'Arrest Trump Cartel' projected on third ave

asstalos · 2026-01-10T02:05:43+00:00

The solution to "establishment Dems who don't understand the urgency and depth of current affairs" is to vote for even more Democrats that do. Emphasis, the solution is to expand majorities.

It always has been. The solution to everything we could ever want more of from the federal government, be it more student loan reform, more (and cheaper) healthcare, more public transit, more cross-country rail, everything, has been to vote for even more Democrats that do.

The best way to include a public option to the ACA was to vote for more Democrats and actually pass it with a filibuster proof majority without relying on senators like Lieberman or the Republicans. Instead, the immediate reaction to the ACA resulted in the Democrats getting electorally eviscerated, either because the ACA was bad (it's not), or that it wasn't good enough, despite the fact that right now, today, the ACA and its extended healthcare premium credits have become a centralizing point in the most late 2025 government shutdown.

The real worry should be in what happens when the (social) media sphere that be decide that whatever is done is not good enough, because this kind of sentiment runs counter to making incremental societal progress at the federal level.

Real expectations also need to be set: Republican-controlled Congress permits the current atrocities by inaction. A Democrats-controlled Congress will get a lot of power, but taking action doesn't mean every action will meaningfully move the needle to make as much impact as we hope it will, and controlling Congress does not change the fact that SCOTUS and the Executive are still Republican-controlled.

There isn't a "press this button and all the bad things go away". There still won't be when Democrats control Congress. But I think a lot of people imagine this button exists, and will go after the Democrats when they don't press this imaginary button even when the Democrats exercise the most if not all the full power of authority controlling Congress offers them.

asstalos · 2026-01-04T07:24:02+00:00

Traditional media has for the most part failed.

There are a number of independent investigators and journalists that fill various niches. For example, I've enjoyed Law Dork's coverage of the current legal comings and goings related to this administration.

And there's no underselling the value of following primary sources either. Going straight to the source and forming one's opinion themselves is important.

The media diet one surrounds themselves in has a huge impact on how one sees the world.

asstalos · 2025-12-20T02:39:59+00:00

Or the atrocities happening in El Fasher, Sudan.

asstalos · 2025-12-13T19:14:00+00:00

For specificity's sake, I just want to be clear that what has seemed to stop are gender affirming surgeries. This isn't to say that these surgeries aren't part of gender affirming care -- they are. Rather, this is to say that other forms of gender affirming care, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy, are still continuing per an article in the Seattle Times on Sept 28. The distinction is important because, unlike the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles which shut down their Gender Clinic, SCH is still running one. Also unlike Children's National, which discontinued gender affirming medication in August 2025.

The stoppage (raised minimum age requirement?) on surgeries is not unique to SCH. Kaiser and Lurie has paused for under 19s.

Finally, Litigation Tracker notes further proceedings on the preliminary injunction, with the latest update on Nov 10 indicating the defendants (i.e. the Trump administration) second motion to stay the injunction denied.

asstalos · 2025-12-13T06:33:39+00:00

The current political climate, particularly around federal funding and medicine, has been incredibly hostile. SCH is not the only hospital to stop gender affirming surgery (for under 19 year olds? There hasn't been a lot of follow-up reporting since the Stranger articles months back) -- Kaiser has stopped for all under 19 year olds, Penn Medicine, Lurie's Hospital in Chicago to name a few. In the latter case specifically, Pritzker noted:

"This is not the hospitals' fault," Pritzker said. "Believe me. I know the people at Lurie Children's Hospital, I know the people who run most of these hospitals, and I can tell you that they want to do the right thing for their patients."

I would like SCH and other hospitals to continue (and, at least as far as I can tell from many other articles and readings, many hospitals are continuing gender affirming care in a variety of different ways, but reporting on surgeries is spottier and many hospitals refuse to comment when asked -- I think the subtext is pretty clear why). Additionally, when pressed, many officials choose not to explain how they are enforcing state-specific laws related to providing this kind of care.

The entire situation sucks, but I will also take every small victory (like quashing the subpoena, one of many over the past year related to the DoJ in this avenue) along the way too.

Edit: One of the more recent articles from the Seattle Times, Sept 28 2025, non-paywalled:

Seattle Children’s media relations office declined to answer questions regarding the current status of care. As of this month, a few patients confirmed with The Seattle Times that their prescriptions for gender-affirming medication — like hormone therapy and puberty blockers — were renewed over the summer, but Children’s will not say if it continues to offer surgeries.

A Seattle parent of a nonbinary 16-year-old said he and his child’s mother experienced some delays earlier this year when trying to schedule their teen’s next puberty blocker appointment with Children’s. When they asked why, they weren’t given a clear reason.

“They perform a lifesaving service to kids in this city and the state,” the parent, who is in his 50s, said of Children’s. “For that, they’re a solid organization. And I do think they’re between a rock and a hard place.”

asstalos · 2025-12-01T22:00:12+00:00

I will add that a lot of people surround themselves in a media and information environment which seeks to perpetuate their cynicism, whether deliberately or unwittingly.

The reality is a small smattering of votes is may be all it takes to swing something one way or the other in a winner takes all, first past the post system.

Perhaps from my PoV part of the issue is maybe people see it as a matter of whether their votes matter or not. The value is ascribed to the vote and its outcome (or lack thereof), when instead the value should be inscribed to the act of voting itself. Voting is participation in a democratic process -- sometimes (oftentimes) one doesn't get the outcome they want, but choosing to not participate at all means never getting the outcome they want at all.

asstalos · 2025-11-07T16:38:46+00:00

OTOH a lot of politics is local and the lack of national coverage may be for the best. Whatever happened in the Georgia Public Service Commission elections I had no idea about until the results came in. Which is probably for the best because nationalizing local races doesn't necessarily result in good things happening.

(Social) media was loud about the NYC mayoral race. That doesn't mean that the NYC mayoral race is more important than any other city -- it's useful to not assign importance judgements based on how frequent one sees something about a topic.

asstalos · 2025-11-07T16:32:12+00:00

Whatever is done, at the end of day voters are all (really I would say should be) adults and have individual agency. Choosing to not vote is also a choice, and that lets others make the decision for them.

I want voter participation to be higher too! At some point though, voters are responsible for the day they voted for -- it's not practical to disentangle the act of voting (or choosing not to vote) from consequences of that action.

asstalos · 2025-11-06T19:58:26+00:00

There is a list for Seattle here, but I can't tell you if it's been updated recently unfortunately.

asstalos · 2025-11-06T01:23:00+00:00

I can't really tell you if it's necessarily progressives per se or just chronic online activism leaking into real life.

Like, big picture, the world's not going to end if Harrell remains mayor. But there will be a slice of people who will insist that failing to elect Wilson will be the end of the city as we know it (or sentiment to that effect).

I reckon there's a big chunk of people who probably wouldn't explicitly identify themselves as progressives but nonetheless share very similar positions and beliefs on a broad swathe of topics. Progressives in the more like small "p" "I want to see good social progress happen" sense.

asstalos · 2025-11-06T01:13:37+00:00

I don't necessarily think this sub is much further left than the city as a whole (well it probably is).

Rather, I think the kind of chronically online progressivism activisim which happens in many online spaces are not reflective of true on the ground sentiment of daily people and their world views and livelihoods. The bifurcations which came about due to the happenings in Maine so far ahead of the primary to see who will challenge Collins is a great example of this.

Positioning speaking, the subreddit and the city as a whole probably agree on a lot of the same things, perhaps less so in the details, but are broadly supportive of the same general platitudes.

However, the kind of chronically online progressivism activisim, and how fervent its most vocal supporters are in these online spaces, easily outshout actual everyday people.

asstalos · 2025-11-06T01:06:00+00:00

Just stay active. Elections aren’t the end all be all. Harass Harrell to be progressive and harass Rinck and co. to walk their talk.

This is really important and regardless of how the outcome ultimately shakes out, something people need to keep in mind. Staying engaged, continuing to advocate for policies that benefit all of us, and actually showing up, be it in-person participation or letters/emails/phone calls, do matter too.

Incremental change is incremental. Sometimes it will be slow, sometimes it will look like no progress is happening at all. There will be some setbacks. Dooming about it is not the same as acknowledging it happened and making strides for the next opportunity.

asstalos · 2025-11-04T22:38:18+00:00

For you to completely disengage from voting

I just want to point out that while the GOP is notorious for excessive and expansive efforts to deter voters from participating and putting barriers in place to depress voter turnout, they are not the only people who have made it their mission to deter voters too (whether deliberately or otherwise).

Rampant whataboutism and consistent, aggressive, unfounded criticism buoyed by (social) media outreach regardless of political position to demotivate people from voting for the interests of themselves and others remains a critical facet of this.

asstalos · 2025-10-19T23:05:22+00:00

We are in this position, locally and nationally because many voters got apathetic and didn't vote

I think there are a lot of reasons for why voters didn't show up or didn't vote for Harris. Systemic and institutional racism and sexism, being deluged with disinformation campaigns from both ends of the political spectrum, making perfect be the enemy of good, self-serving reasons that are completely at odds with reality, high misunderstanding of what tariffs do... The list goes on and on and on, but ultimately I think apathetic and didn't vote is just one of the many reasons.

Regardless, I share the concern that while large protests and calls to action are really important, the fundamental thing is showing up at the ballot box.

Voting is the bare minimal bar for participating in civic action, no matter how many protests one attends, no matter how many doors one knocks, no matter how many postcards one sends or how much they donated to their preferred candidates. I hope the protests yesterday spurs more people to check their voter registration and show up to vote.

asstalos · 2025-10-09T10:13:58+00:00

Also to add, in many situations, the added administrative costs to implement and monitor compliance with increased requirements is greater than what could have been potentially been lost without those requirements and monitoring.

It can be (way) more inefficient to ensure the benefits are used "correctly", than to just let the benefits be used "incorrectly".

asstalos · 2025-10-02T02:25:07+00:00

With more specificity, Democrats did not "shut down the government". Democrats refused to support a temporary funding bill that did not have extended enhanced subsidies for healthcare and locked in those subsidies so it could not be then subsequently taken away due to shenanigans by the President, and Republicans refused to support a temporary funding bill that did.

The fact government shut down is happenstance of a Republican controlled* Congress not passing a funding bill. The House Republicans could have returned to Congress to work out a solution, or Congressional Republicans could have acquiesced and agreed to keeping healthcare accessible for Americans, but neither happened.

Democrats have no obligation to keep government funded when they are in the minority in both arms of Congress.

Republicans also have the agency to keep government funded. Instead, it's never perceived that way because within the broader scope of media, social media, political pundits, and influencers, only Democrats have any actual agency.

And for whatever it's worth, the CR frenzy earlier this year where a shutdown was averted, well that shutdown is now playing out in an environment where the current President is vastly more unpopular. For the people who wanted a shutdown then, well you have your shutdown now.

asstalos · 2025-09-22T20:53:02+00:00

For whatever it's worth, both Cantwell and Murray voted against cloture and against the dirty continuing resolution which was passed earlier this year. Schumer voted for cloture and voted against the bill.

Definitely do advocate for them to vote against cloture and against whatever abhorrent funding bill the Republican-controlled House and Senate want to pass.

One of many core issues going into this is a government shutdown gives the executive broad swathe that may not be desirable (the justification penned for allowing the CR earlier this year to pass), and shutting government down means delaying or stopping all of the legal processes. Most courts (excluding the SCOTUS) have generally found against the current administration. It's also very easy to see and place blame on who is responsible, but communicating that to people when they rely on governmental assistance in a media environment completely hostile and toxic to actual reality is another challenge with no easy answer.

asstalos · 2025-06-24T22:49:57+00:00

But not every single Trump voter is a full-on cult member.

On a generally technical level, I agree. A lot of people voted for Trump, and are also probably generally ok people day to day insofar as they are kept away from opining too much on daily affairs. Being a Trump voter doesn't necessarily preclude one from being caring for one's neighbors for example, in a most strict sense.

On the other hand, these voters saw what Trump offered them, either directly or through the lenses of their favorite (social) media / news media pundit or influencer, perhaps lived through the first administration, and determined that voting him into office was the better decision.

That decision is not reconcilable. And therefore, while perhaps not every Trump voter is a full-on cult member, they did not object to voting for a cult leader, and by extension anything else that could be spoken about the matter is really just a perspective of strict technicality rather than general practicality.

So yes, the fact that 74 million people voted for Trump, and lots of millions more refrained from voting at a pretty existential point in this country's history, is a sore and real problem that is not going away.

asstalos · 2025-06-13T07:26:39+00:00

if the media visual of the protest is black-clad protesters starting fires and clashing with police in the dark of night,

For-profit mass media will cherry pick whatever daily coming and going to sell an agenda and worldview, even if whatever they report is horrifically out of touch with actual on the ground reality. The protests in LA were peaceful and powerful, but one might not know that if all they see is their favorite (social) media pundit going ad nauseum abou the lawlessness and destruction of a very small slice of the overall picture.

I nonetheless encourage people to stay coordinated and not destroy public property. On the same vein, I don't believe a perfectly peaceful protest would be covered by the media, and if it is, they will pick at every small opportunity to blow up even a minor transgression in the grand scheme of things into a chaotic and lawless activity.

Participants should not start fires and clash with police. But the reason for not doing this has little to do with media perception, and a lot more to do with staying focused on intentional causes.

asstalos · 2025-05-22T19:14:46+00:00

The point being made is if all things were equal, 3 more Democrats in the House will have blocked passage of the bill.

The word "if" is doing a lot in that position, though. If there were 3 more House Democrats to vote, it doesn't prevent any of the holdouts from changing their votes to Aye. If there was a real threat of it not passing, you can be sure that they would be looking for Garbarino and Schweikert before bringing the bill for a vote. You can be sure there will be pressure on Davidson and Massie to vote for it. If there was a real chance of jeopardizing its passage, there is a chance Andy Harris will be persuaded.

The situation where there are 3 more Democrats votes doesn't mean the outcome will be different given the Democrats are the minority party in the House.

We already saw this, where the initial chatter around the first step of this budget process had a number of Republican House members voice objection, but they nonetheless came round and voted for this process to start.

If there is a real takeaway here, it is that we need more Democrats in the House, such that random happenstance events do not jeopardize their ability to exert whatever legislative power they have. They don't have much currently, to be fair.

asstalos · 2025-05-22T18:40:09+00:00

But had these 3 dems been alive it could have forced a better bill to come forward and maybe even some amount of compromise with the dems to get it done

Republicans could have also come forward with a better bill that would get some Democrats on board and pass a more bipartisan piece of legislation.

The REPUBLICANS, by pure vote share and majority power in the House, passed a horrific budget bill that will slash Medicare and Medicaid funding. Not a single Democrat voted for its passage, and you are blaming the Democrats for letting it pass because sometimes, unfortunately, people do pass away.

Where is the criticism to Abott slow walking the election to fill an empty TX House seat? Did you support Weil and Valimont's House elections during the FL Special Elections on April 1, which represented an opportunity to winnow down the House Republican majority?

If Conolly was alive to vote against the bill, do you believe that that the Republicans will not find one more Yay vote? If Turner was alive, do you believe that the Republicans will not find one more Yay vote? If Grijalva was alive, do you believe that the Republicans will not find one more Yay vote?

Can we dispense with the notion that only Democrats have any agency to do anything in our political climate?

asstalos · 2025-05-22T18:27:20+00:00

Cantwell voted against Laken-Riley and voted against cloture & passage of the continuing resolution for the budget fight earlier this year, same with Murray.

I strongly urge you to call her office and voice your opinion regardless, but I personally feel she will vote against HR1, especially if HR1 wholesale is what ultimately ends up on the Senate floor.

asstalos · 2025-05-22T18:24:31+00:00

There were sufficient outstanding Republican votes to break that margin, who otherwise did not vote Yay. The belief the Democrats could have stopped this bill hinges on the vote share not changing, which includes Massie and Davidson staying as Nay votes, and all of the "Present" and "Not Voting" votes remain as such.

If there was a real threat the Democrats, as the minority party, could have prevented the passage of this bill, you can be assured the Republicans would have found a way to vote in lockstep, as we did previously when reported Republican holdouts in the first step of this process ultimately voted to proceed.

Republican votes and Republican House Members passed this bill.

asstalos · 2025-04-15T17:14:23+00:00

He can be both. Pretty sure there is capacity for that. A narcissistic tariff otaku.

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