{"id":56230,"date":"2025-02-20T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2025-02-20T14:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=56230"},"modified":"2025-02-19T17:40:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T01:40:22","slug":"open-thread-february-20-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2025\/02\/20\/open-thread-february-20-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread February 20 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, again acting on advice from a Democratic Underground member, I went to the Social Security website and downloaded or printed my essential information – lifetime record os earnings, verification of benefits letter, and my Social Decurity statement. They are not on my hard drive, but on my portable hard drive; I have two of those, so I’ll be copying the information to the other one. Paranoid, sure. Except that we have something to be paranoid about. If Dork Vader’s random comments and the antics of his crew don’t make you even a little bit nervous, maybe you should check your pulse. Also, Andy Borowitz<\/a> was getting serious.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what the answer is to something which bugs me about this otherwise excellent Pro Publica<\/a> article, which is well researched and factual. It’s the tone. It sounds so surprised that a Mange Menace appointee appointed a deputy who is an obvious criminal. Because, of course he did. That’s what this administration does. I don’t want to normalize this behavior, but I also don’t want, for myself or anyone on my side, to sound like an idiot surprised that the sun appears to rise in the east and set in the west daily. There has to be some kind of middle way to address these predictable but horrible events.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"I’ve added a “sarcasm” tag to this from the F* News<\/a>, not because every word is sarcastic, but because the author is affecting naivete, requiring the reader to pay more than normal attention to determine what’s being said. But the fact remains, whoever or whatever is driving this administrations policies and actions, the fact remains that all the policies are gawdawful<\/p>\n