I know the main topic of the post was the filibuster, but this really was a WTAF moment. I'm sure many stores need to have a fire sale of this type so that they don't lose such a huge source of income. But the cruelty is the point and if stores in low income areas go out of business because of it, it's probably seen as a win-win for the regime.
I worked for state government and wrote policy manuals based on federal and state statutes (basic interpretations for state and county workers). The USDA does have this authority because a law was passed in the 1960’s designed to protect food stamp recipients from price gouging retailers who charged extra fees for the “inconvenience” of accepting food stamps. The law is that snap recipients must pay the same as non-recipients for their groceries (minus state taxes only).
The regime is flipping that on its head, as they did with DEI: they’re using the law created to protect … and they’re exploiting the “equal” clause to inflict maximum pain and suffering on the most vulnerable among us.
Almost as if they’re betting that if they starve and strangle, desperate people will eventually do desperate things. And when so, Trump has the “cure” for that. Our military is standing back and standing by.
From what I've read, the USDA quoted a federal law that had to be put in place decades ago because some grocery stores were charging SNAP recipients *higher* prices than normal customers.
Because, y'know, those grocers were shitstain sisterfuckers, along with the USDA.
Seriously, using a law to prevent overcharging against poor people who have had their food supply cut off from getting a bloody discount is super cooked. Witness pure evil in action
Remember Captain Hook in the 1991 Spielberg film Hook? He pulls out a gun and tells Smee, “Don’t try to stop me,” over and over, dramatic and dead serious. Smee, worn down, sighs, “Not again.” Seconds later, Hook changes course, now begging Smee to stop him. “Help me,” he says. “Stop me. Get over here and stop me!”
That’s the GOP. All performative bluster, all empty threats, until they want someone else to clean up their mess. Drama queens in powdered wigs, exploiting chaos they create and counting on never being called on it.
One thing missed. Another reason Trump and the USDA are telling grocery stores not to help or face consequences is because the regime feels that if people cannot get food THEY WILL become violent. Trump wants a reason to call for martial law and starving people so they get violent is a great reason. He has been pushing people the entire year, expecting them to take up arms or get violent by blowing up govt buildings. We have maintained our cool no matter what he has tried to do. He is growing impatient, but the admin is also losing support. Great place to have them at this point. Throw their actions right back in their face.
Thanks to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, we have a Repulikkkan party that, like Dracula, refuses to fucking die. They could have backed eliminating the filibuster to pass the VRA during Biden’s administration but no…those two fucked us all!
They were paid to do that the republican "businessmen" were pouring money into Sinema for sale's coffers by the end they even threw a dinner thanking her.
When possible, the Dems should not only make DC a state, but also Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the US Virgin Islands. Fourteen new Senate seats, most of which would be Democratic. I also love the idea of more Supreme Court seats. There are 13 federal appellate courts. There should be at least 13 Justices.
That was always just a marketing term to sell to the rubes for political power.
"In the months before the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, the Willkes published How to teach people the pro-life story, a modern-day sales manual on how to effectively market the movement. It was a play-by-play on how the Willkes communicated pro-life arguments so that other speakers might follow their lead. As described in the book, they never showed visuals of embryos less than six weeks old because “the audience may change their minds from their conviction that this is a human life.” They began their lectures with pictures of babies nearing full-term and subsequently moved through the fetal development process in reverse chronological order, asking the audience with each image: is this still a human? Their intention, as explained in the book, was to start with a picture that resembled a human to anchor the audience in the belief that they were looking at a living, breathing person."
In the end their own ignorance and malevolence will finish them. Lots of pain until then, though. Turn up the heat! We need an organized consumer boycott through the holidays.
The US, post 70s, prompty forgot the gas lines, did virtually nothing to shift away from using oil, and learned nothing. Only a few decades later, HW Bush got the US mired in a war with Iraq, purely about oil. Then GW Bush went right back into Iraq again in 2001, ultimately wasting over $4trillion dollars, "winning" a war for Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China. If the US had spent anywhere near the amount of money wasted in the Mideast on nuke plants and alternative energy sources, they could have completely ignored the Mideast from about the mid 90s on.
I'm so sorry that you went hungry when you were young. I spent two years at boarding school in the 1950s and was sometimes so hungry that I ate toothpaste or Nivea...
If we’re going to suffer one way or another then anything that puts the MAGA party in a death spiral works for me. November 2026 can’t come fast enough.
By their hand are they doomed, Double O. Only questions left: how long will it take for the doom to reach them and how much will we suffer along the way?
The GOP is once again reinventing self-immolation as a strategy. Trump orders the filibuster nuked, Republicans choke on their own cowardice, and the rest of us get to watch the political equivalent of a barn burning while they argue about whose marshmallows are charred. Beautiful.
This piece is right to laugh at their panic and refuse sympathy. Let them choose between surrendering the party to dignity or surrendering dignity to Trump. Either way, their brand is collapsing under its own cruelty. Meanwhile, millions go hungry and lose health care, and the party pretends this is tactical theatre. It is not. It is a moral bankruptcy turned into a legislative tactic. Call it what it is and make people feel the cost. Anger that leads to votes is better than pity that leads to grief.
What gives the USDA the authority to tell local grocers how to price their merchandise?
Nothing. This order is fucking illegal.
The USDA does not have this authority. I know the Trump brain trust is used to breaking the law with impunity, but this is a slam dunk.
I know the main topic of the post was the filibuster, but this really was a WTAF moment. I'm sure many stores need to have a fire sale of this type so that they don't lose such a huge source of income. But the cruelty is the point and if stores in low income areas go out of business because of it, it's probably seen as a win-win for the regime.
The larger grocery chains, such as Kroger, should take the USDA to court. They'd win.
I mean sure. But they could also just tell the USDA to fuck off.
Or ignore them. That works too.
They cannot sue. They can apply for a special waiver, that we’re all sure the USDA will swiftly grant 😏
I worked for state government and wrote policy manuals based on federal and state statutes (basic interpretations for state and county workers). The USDA does have this authority because a law was passed in the 1960’s designed to protect food stamp recipients from price gouging retailers who charged extra fees for the “inconvenience” of accepting food stamps. The law is that snap recipients must pay the same as non-recipients for their groceries (minus state taxes only).
The regime is flipping that on its head, as they did with DEI: they’re using the law created to protect … and they’re exploiting the “equal” clause to inflict maximum pain and suffering on the most vulnerable among us.
Almost as if they’re betting that if they starve and strangle, desperate people will eventually do desperate things. And when so, Trump has the “cure” for that. Our military is standing back and standing by.
From what I've read, the USDA quoted a federal law that had to be put in place decades ago because some grocery stores were charging SNAP recipients *higher* prices than normal customers.
Because, y'know, those grocers were shitstain sisterfuckers, along with the USDA.
Seriously, using a law to prevent overcharging against poor people who have had their food supply cut off from getting a bloody discount is super cooked. Witness pure evil in action
Why would the government tell the grocery stores this?!!
Cruelty.
The party of small government.
Please explain how the filibuster comes into play. “
End the filibuster”…
"You fucked up, you trusted us." - Animal House
The GOP needs to make this their official motto. It would be a way of showing that they've still got some tenuous grasp on reality.
And therefore, they won’t
Remember Captain Hook in the 1991 Spielberg film Hook? He pulls out a gun and tells Smee, “Don’t try to stop me,” over and over, dramatic and dead serious. Smee, worn down, sighs, “Not again.” Seconds later, Hook changes course, now begging Smee to stop him. “Help me,” he says. “Stop me. Get over here and stop me!”
That’s the GOP. All performative bluster, all empty threats, until they want someone else to clean up their mess. Drama queens in powdered wigs, exploiting chaos they create and counting on never being called on it.
Exactly.
One thing missed. Another reason Trump and the USDA are telling grocery stores not to help or face consequences is because the regime feels that if people cannot get food THEY WILL become violent. Trump wants a reason to call for martial law and starving people so they get violent is a great reason. He has been pushing people the entire year, expecting them to take up arms or get violent by blowing up govt buildings. We have maintained our cool no matter what he has tried to do. He is growing impatient, but the admin is also losing support. Great place to have them at this point. Throw their actions right back in their face.
Sunday, I volunteered at a food collection event ....two hundred people volunteered and we could not keep up with the huge volume of food donated.
America will defeat Trump and his Republican co-conspirators.
Us too. Many donations. They had a collection spot for early voting and 2 grocery carts and a bin were overflowing every day.
Fox still has their bogus “riot at the grocery” clips up.
Thanks to Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, we have a Repulikkkan party that, like Dracula, refuses to fucking die. They could have backed eliminating the filibuster to pass the VRA during Biden’s administration but no…those two fucked us all!
They were paid to do that the republican "businessmen" were pouring money into Sinema for sale's coffers by the end they even threw a dinner thanking her.
https://www.businessinsider.com/kyrsten-sinema-received-max-donations-from-gop-donors-2021-10
When possible, the Dems should not only make DC a state, but also Puerto Rico, the Commonwealth of the North Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the US Virgin Islands. Fourteen new Senate seats, most of which would be Democratic. I also love the idea of more Supreme Court seats. There are 13 federal appellate courts. There should be at least 13 Justices.
Split California into 4 states also.
I don't ever want to hear another MAGA (formerly the GOP) call themselves pro-life again. No greater lie has ever been spoken.
That was always just a marketing term to sell to the rubes for political power.
"In the months before the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade, the Willkes published How to teach people the pro-life story, a modern-day sales manual on how to effectively market the movement. It was a play-by-play on how the Willkes communicated pro-life arguments so that other speakers might follow their lead. As described in the book, they never showed visuals of embryos less than six weeks old because “the audience may change their minds from their conviction that this is a human life.” They began their lectures with pictures of babies nearing full-term and subsequently moved through the fetal development process in reverse chronological order, asking the audience with each image: is this still a human? Their intention, as explained in the book, was to start with a picture that resembled a human to anchor the audience in the belief that they were looking at a living, breathing person."
https://www.printmag.com/political-design/the-semiotics-of-a-movement-how-pro-life-became-a-marketing-campaign/
In the end their own ignorance and malevolence will finish them. Lots of pain until then, though. Turn up the heat! We need an organized consumer boycott through the holidays.
“Republicans truly are the worst fucking people to ever exist in America.” YES indeed.
Money quote!
I remember the gas shortages of the 70s and waiting in line for hours to get gas. People will remember this.
The US, post 70s, prompty forgot the gas lines, did virtually nothing to shift away from using oil, and learned nothing. Only a few decades later, HW Bush got the US mired in a war with Iraq, purely about oil. Then GW Bush went right back into Iraq again in 2001, ultimately wasting over $4trillion dollars, "winning" a war for Saudi Arabia, Iran, and China. If the US had spent anywhere near the amount of money wasted in the Mideast on nuke plants and alternative energy sources, they could have completely ignored the Mideast from about the mid 90s on.
I'm so sorry that you went hungry when you were young. I spent two years at boarding school in the 1950s and was sometimes so hungry that I ate toothpaste or Nivea...
Ouch, I’m sorry that happened too.
If we’re going to suffer one way or another then anything that puts the MAGA party in a death spiral works for me. November 2026 can’t come fast enough.
Thank you, dear Ogre, for this blast of hope. May you be a prophet in your own country.
By their hand are they doomed, Double O. Only questions left: how long will it take for the doom to reach them and how much will we suffer along the way?
Too long and too many.
"Perfect...that is the perfect answer." --David Scarpa & Graham Yost, The Last Castle, 2001, spoken by James Gandolfini.
The GOP is once again reinventing self-immolation as a strategy. Trump orders the filibuster nuked, Republicans choke on their own cowardice, and the rest of us get to watch the political equivalent of a barn burning while they argue about whose marshmallows are charred. Beautiful.
This piece is right to laugh at their panic and refuse sympathy. Let them choose between surrendering the party to dignity or surrendering dignity to Trump. Either way, their brand is collapsing under its own cruelty. Meanwhile, millions go hungry and lose health care, and the party pretends this is tactical theatre. It is not. It is a moral bankruptcy turned into a legislative tactic. Call it what it is and make people feel the cost. Anger that leads to votes is better than pity that leads to grief.
Honestly, the sooner this happens, the better.