Month Four: 90 Days, Zero Deals | White People TACO Night

[Dimmauk]

I am not poor.

Steadily upper middle class even with just my wife's income and my consulting pennies. Being white and born well just pays.

Must be nice. I only have a bad parts of being hispanic/native and Jewish/Catholic

[archibaldcrane]

US average income is more like $36k/yr when you lop off the top thousand richies

you prolly poor and so are lots of us

Median household income in 2023 was $80,610. The median weekly earnings of a full time worker age 16+ is $1194.

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[Roranora]

excuse me i went with a selective mean to bang the poor-people drum

[Mertron]

fed announces no change to interest rates, time to spin the “fire powell” wheel again

[6souls]

https://projects.propublica.org/elon...tm_content=5-7

Propublica has identified 98 of Elon's secretive DOGE.

[Emphasis]

Republican concedes long-unsettled North Carolina court election to Democratic incumbent.


https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...ncede-00332704

The North Carolina Supreme Court election was the last 2024 race nationally that was undecided.


The Republican challenger for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat conceded last November’s election on Wednesday to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, two days after a federal judge ruled that potentially thousands of disputed ballots challenged by Jefferson Griffin must remain in the final tally.

In a statement provided by his campaign to The Associated Press, Griffin said he would not appeal Monday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who also ordered that the State Board of Elections certify results that show Riggs is the winner by 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast in the race.

Griffin’s decision sets the stage for Riggs to be officially elected to an eight-year term as an associate justice.



“While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding — just as I have respected every judicial tribunal that has heard this case,” Griffin said. “I will not appeal the court’s decision.”

Myers delayed carrying out his order for seven days in case Griffin wanted to ask the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review his decision. Democrats, meanwhile, had called on Griffin to accept defeat.

Riggs is one of two Democrats on the seven-member state Supreme Court, and winning improved the party’s efforts to retake a court majority later in the decade. Griffin is a state Court of Appeals judge whose term ends in 2028.



“I wish my opponent the best and will continue to pray for her and all the members of our court system here in North Carolina. I look forward to continuing to serve the people of North Carolina,” Griffin said.

While the Associated Press declared over 4,400 winners in the 2024 general election, the North Carolina Supreme Court election was the last race nationally that was undecided.

Myers ruled that Griffin’s efforts after the Nov. 5 election to remove from the election total ballots that state appeals courts agreed were ineligible under state law would have damaged federal due process or equal protection rights of affected voters had they been implemented.

Griffin filed formal protests that initially appeared to cover more than 65,000 ballots. Ensuing state court rulings whittled the total to votes from two categories, covering from as few as 1,675 ballots to as many as 7,000, according to court filings. Griffin hoped that removing ballots he said were unlawfully cast would flip the outcome to him.



Democrats and voting rights groups had raised alarm about Griffin’s efforts, which in one category of ballots had only targeted six Democratic-leaning counties. They called it an attack on democracy that would serve as a road map for the GOP to reverse election results in other states. Griffin said Wednesday that his legal efforts were always “about upholding the rule of law and making sure that every legal vote in an election is counted.”

Most of the ballots that state appeals courts found ineligible came from military or overseas voters who didn’t provide copies of photo identification or an ID exception form with their absentee ballots. The appeals courts had permitted a 30-day “cure” process for those voters so their ballots could still count if they provided ID information.



Myers, who was nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump, agreed with Riggs and her allied litigants that the “retroactive invalidation” of those ballots violated the rights of service members, missionaries, or others working or studying abroad who cast their ballots under the rules for the 2024 election.

“You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done,” Myers wrote in his order.


The other category of ballots was cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were declared North Carolina residents. A state law had authorized those people to vote in state elections, but state appeals courts said it violated the state Constitution. Myers wrote that there was no process for people mistakenly on the list to contest their ineligibility, representing “an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.”


Griffin said Wednesday the rulings of state appeals judges still recognized that the state election board failed to follow laws and the state constitution.

“These holdings are very significant for securing our state’s elections,” he said.

[Emphasis]

Besides the Kilmar Abrego Garcia situation, another federal judge reaffirms order that seeks return of another deported man from El Salvador which went against an established court settlement.


https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...aring-00331228

Trump-appointed judge reaffirms order that admin seek return of 2nd wrongly deported man from El Salvador


The Trump administration expelled the 20-year-old Venezuelan from the U.S. in March despite a legal settlement barring his deportation.


A federal judge on Tuesday refused to withdraw her order requiring the Trump administration to seek the return of a Venezuelan man deported to a notorious high-security prison in El Salvador in violation of a legal settlement.


U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher was unpersuaded by a highly unusual “indicative ruling” the Justice Department filed Sunday suggesting that the man — referred to in court as “Cristian” — was not eligible for asylum in the U.S. due to alleged gang ties. She said that document, prepared without his input or presence, is no substitute for an actual asylum hearing required under government regulations.

“I don’t think that this is a case about whether or not Cristian is going to eventually get asylum. Whether he ultimately receives asylum is not the issue. The issue is, and has always been, one of process,” said Gallagher, a Trump appointee.


But at a hearing Tuesday in her Baltimore courtroom, Gallagher rejected that argument. She said the “indicative ruling” produced by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services essentially “prejudges the outcome” of Lozano-Camargo’s asylum proceedings before they take place. She compared it to a court deciding not to hold a jury trial because a suspect was caught “red-handed” or confessed.


“It’s not a substitute for the process that was due. Process is important,” the judge said. “We don’t skip to the end and say, ‘We all know how this is going to end up….’ My order requires that Cristian be returned to this country to get the process.”


Gallagher put her earlier ruling on hold for 48 hours to allow the Trump administration to appeal, but said that if it doesn’t do so or if a higher court doesn’t instruct her to stop, she plans to demand that the government start giving her regular updates about the steps it is taking to bring Lozano-Camargo back. She also signaled she might require declarations under oath from U.S. government officials about their involvement.

[Tyrath]

Republican concedes long-unsettled North Carolina court election to Democratic incumbent.


https://www.politico.com/news/2025/0...ncede-00332704

Fucking finally. Glad they weren't able to cheat this one

[Emphasis]

Despite this administration's bullshit attempts to rig elections, and destroy government functions to rebuild to their liking, they have been catching a lot of losses in court so far which does manage to maintain some faith in our judiciary system.

A myriad of judges, even Trump-appointed ones, have been slapping down their nonsense.

[Meresgi]

Median household income in 2023 was $80,610. The median weekly earnings of a full time worker age 16+ is $1194.

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Def depends where you're at too. Salary of 150k+ in SoCal means jack shit but in NM it's fucking baller status

[Outlaw]

Same in east TN. You could live royally.

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[Meresgi]

I'm so glad to be going back to DMV where while shit costs a lot....I'm still paying almost $2000 less per month in rent for a much better townhouse. #fucksocal

[Tyrath]

Same in east TN. You could live royally.

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Yes but then you have to live in TN

[Madeline]

Yeah, that part. Don't do that. Fuck this place.

Watching this place collapse around me in real time is great. Knoxville is funny. Being gentrified for an audience that doesn't exist.

[archibaldcrane]

Salary of 150k+ in SoCal means jack shit

Nah that's silly. I think I cracked 150k one year of my whole life and we've done just fine

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[Tyrath]

Is that the only income in your household?

[archibaldcrane]

Is that the only income in your household?

Before my first kid, 11 years ago my wife worked full time, so we had like 2 years of dual earning as a married couple. She's been part time since - helps of course, and has been a life-saver lately.

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[Cantih]

You can get by in L.A. on 30k a year.

No, you aren't going to nice restaurants. You aren't hitting the bar. You aren't going to the big games or concerts. You aren't doing two week vacations to exotic destinations.
You won't be living in a crack house. You won't be mugged or shot. You won't be working 60 hours a week on three jobs.

Unless you are doing very stupid things and pissing away your money, it can work.

Anyone making over 50k (and living anywhere besides SF or NYC) complaining about how tight money is can go fuck themselves.

[archibaldcrane]

You can get by in L.A. on 30k a year.

I did this for years, but was by myself (nobody else to support)

Would be harder today though, I never paid more than $800/mo in rent back then, that's tougher now.

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[Cantih]

Yep, it's harder now, and getting more so. But still doable.
25 years ago you could find a 2br for 850, or smaller for less. Same unit now in an unchanged neighborhood is 2k+.

My stance on the matter at this point is fuck it, bulldoze a square block of SFH, beef up the infrastructure, stick a bunch of 5 story apartment blocks on it, and repeat until rents get to what they were back in the fucking 80s.