - in 1996 as a COBOL programmer). We worked very hard for a couple years before 1/1/00 to convert our programs (not just COBOL) for 21st century dates. After 1/1, I was AMAZED that people laughed it off - "what was everyone so worried about", "see, it wasn't such a big deal after all". It was a lot of work and almost all IT departments planned and thoroughly worked through all the impacts. However, there were a couple local companies whose fallout got into the news.
While I agree/appreciate most of your column today. i find the whole "people of walmart" on the level of telling racist/antisemetic 'jokes'. not all of the people who shop at walmart these days are poor, and many of them, poor or otherwise dress quite nicelty, but many of the folks who qualify for your digs at "the people of Walamrt" are poor, and many of those are Black and Brown folk. laughing at poor and marginalized people is a disgusting habit certain elite liberals enjoy. If i didnt know you and love for other reasons, this would be grounds for dropping your substack. do better, you can, you know. oh, and even though i dont think i have seen this from you, dont get in the whole "You had me at their,there, they're" crap either. hating on the poor and the less educated is more suited for rethuglicans...
and yes, i do come down harder on my friends, because i expect more from them.