Wednesday Open Thread

By Jeralyn, Section Blog Related
Posted on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 12:52:37 PM EST
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Our last open thread is full. Here's a new one, all topics welcome.

The "war" in Iran continues. Israel is picking off Iranian leaders, one by one. Iran continues its drone attacks, and the number of wounded American service people grows.

Social security is going to run out of funds at least a year ahead of schedule. Why? I think it's because of the mass immigrant detentions, and the voluntary and forced deportations. Immigrants, whether here lawfully or not, work using a real or fake social security number. Their employers pay into social security for each one of them on the payroll. The reduction in the immigrant labor force means the amount paid into Social Security is less.

In less than a year, the second Trump Administration stripped 1.6 million immigrants of their legal status, upending the lives of immigrants who came into the United States “the right way,” severely damaging our economy and national security, and only growing the undocumented population in pursuit of its anti-immigrant agenda.

[More...]

Don't buy into Trump's twisted (mis)representations. It's pointless even to listen to him because he either doesn't know what he's talking about or he just lies with impunity.

Our stagnant Congress is a travesty. But a worse travesty would be giving Republicans another seat in the front row of history either this November or in November, 2028.

As to fired Kristi Noem, she's already a has-been, a grain of sand -- Democrats should not repeat the mistakes of Trump and his cronies by using the criminal justice system to exact revenge on an opponent. There are too many bigger fish to fry, like coming up with a feasible plan to avoid a reduction in our social social security benefits.

On a lighter note, Donald Trump doesn't seem as angry over Melania not winning an Oscar for her "supersized-me" documentary bankrolled by Amazon, as he was when he did not win a Nobel prize. Who thinks Melania will stay in the marriage until his term ends?

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

< Tuesday Night Open Thread: War and Regime Change by Remote Control

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Don't start counting your chickens (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by jmacWA on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 03:25:14 PM EST

Melania was not released in time for the 2025 Oscars... so TRUMP has a full year to gear up the machine to ensure she wins the Oscar next year.

Thanks for bringing up the Social Security debacle (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by Chuck0 on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 03:46:39 PM EST

The fact that "illegal" immigrants pay millions, if not billions, into Social Security and never collect a dime is a fact I have a told people for years. They don't drain the system, never have. They also have millions taken out as income tax withholding and rarely file returns seeking refunds. They have essentially helped prop up the systems for years. And they're gone.

Question about the SAVE Act. If this thing passes, does that mean everyone in the country has to re-register to vote? Or does it only apply to new registrants? I vote by mail because I have mobility and breathing issues. I am not about to schlep downtown to show some government schmuck my passport. I'll never make it up the stairs in front of county Admin bldg.

The right has always hated (5.00 / 1) (#5)
by jondee on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 04:21:18 PM EST

SS since it was instituted. If the elderly and infirm are reduced to begging in the streets, Well Sir, are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? If people are dying, then they'd better hurry up and do it and decrease the surplus population!

It's part and parcel of their deranged paranoia about 'big government programs' being a slippery slope toward some god awful something or other.


As I understand (none / 0) (#7)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 06:06:35 PM EST

the SAVE act would require you to reregister.

The best part is if you are a married woman, to reregister you have to not only show either by your birth certificate or a passport, like men, but you ALSO have to have your marriage certificate if you use you husbands name.

Not making that up. GOOGLE it

It will never (5.00 / 1) (#8)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 06:07:00 PM EST

Pass


I think you are (5.00 / 1) (#12)
by Chuck0 on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 06:38:23 PM EST

probably correct. But nowadays you never know how deep the stupidity runs.

They don't seem to realize how this bill could bite them in the rear. I would wager a guess that a whole lot more MAGAts don't have passports than more enlightened people. Too many have never left their home state.

This act is a solution looking for a problem.


: Speaking of never (none / 0) (#16)
by fishcamp on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 07:25:51 PM EST

leaving their homes some Hawaiian people from the outer islands have never been to Honolulu let alone the mainland.

: How deep the stupidity runs (none / 0) (#17)
by jondee on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 07:38:57 PM EST

exactly. I honestly thought Trump had no chance of ever being elected president.
As it turns out, still stupidity runs deep.

I knew that part. (5.00 / 1) (#11)
by Chuck0 on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 06:28:27 PM EST

Fortunately my wife never changed her name to mine (this time). In your 50s there is just too much to deal with in a name change. It so much simpler to leave things as they are. Luckily her passport is her former married name. Which is the last name she uses now. When we got married in 2017 it would have meant name changes for SS, passport, her ex's pension (he passed) etc. So it made sense for her to keep using that name.

Interesting tidbit. She is my 1st and 3rd wife. We remarried after a 25 year gap.


Do you have a birth certificate? (5.00 / 1) (#14)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 07:20:40 PM EST

I am pretty sure I do but its a little weird. I signed it.

I did not have one, not born in a hospital, until I was 16 and needed a SS card to work.

It was interesting. My birth recorded in the family bible was the only evidence I was not an illegal alien.


: I do have (none / 0) (#15)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 07:22:53 PM EST

A passport

But that's the point (none / 0) (#13)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 07:15:43 PM EST

Trumps biggest problem is married women. Its ridiculous and will not happen.


They're eating cats (5.00 / 1) (#6)
by jondee on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 06:01:21 PM EST

they're eating dogs. Now they're eating each other.

Megyn Kelly vs Mark Levin
Ben Shapiro vs Tucker Carlson
Candace Owens vs Erika Kirk
Nick Fuentes vs What week is this?

It's the only thing mildly entertaining that's been going on recently.

In response to a query by the New York Times, ... (none / 0) (#1)
by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 01:49:22 PM EST

... the iconic labor leader Dolores Huerta has broken her longstanding silence to allege that she was twice sexually assaulted by the late and renowned United Farm Workers president Cesar Chavez in the 1960s and further, that she had become pregnant and bore two children as a result of the unwanted encounters.

The Times was following up with Ms. Huerta, who was a longtime professional associate of Chavez, for any comments she may have regarding a story it was planning to publish alleging that the UFW president had abused numerous young women and girls and had fathered four children out of wedlock with three different women. Instead, she offered her own bombshell about Chavez to the Times.

This explains why the UFW had abruptly canceled events this week honoring Chavez, citing only "recent and troubling allegations" concerning its late president (who had co-sounded the union with Ms. Huerta) but otherwise providing no further details.

To put it mildly, these are just stunning revelations, which are certain to rock the labor movement in California, where Cesar Chavez is a towering (albeit increasingly controversial) figure and the state legislature had fairly recently declared his birthday a state holiday. Dolores Huerta, who's now 95, is an equally beloved figure in her own right in that same movement, and there is absolutely no reason to believe she made this story up.

Fasten your seat belts.

They're going to have to.. (none / 0) (#2)
by desertswine on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 03:09:42 PM EST

rename a lot of streets and elementary schools.


: And California will have to rescind ... (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by Donald from Hawaii on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 06:27:29 PM EST

... a recently created state holiday honoring Cesar Chavez's birthday. The federal government can and should also repeal the presidential proclamation creating the Cesar Chavez National Monument (where he and his wife are buried), which is located about 20 miles east of Bakersfield, CA at the town of Keene in the southern Sierra Nevada foothills.
There is, however, also an opportunity to legitimately rewrite UFW's history and thus do justice by Dolores Huerta as both co-founder of the UFW (with Chavez) and a renowned labor leader in her own right. There are many labor historians who have long argued that she was actually the driving force behind UFW, tirelessly doing the grunt work of organizing even as Chavez grabbed the headlines and got the glory. By re-evaluating her role and elevating her stature in California's labor history at Chavez's expense, we can - and should - actually marginalize him within his own current storyline.
For Ms. Huerta to have carried this incredibly painful secret all these many decades, and to have further done so in order to protect the very union she fought so hard to create and sustain in the face of vicious anti-labor attacks, I can't even imagine what that emotional burden must have been like. She clearly deserves to supplant Chavez in the historical annals of the California labor movement as one of its matriarchs. And it would be best to do it while this great lady is still among us to appreciate both the honor and the irony.
Aloha.

Dolores Huerta's public statement: (none / 0) (#20)
by Donald from Hawaii on Thu Mar 19, 2026 at 01:07:18 PM EST

"I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.

"I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times' multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by Cesar Chavez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.

"As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with Cesar. The first time I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn't feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.

"I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret. Both sexual encounters with Cesar led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret and, after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives."

Ms. Huerta's full statement is HERE. It's worth a read.


The judiciary seems to be losing patience (none / 0) (#9)
by CaptHowdy on Wed Mar 18, 2026 at 06:18:24 PM EST

N.J. judge tosses prosecutor, demands the truth about Alina Habba in heated hearing

"You have lost the confidence and the trust of this court," Quraishi told Rosenblum. "You have lost the confidence and the trust of the New Jersey legal community, and you are losing the trust and confidence of the public."

The Save Act (i.e., Save Trump's Bacon Act) (none / 0) (#18)
by KeysDan on Thu Mar 19, 2026 at 12:34:42 PM EST

consists of a range of voter suppression components. In addition to the new registration , voting , proof of citizenship, and photo ID requirements, the proposed Act takes aim at election officers.

To intimidate and discourage election officer recruitment and retention, the private right to action is included. This allows individuals to sue if they feel the law is not being properly enforced.

Criminal penalties are established for election workers who mistakenly register applicants to vote who have not presented appropriate proof of citizenship, even if the applicant is, in fact, a citizen.

And, to throw some red meat, the proposed Save Act trots out the menace of trans kids.

: It's part of that Project 25 (5.00 / 1) (#19)
by jondee on Thu Mar 19, 2026 at 12:38:51 PM EST

or whatever it's called. Trump didn't know anything about it.