Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

This fight is for everything.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

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

Fight them, without becoming them!

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

The National Guard is not Batman.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

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

Also, are you sure you want people to rate your comments?

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Wait, what?

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

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On The Road – JanieM – Maine #12

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JanieM

Until I took up with Steve from Mendocino, I mostly took pictures ad hoc as I went about my daily life, except for fall color, sunsets, lake reflections … well, okay, I did make some special efforts to take pictures. In the past couple of years I’ve stuck with the habit of keeping a camera in my pocket at all times, or grabbing it and going outside when comthing catches my eye. But I’ve also greatly increased the number of excursions devoted specifically to taking pictures. 1, 6, 8, and 9 in this set are from trips like that. The rest were caught in passing.

Note on names: I tend to give names (lakes, towns, roads, etc.) for the sake of anyone who might live around here, or visit, and wonder where the pictures were taken.

Thanks to Steve from Mendocino, as always, for all his help, editing and otherwise.

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On The Road - JanieM - Maine #12 9
Readfield, Maine

Another take on the lake at dawn.

Late Night Open Thread: Bolsanaro Visits His Old Friend TFG

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… Assuming he can get past the security guys, of course.

My google-fu is failing me, but I seem to remember Bolsonaro was responsible for a small superspreader event after visiting Marred-A-Largo back in 2020, and he’s had the ‘rona at least twice more since then, IIRC. (He loudly refuses to get vaccinated, because of course he does.)

Of course, it’s easy for *us* to joke. Per Yahoo:

… After narrowly losing re-election to leftist President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as Lula, this past fall, Bolsonaro has largely receded from public life, refusing to officially concede his electoral loss, and punctuating a weeks-long silence with cryptic remarks to his supporters, telling them “who decides where I go are you. Who decides which way the armed forces go are you,” in early December.

Now, according to multiple reports across Brazilian media and confirmed by Globo News White House reporter Raquel Krähenbühl, Bolsonaro has begun telling close friends that he will not be in the country to hand over the presidential sash to Lula, and will instead be relaxing at Mar-a-Lago, from which former President Donald Trump has ostensibly been running his 2024 re-election campaign.

Reports of Bolsonaro’s decision to spend New Year’s in Florida come amid growing concerns that Lula’s inauguration is being targeted for terrorist violence, with incoming Justice Minister Flavio Dino announcing plans to bolster security for the event after authorities arrested a man allegedly in the midst of a bomb plot. “We’re not talking about a lone wolf,” Dino said during a December 26 TV interview. “There are powerful people behind this, and the police will investigate.”

Bolsonaro’s alleged upcoming Mar-a-Lago stay is not the first time he’s sojourned at Trump’s Florida estate, nor is it a wholesale surprise. In addition to having been particularly close during their respective administrations due to their shared sense of ultra-nationalism and far-right leanings, Bolsonaro is reportedly being counseled by former Trump administration officials Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon.

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Excellent Read: ‘In rural Georgia, an unlikely rebel against Trumpism’

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Cody Johnson is the man J.D. Vance pretended to be. If you use the link below, this should be a ‘gift’ (no paywall) story:

BEULAH, Ga. — As he pulled into the parking lot of Beulahland Baptist Church on Election Day last month, nearly everything about Cody Johnson suggested he would vote a certain way.

He was White. He was 33. He was an electrician with no college degree. He had a beard and a used pickup with 151,000 miles, and he was angry at what the country was becoming. Most of all, he was from northwest Georgia, a swath of rural America where people who looked like him had voted in large majorities to send Donald Trump to the White House and Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress, many of them swept up in the emotional appeal at the heart of the Trump movement, which Greene now deployed in her own rallies…

Now he took a last inhale on his vape, walked into the polling place and voted against all of that. He voted against Greene, whom he called “an embarrassment.” He voted against the Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidate, Herschel Walker, because he didn’t want “some stupid s— to happen.” He voted against every single Republican on the ballot for the same reason he supported Joe Biden in 2020, which had been the first time he voted in his life.

“I don’t want extremists in office,” he said, walking back to his truck. “And I have some small glimmer of hope that maybe things aren’t as screwed up as I think they are.”

All across the country, a similar uprising was underway as an unexpected tide of people showed up for midterm elections, turning what was supposed to be a rout for the Republican Party into a repudiation of Trumpism. In Arizona, voters rejected candidates who embraced white nationalist ideas and conspiracy theories about election fraud. In Pennsylvania, they rejected a candidate who said America is a Christian nation. Similar results had rolled in from New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia and other states including Georgia, where Walker would lose in a runoff earlier this month. Even in the deep-red 14th Congressional District, Greene saw her winning margin from 2020 slip by 10 percentage points, and one reason was Cody Johnson…

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War for Ukraine Day 309: Air Defense!

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Here’s the infographic the Ukrainian Air Force put out on their Facebook page:

That’s 54 Kh101s/Kh555s and 11 Shaheed 131s/136s brought down by Ukrainian Air Defense.

Here’s one of those kills:

Here’s President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump:

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Acts of Kindness: A Whole Lot Of Kindness

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It has been a helluva end to 2022. My dad is in the hospital with pneumonia, we got a foot of heavy, wet snow (people, it’s Colorado, our snow is dry champagne powder unless it’s spring) instead of the 1-2 inches predicted and Chewy has lost my order. So countdown to 3 VERY hungry Great Danes. I’ll have to brave the roads later today to get them some food.

When you read that, realize it’s the first issue that is making all the others seem insurmountable. When he’s home, everything else will be manageable.

Somehow yesterday, when I was setting the DVR to record the Kennedy Center Honors, I saw this:

And was able to record it as well. I decided I needed to watch at least one of the segments before bed to de-stress. I watched them all, grabbing the box of tissues during the first commercial break.

Here is the full episode. I can’t think of a better 45 minutes you could spend.  The Gift Full Espisode  Steve Hartman is a national treasure

Just a little fun:

https://twitter.com/TaMarasKitchen/status/1608519616619515909?s=20&t=jmKKF7qLAPOzKnsDp-qtdQ

Anne Laurie’s wonderful post about rescue kitties this morning reminded me to update you on Frank:

How it started (a text from my friends saying, we’re looking for a home for him and me thinking, oh, sweeties, he’s  found his home):

Acts of Kindness: Our Ukrainian Friends

He’s about five weeks old here

And here he is now. I was able to spend Christmas day snuggling him. The photo does not do justice to his tail. He’s basically a huge tail with a cat attached. I have never seen such a huge, fluffy tail on any cat before:

Acts of Kindness: A Whole Lot Of Kindness

That should be enough kindness to hold you until I have time to start posting regularly again.

Be kind…especially to yourself.

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Another Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

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Several of you guys have written to me, so I want to let you know that I talked with our friends at Four Directions today.

There are two tribes / locations that were hit by the 30 inches of snow in South Dakota:  Rosebud and Pine Ridge.

Several of you have asked how to help, and Four Directions has identified one on-line option for Rosebud, and they will be getting back to me with an option for Pine Ridge.  What helpers are basically doing is getting propane out to as many folks as possible.

Cole said no active fundraising in December / January, so we are not organizing a push to help.  That said, for those of you who are looking for a way to help, you can click on my nym in the comments.  It’s my understanding that funds go directly to the tribal council so no one has to worry about some other group getting their grubby little paws on money that’s intended to help the tribe.

It’s super quiet around here.  What’s everybody up to?

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Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

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I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, but this piece in New York Magazine by Maggie Lange piqued my interest: “In 2023, I Resolve to Be Less Competent.” An excerpt:

There’s something triumphant about a total refusal to be useful. This was my reaction when I first learned about strategic incompetence, a recent hobbyhorse of the internet’s relationship ethicists. Also known as learned incompetence or weaponized incompetence, it’s often leveraged so that your shortcomings force someone else to fix the paper jam or call the super. Online, it has become shorthand for a highly gendered manipulation, by which men act baffled by the grocery store and all the burdens of domestic maintenance fall upon the women in their lives…

My selected incompetencies are my beloved limits. They’re a decisive strategy; they keep me from achieving things I don’t care about at all. And learned incompetencies make the people around me look good. Everyone else who is so much better than I am, at so many things — the ripped friends of the universe, the ones who can read transit maps, the ones who mandoline vegetables with gusto — will look at me and they will feel strong and skilled and useful. As they should.

Hear, hear! I plan to suck at writing résumés and prove absolutely inept at helping people move heavy objects in the year ahead. Any areas of competency that you plan to lose in 2023?

Open thread!

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