Cantankerous Kelly
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Cantankerous Kelly
@jkellynelson.bsky.social
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
Heads up that this is authorization for Trump to create his own version of the Wagner Group. Which would bring the number of “armies” at his disposal to four:

*regular armed forces (most regulated)
*ICE (minimally regulated)
*private mercenaries (?)
*MAGA thugs/militias (rogue)

All pardonable
S.3567
A bill to authorize the President of the United States to ...

SPONSOR: Sen. Mike Lee (R), UT
№ CO-SPONSORS: 0

STATUS: Introduced

LATEST ACTION: Senate - 2025-12-18 Read twice and referred to the Committee on ...

#Republicans

Details at congress.gov
December 29, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
When John Doar was head of the Civil Rights Division, he quoted from Shakespeare’s RICHARD III in an eloquent closing argument in the case against Klan murderers.

The current head is calling podcasters “hoes” for criticizing the president’s cabinet
Ladies and gentlemen, the head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division
December 29, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
Bizarro World.
🚨 NEW: Justice Department Targets Companies on DEI, escalating Trump's Project 2025 war against the largest corporation in the U.S.

Google and Verizon are among firms being investigated under novel interpretation of law.

Verizon had capitulated in May. Targeted anyhow.

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Exclusive | Justice Department Using Fraud Law to Target Companies on DEI
Google and Verizon are among those being investigated under the novel interpretation of a law applying to government contractors.
www.wsj.com
December 29, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
What a disgrace. Volodymyr Zelensky is a heroic defender of democracy. The Trump regime is a poisonous blight on our nation’s history.
Zelensky lands in Miami. Not a single US official is on hand to greet him. In the language of diplomacy this send an unequivocal message of coldness and hostility. Compare it with the lavish pomp and red carpet shown to Putin when he landed in Alaska a few weeks ago.
December 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
"Every accusation is a confession" remains undefeated
December 27, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
Phone calls home help maintain the connection when loved ones are separated maintaining that connection can translate into a softer landing when being released. This is just cruel and bad policy if you truly want people to be rehabilitated, which we know they don’t.
“Making incarcerated people pay for communication has a regressive effect on their well-being, on their improvement in prison, and after they are released,” says Wanda Betram, a spokesperson for the Prison Policy Initiative.
Priced Out of Phone Calls Home
The FCC blocked Biden-era limits on the exorbitant rates and fees charged by prison telecom companies, leaving incarcerated people and their families to fight for state-level reforms.
boltsmag.org
December 25, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
There’s a lesson here about writing in the age of weaponized lies: Always precede false claims with giant red text, ideally wrapped in a <blink> tag, that says “THIS IS A LIE I AM REFUTING!!”

But also, why is a book that makes this kind of lazy, bad-faith argumentation getting any accolades at all?
December 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
A small (personal) example of this book’s intellectual dishonesty:

My father-in-law is reading In Covid’s Wake, and excitedly told me he found a passage where I’m quoted. The quote in question is me saying the FBI worked to censor speech on social media.

Huh? When did I say that?!
December 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
jesus the Palm Beach Police really sought arrest warrants against underage Epstein victims for coming forward and cooperating, and (purported) admitting to crimes, and it caused the victims to become uncooperative with the federal investigation
December 23, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
They’re actually redacting Trump’s name AFTER the release.
🚨 The DOJ appears to have redacted Donald Trump’s name from the allegations made in this exhibit in the Epstein files.

Trump’s name was in the original release. Now, it’s blacked out.

See for yourself.
December 21, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
I’m shocked.
December 21, 2025 at 1:40 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
This was a human being. What the fuck is wrong with you?
December 20, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
I’m old enough to remember when Mitt Romney said the problem was that 47% of America didn’t pay taxes and wanted to be freeloaders. But I welcome him to the resistance.
Mitt Romney is in the New York Times saying we should tax the rich.
December 19, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
A story I found about Haiti:

In 1999, a group of Haitians were tired of political disorder and dreamed of a better life in the United States. So they built a small, 23-foot boat by hand using pine trees, scrap wood, and used nails. They called the boat "Believe in God."
December 18, 2025 at 2:43 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
“When the German nation was, thanks to the inflation instigated and carried through by Jews, deprived of the entire savings which it had accumulated in years of honest work..when we were divested of the whole of our colonial possessions”

Adolf Hitler, 1939

There’s not much difference
December 18, 2025 at 4:56 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
December 16, 2025 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
ICYMI — New York Young Republican Club's president Stefano Forte says they’re prepared to endorse Trump for a third term in 2028, despite what the constitution plainly says 🤔
December 15, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
In 1993, Trump signed a mortgage for a Florida home, pledging it would be his principal residence. Seven weeks later, he attested a neighboring property would also be his principal residence.

In reality, he does not seem to have lived in either home.
Trump’s Own Mortgages Match His Description of Mortgage Fraud, Records Reveal
The Trump administration has argued that Fed board member Lisa Cook may have committed mortgage fraud by declaring more than one primary residence on her loans. We found Trump once did the very thing ...
www.propublica.org
December 14, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
Pardon me, but *holy shit* chicago.suntimes.com/the-watchdog...
December 13, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
how DARE you come in here with FACTS and REALITY, i won’t HAVE it
Q: At the end of this year, those extended Obamacare subsidies expire. What's your message to those 24m Americans who will see their premiums go up?

TRUMP: Don't make it sound so bad. Obviously you're a sycophant for Democrats. You're obviously a provider of bad news for Republicans.
December 13, 2025 at 6:37 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork
December 12, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
25 years ago today, SCOTUS elected George W Bush president of the United States by blocking completion of a voting canvass in Florida. A subsequent canvass by the Associated Press showed that Bush's rival, Al Gore, had won the race in Florida—and thus the contest for the presidency—by 700 votes.
December 12, 2025 at 5:36 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
They just don't want anyone traveling to the US for any reason at all
It's not just social media. Looks like visitors to the US from Europe and other countries that are part of the visa waiver program will have to submit an enormous amount of data about themselves and their families, including DNA, if proposed new rules are accepted
December 12, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
One under-appreciated part of this: note the bit below about “and their dependents.”

Under the Trump admin’s new policy, dependent children of visa applicants are not allowed to have their social media set to private during the entire visa process. They MUST make their social media public.
From the US Embassy in London today.
December 12, 2025 at 1:04 AM
Reposted by Cantankerous Kelly
This should be the biggest story in the country right now. The sitting US President was extorting state lawmakers from his own party by threatening to withhold public money if they didn’t gerrymander for him.

I don’t know how else to say it…
December 12, 2025 at 4:21 AM