Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Giving up is unforgivable.

“A king is only a king if we bow down.” – Rev. William Barber

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

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Open thread

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Ten hours is a long time to hold it. Sorry guys.

Chat, whatever.

***Update***

I know some people have been jonesing for new Max pics. I apologize for the trickle lately. Baby, work, general ennui, whatever. Consider this photo essay of a cthulu-faced sea monster emerging from the deep, black waters of Lake Michigan as my apology.

Reader Interactions

33Comments

  2. 2.

    John M. Burt

    I have started a new job, not sure if I will be able to keep it, but I notice that I am today not regarding a job that’s a bad fit as evidence of my being a horrible person who doesn’t deserve to get another paycheck from anyone, anywhere. It’s just a problem that I have to solve, one way or another.
    I’m also asking co-workers for help and advice, without being afraid of being scorned and dismissed — even after one of them did scorn and dismiss me.
    Maybe I will become a functioning adult after all.

  5. 5.

    Louise

    Tim, I hope you’re aware that the top frame is allowing me to scroll through lots of your flickr account (I assume it’s yours). Max and Sammy, lots of insect pics, some baby pics….

    Just FYI.

  6. 6.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    My school is a polling place and I asked the volunteers at day’s end about turnout. He said, “Pathetic.” I drove a mile down the road to my polling place to find out I was voter #16. This was 5 minutes ago. Ugh. And there are thousands of potential voters in my area.

  8. 8.

    catclub

    This sounds reasonable:

    “Constituents in my district are very war-weary,” he said. “I’m war-weary. The president would have to complete an almost impossible task, which is to convince me he has an exist strategy, and when we’re done with this third war in the Middle East, we’ll be better off than we were before.”

    and it is from a Kentucky acolyte of Ron Paul:
    Kentucky Rep. Tom Massie, who like Amash won his office with the support of Ron Paul backers, was just as direct.

    So are there any Democrats with these views? I hope so.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    @Tone In DC: I got so angry reading that article that I had to stop reading. Something is very wrong when those who are supposed to protect us view citizens as prey.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    @catclub: I guess i need to go clean my messy car so these fuckers don’t stop and arrest me. How in the hell is it legal for them to take your money? That poor guy who lost his business because they screwed around with him and his money. I hate what is happening all around us.

  15. 15.

    Tone In DC

    Just read it. Horrifying.

    Never give permission for a search.

    I should not be surprised at anything that cops (and other law enforcement officials) do these days. But this report really set my teeth on edge.

  16. 16.

    Tone In DC

    @WaterGirl:

    I guess I need to go clean my messy car so these fuckers don’t stop and arrest me. How in the hell is it legal for them to take your money? That poor guy who lost his business because they screwed around with him and his money. I hate what is happening all around us.

    It’s happening because Sept. 11th Changed Everything.
    That number from the article definitely jumped out at me: 2.5 billion dollars confiscated since 2001.

  17. 17.

    Keith G

    I just finished listening to a person on the radio explain away Janay Rice’s defense of her husband as the type of all too familiar special pleadings commonly heard from emotionally confused women who have been battered by their partners. Before that, I heard Janay’s words from earlier today. She was steady and seemed thoughtful….and a bit angry.

    Should others give her the agency to realistically feel that her husband and she have been grievously wronged by the process?

    And have they?

  19. 19.

    PurpleGirl

    @WaterGirl: They take your money based on forfeiture laws and the idea that any money you have is the product of an illegal action on your part.

    ETA: This became a part of the war on (some) drugs. Law enforcement has used confiscation of money as one way to bankroll their own operations. Began happening way before September 11th.

  20. 20.

    Louise

    @Tim F.: Ok, just wanted to be sure! I love the pictures of Max and Sammy.

    @Keith G: I read a comment on another blog from the child of an abuser. He made a compelling argument that domestic violence often continues because of the “lie” that it is a personal matter, private to the family. In his own experience, he said, his mother might have been killed if not for a school friend who told *her* parents what was happening in his house, though he begged her not to at the time. He now realizes that kind of violence must be exposed to the community because those involved cannot make the right decision for themselves.

    I feel bad that in this case the “community” is a gazillion people, but no — the overwhelming data from research tells me that while Janay may truly feel this is intrusive and punitive, she can’t accurately perceive the danger.

  21. 21.

    geg6

    @Keith G:

    Yeah, my sister defended her first husband the same way, calmly and seemingly convincingly.

    Until he beat her so badly she miscarried and had to have a hysterectomy due to the damage and she almost died.

    Battered women’s agency is always suspect. But sure, feel free to believe she wants her life that way and isn’t terrified every minute of her life for her own life and that of her child.

  23. 23.

    shelley

    Love the satisfied look on Max’ s face. “Ah, Mission accomplished! It’s mine now. All mine! “

  24. 24.

    Mike Furlan

    There is a link to League of the South member Daniel Larison’s blog here.

    “After years of rhetoric threatening violence, the neo-Confederate League of the South (LOS) is training a uniformed, paramilitary unit tasked with advancing a second southern secession by any means necessary,”

    http://www.salon.com/2014/09/09/southern_secessionist_group_forming_paramilitary_unit_called_the_indomitables_partner/

    Time to move it down to the “Blogs we monitor and mock as needed” section.

  25. 25.

    geg6

    @Mike Furlan:

    Yeah, the next person who tells me that Larison is a reasonable conservative is getting beaten within an inch of his or her life with that link.

  26. 26.

    Bob In Portland

    Robert Parry:

    Beyond confirming that Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 apparently was shot down on July 17, the Dutch Safety Board’s interim investigative report answered few questions, including some that would seem easy to address, such as the Russian military radar purporting to show a Ukrainian SU-25 jetfighter in the area, a claim that the Kiev government denied.

    Either the Russian radar showed the presence of a jetfighter “gaining height” as it closed to within three to five kilometers of the passenger plane – as the Russians claimed in a July 21 press conference – or it didn’t. The Kiev authorities insisted that they had no military aircraft in the area at the time.

    But the 34-page Dutch report is silent on the jetfighter question, although noting that the investigators had received Air Traffic Control “surveillance data from the Russian Federation.”

    The report is also silent on the “dog-not-barking” issue of whether the U.S. government had satellite surveillance that revealed exactly where the supposed ground-to-air missile was launched and who may have fired it.

    The Obama administration has asserted knowledge about those facts – initially pointing the finger at ethnic Russian rebels using a powerful Buk anti-aircraft missile system supposedly supplied by Russia – but the U.S. government has withheld satellite photos and other intelligence information that could presumably corroborate the charge.

    Curiously, too, the Dutch report, released on Tuesday, states that the investigation received “satellite imagery taken in the days after the occurrence.” Obviously, the more relevant images in assessing blame would be aerial photography in the days and hours before the crash that killed 298 people on the flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    It’s an imperfect metaphor, but should an alcoholic with liver failure have any credibility when s/he argues that everything is just fine and it’s only other people who have a problem with his/her level of drinking? That doesn’t mean that we can or should force that person into treatment, but I’m not sure that also means we should go along with their self-deception that they don’t really have a problem.

    This is a tough one for me personally because my sister-in-law has been in an on-again/off-again abusive relationship for over 20 years now, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to get through to her that maybe staying with a bipolar drug addict who’s been in and out of prison most of his adult life isn’t the best idea, especially for their kids.

  28. 28.

    Keith G

    @Louise: @geg6:
    I was just wondering if the mindset is to be in all cases that a victimized person is stripped of agency until….?

    It is very possible that y’all are correct and her stated feelings on this are to be held as suspect, but what if they are not? Wouldn’t she then be victimized twice?

    @geg6:

    But sure, feel free to believe she wants her life that way and isn’t terrified every minute of her life for her own life and that of her child

    .
    Don’t be a clod by trying to impute a point of view to my questions. I really am agnostic about where and how to draw a line between when to accept and when to disregard such statements. It seems to be more art than science.

  29. 29.

    Keith G

    @Mnemosyne:

    … but I’m not sure that also means we should go along with their self-deception that they don’t really have a problem.

    I get the generalities of your statement.

    In this case, who is to decide that Janay Rice in engaging in self deception? Is there a cookie cutter process? Is it, “Okay, you have been hit, so now we take over.”?

    I ask because choice and agency are what modern human society is built on. What evidence do we need to before we judge Janay Rice incompetent to evaluate the conditions of her relationship and her safety and then to give valid testimony on the conditions with which she lives?

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    @Keith G:

    In this case, who is to decide that Janay Rice in engaging in self deception? Is there a cookie cutter process? is it, “Okay, you have been hit, so now we take over.”?

    I think that being cold-cocked in a public place is a pretty good identifier of, This is a dangerous relationship for you to be in. There probably are more equivocal situations, but that one seems pretty darn clear. Can you think of any reasonable explanation for hitting your domestic partner so hard that they lose consciousness while you’re both in public?

    I ask because choice and agency is what modern human society is built on. What evidence do we need to before we judge Janay Rice incompetent to evaluate the conditions of her relationship and her safety and to give valid testimony on the conditions with which she lives?

    No one is saying that we should take away her choice or her agency. No one is saying that the police should bust down the door and take her away against her will. However, she does not have the choice or the agency to decide what other people think of her. She doesn’t get to argue that her choice or agency means that other people can’t judge her choices. It’s possible to say that she’s an adult making her own choices while pointing out that she is making what seem to be very bad choices.

    ETA: You may not realize it, but you’re not arguing in favor of choice and agency. You’re arguing in favor of people not being allowed to judge the choices of others. Those are two different arguments, unless you’re saying that merely judging someone else’s choices is somehow taking choice away from them.

  31. 31.

    Keith G

    @Mnemosyne:

    …unless you’re saying that merely judging someone else’s choices is somehow taking choice away from them.

    Sometimes that is exactly what happens, No?

  33. 33.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Bob In Portland: I guess Robert Parry had trouble understanding the Preliminary Report as well.

    In accordance with paragraph 3.1 of ICAO Annex 13, the sole objective of this investigation is the prevention of similar accidents and incidents. It is not the purpose of this activity to apportion blame or liability in respect of any party.

    2.5.3 Other traffic
    According to information received from the NBAAI, recorded ATC surveillance information revealed that three other commercial airliners overflew the same restricted airspace as flight MH17 around the time of the occurrence. Two of those aircraft were cruising eastbound and one was cruising westbound. All were under control of Dnipro Radar. At 13.20 hrs the distance between MH17 and the closest of the three aircraft was approximately 30 kilometres. Analysis is ongoing.

    That doesn’t rule out the Ukrainian Nazi Fascists having a super-stealthy fighter within 3-5 km of MH17, given to them by their CIA masters, to make Putin and the Novorussiya Patriots look bad, of course. One that wouldn’t show up on ATC radar, but would, of course, show up on Russia’s super-vanguard anti-Fascist radar. Of course.

    Etc., etc. ad nauseum.

    HTH!!11

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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