Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

American history and black history cannot be separated.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Finding joy where we can, and muddling through where we can’t.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

CatGPT Open Thread

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The Horrors come thicker and faster. In my personal corner of the world, the pressing issue is AI and the big chunk it took out of my income over the last six months. Contra the advice from this AI startup founder* (written with LLM assistance, natch), I am planning to go all-in on the other AI: Animal Intelligence.

behold, Monty the oracle

I guess I could also call him Clawed, or Purrplexity (Gemeowni is right out). Unlike your sycophantic chatbots, when I ask him to do a task for me, he baps me in the face. He also doesn’t burn a small city’s worth of power when executing tasks. Figured you all would want to know about this important breakthrough.

Open thread.

 

*If you want, you can read an annotated version of this piece by professional AI scold Ed Zitron, here.

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Fighting Global Authoritarianism, Inc.

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In comments the other day, we were laughing about John’s recent misinterpretation of a BREAKING NEWS ALERT during the Olympics and musing about the personal joy we will individually experience and the spontaneous street parties, etc., that will eventually occur When It Happens.

That sort of daydreaming is harmless enough. But as we all know, the rancid orange fart cloud is merely an avatar for a much larger constellation of problems, and those problems won’t dissipate when their current mascot joins the Choir Invisible.

Josh Marshall at TPM published a piece yesterday about the global authoritarian movement that Trump is arguably leading right now but that will persist when Piggy hoofs it to hell. It includes Gulf princelings like Jared Kushner’s bone saw pal, European revanchist governments, post-Soviet autocracies and U.S.-based far-right tech and media oligarchs who control major communication channels.

The whole thing is worth reading, so here’s a gift link. Below is an excerpt:

I’ve discussed this concept in the past. So I don’t want to belabor the point of its existence. I want to point out how its forces are arrayed against civic democracy in the U.S. — quite apart from Donald Trump. This wasn’t always the case. There didn’t use to be so many U.S. billionaires. And they characteristically had economic views which aimed to preserve their wealth. But they were not clearly on the right in the way they are now. They have moved an increasingly anti-civic democratic direction as the scale of their wealth and their identity as a class has exploded. They also weren’t so increasingly allied with primitive economy petro-states of the Gulf.

The point is that they will exist no matter what happens to Trump. They command vast economic resources; they run the governments in many countries where the government never changes; they have deep tentacles into the U.S. political system and many of its key players are from the U.S. Trump didn’t create this movement precisely. But his role in global politics over the last decade solidified it as a self-conscious group and congealed it together. Any movement of civic democratic revival in the U.S. will be menaced by its continued existence. Now is the time to think about how a revived and revitalized civic democratic movement in the U.S. could combat it and avoid being destroyed by it.

Emphasis mine.

Piggy is flailing politically and deteriorating physically. He’s grasping at a “legacy” by gilding White House surfaces, slapping his accursed name on edifices and overseeing the construction of a garish ballroom.

But his real legacy is a more consolidated global authoritarian movement that assembled under his banner. Marshall asks how a revitalized civic democratic movement might combat it, but I think the answer is implied in the bolded sentence above, which is to end its existence as a threat.

Figuring out how to do that is above my paygrade, but taxing billionaires out of existence seems like an essential component, along with reestablishing a global democratic movement, hopefully with less cynicism and a more sincere commitment to human rights. I have no idea if that’s possible, but defining the opponent and understanding their weak points is a good start.

Whether deliberately or not Trump strengthened that alliance, but it’s possible his buffoonish flailing might provide opportunities to undermine it. I think Senator Ossoff is onto something here:

Ossoff: We were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans. But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich. It’s the wealthiest Cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class. They are the elites they pretend to hate.

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— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) February 7, 2026 at 2:57 PM

What Ossoff says has the advantage of being true, but I have no idea if the message will break through. We’ll learn more as we live through these interesting times.

Open thread.

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Do We Have a Real Shot at the KY Senate Seat?

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youtube.com/watch?v=cSiD…Here's Andy Barr with his embarrassing racist ad drop.Keep in mind, the Republican primary includes Daniel Cameron, the black McConnell protégé.Andy playing the Klan angle. @eddsmitty.bsky.social: get a load of this.

— PaulaEquine (@paulaequine.bsky.social) 2026-02-08T11:49:27.913Z

 

*****

BJ peeps, I have two questions for you.

Do we, in this cycle,  have a real shot at the Kentucky Senate seat?

What kind of paper is the Kentuck Lantern?  (I am impressed by this article.)

In a 30-second ad released over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Andy Barr — running for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s Senate seat — is pictured on a farm. The sun is shining. There is a barn and an American flag behind him. “You know what DEI really stands for?” he says, smiling. “Dumb, evil, indoctrination.”

The scene shifts and we see a black man in a crowd. He is wearing a Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. t-shirt and holding up a sign that reads “Stay woke America.”

“Woke liberals spew it,” Barr says, “corporate losers fall for it, but thanks to Trump, America is rejecting that trash.”

An interesting choice for the Barr campaign to release the ad on the heels of President Donald Trump’s racist social media post…

[the article goes on about the racist post bout the Obamas, and then it continues]

The Barr ad was likely already scheduled for release, but ads can be pulled. The ad ran and continues to run. The YouTube version already has 297,000 views as of this writing, and it must be noted that we are now a decade deep into Trumpism and Trump himself, whose presidential aspirations were initially fueled by his insistence that Obama did not have an American birth certificate and was, therefore, not American.

It was a lie. It was racist hogwash. It also launched Trump from elderly white billionaire New York City playboy reality show host, known for his bankruptcies and stiffing of contractors, straight into the White House.

The high spark of low standards and even lower morality.

[talks more about T’s lies about Obama and his birth certificate, etc, and then it continues]

Watching Barr’s most recent ad inflaming white hysteria, we see that we are still there: stuck in the past, stuck in racist tropes, stuck in an immoral morass of bold bigotry. The last words of his 30-second ad for a U.S. Senate seat are, “I’m Andy Barr. It’s not a sin to be white, it’s not against the law to be male, and it shouldn’t be disqualifying to be a Christian. I’m Andy Barr, and I approve this message to give woke liberals something else to cry about.”

I am white and have never heard that it is a sin for me to be white. I have yet to see anyone crying. Is there a law somewhere against being male? Funny, I can’t seem to locate it. And when did it become disqualifying to be Christian? The answer is … drumroll, please … never. What a fantastical farce.

I watched Barr’s ad more than a dozen times, and the central message seems to be: I am a white Christian man who will make liberals cry.

That’s it?

Is this a winning message for Kentucky Republican primary voters? Because it sure looks like this — not the economy or grocery prices, not the cost of health insurance, not education, not public safety or taxes or conservatism — is what Barr is banking on.

We often hear that, just because someone voted for Donald Trump, it does not mean that they are racist, that they are simply willing to ignore that the president is openly racist because he is a conservative doing conservative things. But this is also a lie. Conservatives, by name and nature, conserve things, and what we have witnessed over the last year of the Trump presidency with the destruction of everything from the East Wing of the White House to the U.S. Agency for International Development and other American institutions via DOGE, there is nothing conservative about him. There is only the power to destroy. And the racism. Always the racism.

In this great article, this is my favorite part.

It is 2026. Barr runs an ad in which he appears to believe simply being white and male qualifies him to be a United States senator.

The president posts a video about voting machines depicting the Obamas as apes.

In our statehouse, we are now years into fights by our mostly white, mostly male GOP supermajority to rid our institutions of any whiff of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

The racist spigot is wide open.

The moral rot is deep.

So, same question down here that I posed above.

Do we, in this cycle,  have a real shot at the Kentucky Senate seat?

Open thread.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: 99 PartyBalloons

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#OneBigUglyBill
abcnews.com/Business/us-…

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 7:56 PM

Repubs running for cover, Dear Leader be damned:

Asked a bunch of Senate Rs about the attempt to indict their colleagues Slotkin and Kelly. Their answers
Hawley: Video showed “terrible, terrible judgment, but I think trying to indict them for it was not a good idea.”
Cassidy: “I would not have brought it were I the president"

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— Burgess Everett (@burgessev.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 6:35 PM

Collins: “I’m not surprised that the grand jury declined to indict them"
Grassley: "our law enforcement people ought to be spending their time on making our community safe and going after real law-breakers"
Murkowski: "It’s very chilling … it’s a First Amendment right of speech here"

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— Burgess Everett (@burgessev.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 6:36 PM

===
Though boys throw stones at frogs in fun, the frogs die in earnest…

Thank you, brave patriots

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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 12:43 PM

… A new report from CBS News suggests that infighting between the FAA and DOD is behind the chaos and confusion around the El Paso airspace. Earlier this week, DOD deployed anti-drone technology to shoot down what were believed to be foreign drones at the border. But at least one of the objects shot down was just a party balloon, according to CBS News. CNN has since reported that it was four mylar balloons…

The initial notice to shut down airspace over El Paso was both last-minute and extremely broad, covering every type of aircraft, including cargo, passenger, and military flights. The order was lifted after a few hours, and the reasons given by President Donald Trump’s officials didn’t make much sense to aviation experts.

“The FAA and DOW [sic] acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a tweet Wednesday, using an acronym for the so-called “Department of War.”…

CBS News reports that Wednesday’s disruption in El Paso stemmed from a disagreement between the Pentagon and the FAA over closing airspace for the tests of anti-drone tech, which reportedly included lasers. The U.S. military first shot down a drone with laser technology in 1973, but it wasn’t until the 21st century that lasers became more common in such applications…

The Pentagon uses nearby Fort Bliss for anti-cartel drone operations, and CBS notes that there appeared to be terrible miscommunication in the lead-up to the airspace closure. The abrupt nature of it all was surprising to local officials…

El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson:
"Medical evacuation flights were forced to divert to Las Cruces. All aviation operations were grounded, including emergency flights.
This was a major and unnecessary disruption. One that has not occurred since 9/11."

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— Matt Novak (@paleofuture.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 12:54 PM

So DOD risked civilian airspace to obliterate some fucking balloons; when FAA found out and asked them to stop they refused; FAA did what it had to keep people safe; when the public rightly freaked out, DOD relented, lied, and blamed the FAA.
Sounds like Hegseth!
www.cnn.com/2026/02/11/u…

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— Gillian Brockell (@gbrockell.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 5:58 PM

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On The Road – lashonharangue – Monigotes of Mazatlán

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lashonharangue

In the winter of 2024 I traveled to Mazatlán in Mexico to get away from the cold. Each year Mazatlán holds the third largest carnival in the world (after Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans). As part of the celebration, they select several artists to create large (3-5 meters) temporary sculptures.  

These sculptures are called monigotes (effigies) and are placed along the Malecón (coastal promenade) where the celebrations occur. They have an interior steel structure and are made using fiber glass and/or paper mâché waterproofed with oil paints and fabrics. Each year there is a different theme for the carnival. Since a total eclipse was scheduled to pass through Mazatlán in April, the theme for this carnival was “Baroque Eclipse.” While I didn’t attend the carnival, I was there just before so I saw and photographed some of the sculptures.

On The Road - lashonharangue - Monigotes of Mazatlán 7

This was one of the few sculptures I photographed during the day. They were so big I had to shoot from across the street. You can see the curb at the bottom of the photo. I had to time the photos for a break in the traffic and when there were no pedestrians around them.

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Late Night Open Thread: Pam Bondi, Careerist

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Bondi

Generally speaking I think that Bondi's performance is more indicative of a woman who wants to keep her job and can only do so by diving on a pretty serious pr grenade.

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 12:42 PM

Attorney General Pam Bondi's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee was one of the most combative congressional hearings in recent memory.

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— Axios (@axios.com) February 11, 2026 at 5:28 PM

This is the sort of quick-burst reporting Axios was designed for:

… Why it matters: These kinds of explosive hearings are becoming increasingly routine for a Congress in which displays of anger have arguably become more valuable currency than legislative wins.

– The hearing got testy almost from the start, with Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) telling Bondi: “We ask you politely but firmly, please do not waste one second of our precious time.”

– Raskin told Bondi to give Democrats direct answers to their questions and not try to evade or run out the clock.

– “We saw your performance in the Senate, and we’re not going to accept that. This isn’t a game,” he added, referencing a “burn book” Bondi allegedly used to dredge up opposition research against Democrats…

Perhaps the most heated exchange was with Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), who questioned Bondi about Trump’s choice of Howard Lutnick as Commerce secretary despite his alleged ties to Epstein.

– As Bondi began to respond by referencing a slain Border Patrol agent, Balint shot back, “For goodness’ sake, this is pathetic … this is not a game, secretary.”

– “I’m attorney general,” Bondi responded, with Balint quipping, “My apologies, I couldn’t tell.”

– Bondi later went after Balint on her vote on an antisemitism resolution, with Balint angrily replying, “You want to go there? Are you serious? Talking about antisemitism to a woman who lost her grandfather in the Holocaust! Really? Really?” before storming out of the hearing.

Notice that Bondi doesn’t turn around.

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— Garrett M. Graff (@vermontgmg.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 2:03 PM

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War for Ukraine Day 1,448: The Cost

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A black and white cartoon with Popeye the Sailor Man facing forward and to the left. His word bubble says "I Yam Disgustipated"

There is no address from President Zelenskyy posted today. I expect this has to do with preparations to attend the Munich Security Conference.

The cost:

This is Milana, she was just 11 years old.

On February 10, Russian forces dropped seven bombs on Sloviansk, killing a mother and her daughter, Maryna and Milana Sokolenko🕯

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 10:34 AM

The reasons:

Ukrainian soldiers stand with Olympic athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was banned by the IOC from wearing his “Helmet of Remembrance,” adorned with photographs of Ukrainian athletes killed in Russia’s war.

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 1:41 PM

The third Ukrainian athlete, short track speed skater Oleg Handey, has been banned from using his helmet during the 2026 Olympics:

“I have a quote from Lina Kostenko written on my helmet: ‘Where there is heroism, there is no final defeat.’

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 11:49 AM

IOC banned it, saying it’s a political slogan, that it’s about the war, and it’s not allowed. I translated it word for word for them — no, they said, it’s a political slogan. For me, it’s just motivational words for myself, my team, and my country.”

— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 11:49 AM

Dmytro Shepiuk voiced support for Vladyslav Heraskevych in his dispute with the IOC over the “helmet of remembrance.”

After his run at the 2026 Olympics, the skier’s glove bore the inscriptions:

“Ukrainian heroes are with us.”

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— Kate from Kharkiv (@kateinkharkiv.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 10:19 AM

Zelensky responded to Russia’s overnight attacks on Ukraine: Every such Russian strike undermines trust in everything being done through diplomacy to end this war. The Russian army is not preparing to stop – they are preparing to continue fighting.

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 6:04 AM

“There will be no negotiations in Moscow or Minsk. I cannot come to negotiations with Putin in the capital of a country that is the aggressor in this war.” – Zelenskyy.

— WarTranslated (Dmitri) (@wartranslated.bsky.social) February 11, 2026 at 1:15 PM

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