Open Thread | This Is Absolutely Outrageous…Being Homeless IS NOT a CRIME…

Posted on March 18, 2026 by rikyrah

Get THEE ENTIRE PHUCK OUTTA HERE!

Anything, but expanding programs that would actually help the homeless.

V.A. Begins Drive to Put Some Homeless Veterans Into Guardianship
The Trump administration will expand the power of government attorneys to initiate court proceedings for veterans “unable to make their own health care decisions.”
By Ellen Barry and Jason DeParle
March 11, 2026

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a new effort to initiate legal guardianships for hundreds of veterans, including some who are homeless or “at risk of homelessness,” that could be used to force more of them into involuntary or institutional care.

Under the new arrangement, the Justice Department would give officials at the Veterans Affairs Department authority they currently lack to initiate guardianship proceedings in state courts for veterans who have no family and are “unable to make their own health care decisions.”

If a state court determines that a veteran is incapable of making health care decisions, it would appoint a third-party guardian not employed by the V.A., who would be charged to act in the veterans’ best interests, said Pete Kasperowicz, the V.A. press secretary.

The initiative comes amid a push by the Trump administration to compel more homeless people into institutional treatment for mental illness and drug addiction.

President Trump identified homelessness as a priority during the 2024 presidential campaign and promoted it last July in an executive order that called on agencies to use civil commitment to move homeless people into “long-term institutional settings.”

Critics say the policy shift raises significant civil liberties concerns, noting that in earlier generations, people with severe mental illness were routinely stripped of their legal rights and confined to state hospitals.

Continue reading →

Posted in Homeless Veterans, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Open Thread | This Iran War Is Changing Things Rapidly, in Ways Unseen Just Weeks Ago

Posted on March 16, 2026 by rikyrah

Didn’t see this coming when this all began.

Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡
@shanaka86
BREAKING: Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company, is negotiating to buy drone interceptors from Ukraine, the country Russia has been bombing for four years, to defend its oil fields from Iran, the country America has been bombing for two weeks.

Read that sentence as many times as you need. It is the 21st century in a single transaction.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a Saudi intermediary closely tied to Aramco is in advanced talks with Ukrainian manufacturers SkyFall and Wild Hornets for their P1-SUN and STING interceptor drones, plus Phantom Defense electronic warfare systems, in a multi-million-dollar batch purchase explicitly designed to destroy Iranian Shahed-type drones before they reach Saudi oil infrastructure.

Ukraine learned to kill Shaheds by being hit with them. Russia has launched thousands of Iranian-made Shaheds at Ukrainian cities, power stations, and military positions since 2022. Ukrainian engineers did not study the Shahed in a laboratory. They studied it falling through their bedroom ceilings. They reverse-engineered the threat, built interceptors calibrated to its exact flight profile, radar signature, and thermal characteristics, and fielded them under fire. The interceptors work because the engineers who built them did so while the drones they were designed to kill were attacking their homes.

Now Saudi Arabia wants to buy that knowledge. Not from Lockheed. Not from Raytheon. Not from the Patriot system that costs $3 million per missile and was designed to kill ballistic warheads, not $20,000 drones. From Ukrainian startups that built their products in basements and tested them on battlefields.

The strategic implications cascade across every domain this war touches.

For Ukraine, this is the moment the country transforms from victim to vendor. Zelensky’s government has spent four years asking the world for weapons. It is now selling them. Every interceptor drone that ships to Saudi Arabia funds Ukraine’s own defence, reduces Kyiv’s dependence on Western aid, and demonstrates that the country the world pitied has become the world’s most experienced counter-drone power. The “salesman of the year” meme circulating on X understates it. Ukraine is not selling products. It is selling survival expertise, and the market for survival expertise in a world of $20,000 drones is every country with infrastructure worth protecting.

For Saudi Arabia, this is an admission that the most expensive Western air defence systems in the world cannot efficiently kill the cheapest weapons in the world. The Kingdom operates Patriot batteries, THAAD interceptors, and an integrated air defence architecture that costs tens of billions. Against ballistic missiles, these systems perform. Against saturation swarms of $20,000 Shaheds, they are economically irrational: a $3 million Patriot missile destroying a $20,000 drone is a 150-to-1 cost inversion that the attacker wins by firing. Ukraine’s interceptors cost a fraction of Western missiles and are purpose-built for exactly the threat Iran is deploying. Aramco is not buying Ukrainian because it is fashionable. It is buying Ukrainian because the math demands it.

Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Economy, Open Thread, Politics, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, Weapons Systems | Tagged , , , , , , , | 41 Comments

Weekend Open Thread

Posted on March 14, 2026 by rikyrah

Good Morning. I hope that you are enjoying this weekend, fully vaccinated and boosted, with family and friends. That new booster shot has been approved..be sure to get it. Call and see if your pharmacy has it.

Order your free COVID Tests., if you still can.

About that Target boycott “ending”😒😒😒

Posted in Weekend Open Thread | Tagged , | 5 Comments

Open Thread | Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job

Posted on March 13, 2026 by rikyrah

The complete rage I feel while reading this.

Whistleblower claims ex-DOGE member says he took Social Security data to new job
The Social Security inspector general’s office is investigating allegations that the former DOGE engineer took sensitive data on a thumb drive in a major potential security breach, said people familiar with the process.

March 10, 2026 at 10:47 p.m. EDT
By Meryl Kornfield, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Lisa Rein

The Social Security Administration’s internal watchdog is investigating a complaint that alleges a former U.S. DOGE Service employee claimed he had access to two highly sensitive agency databases and planned to share the information with his private employer — a claim that, if true, would constitute an unprecedented breach of security protocols at an agency that serves more than 70 million Americans.

The agency’s inspector general is investigating the disclosure and has alerted members of Congress of its existence, according to a letter by the acting inspector general to top members of four congressional committees reviewed by The Washington Post and two people familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations. The inspector general’s office has also shared the disclosure with the Government Accountability Office, which has been conducting its own audit of DOGE’s access to data, according to one of the people. The Post has reviewed the complaint and spoken with the whistleblower, who issued the complaint anonymously for fear of retaliation.

According to the disclosure, the former DOGE software engineer, who worked at the Social Security Administration last year before starting a job at a government contractor in October, allegedly told several co-workers that he possessed two tightly restricted databases of U.S. citizens’ information, and had at least one on a thumb drive. The databases, called “Numident” and the “Master Death File,” include records for more than 500 million living and dead Americans, including Social Security numbers, places and dates of birth, citizenship, race and ethnicity, and parents’ names. The complaint does not include specific dates of when he is said to have told colleagues this information, but at least one of the alleged events unfolded around early January, according to the complaint. While working at DOGE, the engineer had approved access to Social Security data.

According to the complaint, he allegedly told the whistleblower that he needed help transferring data from a thumb drive “to his personal computer so that he could ‘sanitize’ the data before using it at [the company.]” The engineer told colleagues that once he had removed personal details from the data, he wanted to upload it into the company’s systems. He told another colleague, who refused to help him upload the data because of legal concerns, that he expected to receive a presidential pardon if his actions were deemed to be illegal, according to the complaint.

Posted in DOGE, Open Thread, Politics, Social Security Administration | Tagged , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Open Thread | Checking In With the Attacks On Women’s Autonomy

Posted on March 11, 2026 by rikyrah

Ms. Valenti continues to be my go-to source as I want to keep up with the continued attacks on women’s body autonomy across the country.

Republicans Want to Change the Definition of Abortion
Jessica Valenti and Kylie Cheung
Mar 04, 2026

Tennessee GOP Using AI Bill to Codify Fetal Personhood
This is wild: Rachel Wells at TN Repro News flags that Tennessee Republicans have introduced a bill (HB 0849) that would redefine personhood as beginning at fertilization—and they’re doing it through an AI regulation bill.

Fetal personhood is already written into Tennessee abortion regulations and criminal code, but as Wells points out, this legislation would establish personhood in the state’s Title 1 definitions. “That means, if passed, this phrase could be used as a legal framework throughout the Tennessee code,” she writes.

They really are coming up with some new nonsense every day.

Republicans Want to Change the Definition of Abortion
While we’re on the topic of Republicans futzing with language, let’s talk about the latest legislative trend: anti-abortion lawmakers in multiple states are trying to change the definition of ‘abortion’.

Longtime readers know that I’ve spent years tracking this tactic: in 2023, I warned in The New York Times that anti-abortion legislators and activists were increasingly claiming that women didn’t need life-saving abortions because they could have “maternal fetal separations” instead (aka c-sections and forced delivery). And in 2024, I laid out the goal: to divorce abortion from healthcare entirely and eliminate exceptions for women’s lives.

Conservatives Want to End ‘Exceptions’ for Women’s Lives
Jessica Valenti

Now, Republicans are ramping up those efforts.

Utah lawmakers, for example, want medical records to distinguish between “elective” and “medically indicated” abortions. Under HB 480, patients who miscarry, face ectopic pregnancies or fatal fetal abnormalities, need life- or health-saving abortions—or are pregnant after rape—could have their medical records formally changed to note they had a good abortion. Not like those other bad women who wanted their pregnancy to end.

A sign that the bill is part of a coordinated national strategy? Utah isn’t alone. A pre-filed Louisiana bill would do much the same thing: HB 288 mandates that when doctors code pregnancy loss as “spontaneous abortion”—which is standard medical language—that they add a parenthetical that says “miscarriage.”

Meanwhile, the South Dakota Senate just passed HB 1257, which would change the definition of abortion to exclude treatment for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and “any medical procedure performed for the purpose of saving the life or preserving the health of the unborn child.” (aka, c-sections.)

South Dakota lawmakers say they’re just trying to “clarify” the state’s abortion ban because pro-choicers have scared doctors out of providing legal care. That, of course, is the same excuse anti-abortion legislators and activists have used across the country to pass other so-called “clarifications”—bills that actually further restrict women’s rights. (See: Kentucky)

The ACLU of South Dakota points out, for example, that HB 1257 defines an “unborn child” from fertilization, which “could create a legal domino effect that triggers broader restrictions on hormonal contraception, emergency contraception and in vitro fertilization.”

All of which is to say, these bills are not being introduced to help women! The goal is to eliminate all abortion—even to save women’s lives—and to attack any bit of freedom we have.

Posted in Abortion, Abortion Rights, Healthcare, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 18 Comments

Open Thread | What Kind Of Times Are We Living In?

Posted on March 9, 2026 by rikyrah

I want you to read this…
And, then read it again…

Financial Times

‪@financialtimes.com‬

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Two people confirmed that Moscow had provided Tehran with intelligence on the location of US military assets in the region, including planes and warships. ft.trib.al/cZbGDEU

Paweł Wójcik 🦋🇵🇱🇪🇺
‪@saladinaldronni.bsky.social‬

Follow
Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major U.S. adversary is participating in the war if if indirectly.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec…

Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major U.S. adversary is participating in the war if if indirectly.www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec…

— Paweł Wójcik 🦋🇵🇱🇪🇺 (@saladinaldronni.bsky.social) 2026-03-06T11:30:00.384Z

Russia is providing Iran intelligence to target U.S. forces, officials say
The targeting information has included the locations of American warships and aircraft in the Middle East, the officials said.

Updated March 6, 2026
By Noah Robertson, Ellen Nakashima and Warren P. Strobel

Russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle East, the first indication that another major U.S. adversary is participating — even indirectly — in the war, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence.

The assistance, which has not been previously reported, signals that the rapidly expanding conflict now features one of America’s chief nuclear-armed competitors with exquisite intelligence capabilities.

Since the war began Saturday, Russia has passed Iran the locations of U.S. military assets, including warships and aircraft, said the three officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

“It does seem like it’s a pretty comprehensive effort,” one of the people said.

Reached by The Washington Post on Friday, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, declined to comment on the intelligence findings. Moscow has called for an end to the war, which it labeled an “unprovoked act of armed aggression.”

The extent of Russia’s targeting assistance to Iran was not entirely clear. The Iranian military’s own ability to locate U.S. forces has been degraded less than a week into the fighting, the officials said.

Six U.S. troops were killed and several others were injured by an Iranian drone attack Sunday in Kuwait. Iran has fired thousands of one-way attack drones and hundreds of missiles at U.S. military positions, embassies and civilians, even as the joint American-Israeli campaign has hit more than 2,000 Iranian targets — including ballistic missile sites, naval assets and the country’s leadership.

WHAT THEE ENTIRE PHUCK?!!!

I have no words for this. This is absolute insanity.

Do you know what the topography of Iran looks like?

We have the complete and utter audacity to ask UKRAINE FOR HELP?

Continue reading →

Posted in Breaking News, Foreign policy, Open Thread, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , | 24 Comments

Weekend Open Thread

Posted on March 7, 2026 by rikyrah

Good Morning. I hope that you are enjoying this weekend, fully vaccinated and boosted, with family and friends. That new booster shot has been approved..be sure to get it. Call and see if your pharmacy has it.

Order your free COVID Tests., if you still can.

ESSENCE
@Essence
The power of Sinners lives in the women who helped bring it to life.

Ruth E. Carter, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, Jayme Lawson, Wunmi Mosaku, Shunika Terry-Jennings, and Hannah Beachler shaped the film’s visual language and cultural depth. Through design, cinematography, hair, performance, and world-building, they helped reimagine Black history through horror, myth, and memory.

The results speak loudly. A box-office phenomenon. Sixteen historic Oscar nominations.

But the real impact lives deeper. These women did more than tell a story about ancestry and survival. They protected it.
Frame by frame, Sinners reminds us that when Black women create with intention, it becomes legacy.

The Women of Sinners are our 2026 ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Luminaries. Read more at http://ESSENCE.com.
https://x.com/Essence/status/2029199157072650510?s=20

Posted in Weekend Open Thread | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Open Thread | Clinging to the YTNess…It Crosses Generations

Posted on March 6, 2026 by rikyrah

Clinging to the YTness crosses generations.

You have too many young people who want to party like their parents and grandparents. They actually resent having to compete with others, having been told their entire lives that all you had to be was White to get a middle class lifestyle in America.

And, let’s be honest..the answer to
” Why can’t we have __________ in America, like they do in other countries?”
Is racism.

Mekka Okereke
‪@mekka.mekka-tech.com‬

Follow
Happy #BlackHistoryMonth !

Feb 22: The Youth Vote

Q: Isn’t it true that older people are more racist? Either people get more conservative as they get older, or norms were different and everyone was racist make then? Either way, the next generation will save us! Right?

Unfortunately not.

Mekka Okereke
‪@mekka.mekka-tech.com‬

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Almost all generations of white US voters, vote the same way: mostly GOP.

What changes is the percent of the voter base that is white in each generation.

The most common age for a white person in the US is 58.

The most common age for a Black person is 27.
4:42 AM · Feb 22, 2026

Mekka Okereke
‪@mekka.mekka-tech.com‬

Follow
“youth vote” is just a euphemism for “Some of the people in this room are Black and brown.”

84% of the silent generation is white, but only 48% of Gen Alpha is white.
🙂🙃

The majority of white voters under 30 didn’t chosen the Dem candidate in 2016, 2020, or 2024.🤷🏿‍♂️
4:58 AM · Feb 22, 2026

Mekka Okereke
‪@mekka.mekka-tech.com‬

Follow
If we want the US to be less racist? Then we need to address racism.

We can’t just do nothing and hope the problem kind of goes away by itself.🤡
5:00 AM · Feb 22, 2026
Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 Elections, Elections, Open Thread, Politics, Racism | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Open Thread | Once Again, Republicans Cannot Win IF THEY DO NOT CHEAT….All they know is Voter Suppression and Cheating

Posted on March 4, 2026 by rikyrah

Once again, the Founding Fathers were very deliberate with their design around elections.
They wanted a DECENTRALIZED SYSTEM WITH CONTROL BY THE STATES.
With some input by Congress.

They are attempting to FEDERALIZE ELECTIONS.
WHY would the Department of Homeland Security need to have ACCESS TO VOTER ROLLS?
ABSOLUTELY NOT
ABSOLUTELY NOT

Republicans, Braced for Losses, Push More Voting Restrictions in Congress

Republicans, Braced for Losses, Push More Voting Restrictions in Congress
Legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote was only the beginning as the G.O.P. presses to sharply limit voting in line with President Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud.
By Annie Karni
Feb. 17, 2026

The strict voter identification measure that Republicans have pushed through the House is just their opening salvo in a broader legislative effort aimed at keeping control of Congress this fall and helping to amplify the president’s false claims of mass voter fraud in the event that they lose.

The G.O.P.’s relentless focus on the bill and an even more restrictive measure making its way through the House — both of which face a steep uphill path to becoming law — is aimed chiefly at intensifying pressure within their own ranks to muscle through new voting restrictions and seek to reshape the electorate in their favor.

But it also allows Republicans to hammer President Trump’s falsehoods about widespread illegal voting particularly by undocumented immigrants, helping them build a case, however groundless, that any Democratic victories in November will be a result of cheating.

Next up is a measure from Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, the chairman of the Committee on House Administration, whose “Make Elections Great Again Act” would go even further in imposing federal control over elections than the Save America Act, which squeaked through on a near-party-line vote last week. That bill would require proof of American citizenship to register to vote and allow the Department of Homeland Security to have access to voter rolls.

https://archive.ph/JCxvc

Posted in 2026 Elections, Elections, GOP, Voter Suppression, Voting Rights | Tagged , , , , , | 33 Comments

Open Thread | Not a Texan, but , Yes, I Am Observing This Democratic Senate Primary With Interest…..

Posted on March 3, 2026 by rikyrah

Not a Texan, but, yes, I am observing the Senate Race down there. And, the disrespect being shown Congresswoman Crockett.

Today is Primary Day in Texas.
We will see what happens in those Senate Primaries.

KennyMack1971
‪@kennymack1971.bsky.social‬‬

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This Texas Senate Primary has exposed a lot of White Democrats. I am certainly not going to forget about this behavior towards Jasmine Crockett and will pull this receipt every time they pull the “I don’t hate Black women candidates I don’t like her” shit.
9:35 AM · Feb 22, 2026
Everybody can reply

This Texas Senate Primary has exposed a lot of White Democrats.I am certainly not going to forget about this behavior towards Jasmine Crockett and will pull this receipt every time they pull the “I don’t hate Black women candidates I don’t like her” shit.

— KennyMack1971 (@kennymack1971.bsky.social) 2026-02-22T15:35:13.032Z

KennyMack1971
‪@kennymack1971.bsky.social‬‬

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Truth be told people were prepared to let that race cook but the reaction to Crockett running from people of the Caucasian persuasion spoke volumes.
9:36 AM · Feb 22, 2026

Truth be told people were prepared to let that race cook but the reaction to Crockett running from people of the Caucasian persuasion spoke volumes.

— KennyMack1971 (@kennymack1971.bsky.social) 2026-02-22T15:36:45.837Z

KennyMack1971
‪@kennymack1971.bsky.social‬‬

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And again I live here and can tell you that this seat wasn’t seen as a pickup opportunity and honestly Talarico looks like a Fetterman/Manchin/Sinema in the making anyway. But the attacks on Crockett for merely running…. I see y’all.
9:39 AM · Feb 22, 2026

And again I live here and can tell you that this seat wasn’t seen as a pickup opportunity and honestly Talarico looks like a Fetterman/Manchin/Sinema in the making anyway. But the attacks on Crockett for merely running…. I see y’all.

— KennyMack1971 (@kennymack1971.bsky.social) 2026-02-22T15:39:38.954Z

KennyMack1971
‪@kennymack1971.bsky.social‬‬

Follow
IMO This race is a test case to see if there’s a way to marginalize Black candidates and push them into the background within the Democratic Party. If Talarico wins the primary watch White consultants roll this strategy out to other states.
https://bsky.app/profile/kennymack1971.bsky.social/post/3mfhmdbjrc22e

Continue reading →

Posted in 2026 Elections, Black Voters, Breaking News, Democratic Party, Elections, Open Thread, Politics, United States Senate | Tagged , , , , | 13 Comments