Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

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

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Be a wild strawberry.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

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

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

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Dear legacy media: you are not here to influence outcomes and policies you find desirable.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

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

He really is that stupid.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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Reader Interactions

80Comments

  1. 1.

    hedgehog mobile

    It’s too early in Denver to start drinking.

    The fact that this is scheduled for Tax Day? (Screw it, puts Baileys in coffee)

  4. 4.

    LiminalOwl

    re: the Derek Young comment–Mike Johnson has said publicly that he and his 17-year-old son monitor each other’s use of Internet porn, and that he has an ‘accountability” app on his computer.  I think we can be sure that he DOES love porn, secretly or not-so-secretly.

  7. 7.

    Jackie

    Moved from last thread:

    THIS IS HAPPENING TODAY!!!

    Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveria are asking Judge Cannon to drop their charges re the MAL purloined classified documents!

    Will Jack Smith have any recourses left, should this happen, or????

    “Lawyers for two co-defendants of former President Donald Trump in the classified documents case are asking a judge on Friday to dismiss charges against them,” the AP reports.

    “Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira are charged with conspiring with Trump to obstruct an FBI investigation into the hoarding of classified documents at the former president’s Palm Beach estate. All three have pleaded not guilty.”

  8. 8.

    JAFD

    To quote either Tom Lehrer or Justice Douglas …

    The parts of women’s anatomy

    That appeal to men’s depravity

    Are fashioned with considerable care.

    And what at first appears to be

    A simple little cavity

    Is actually a quite complex affair.

  10. 10.

    TBone

    Because Alvin Bragg is about to absolutely pants the rotting carbunkle attached to the ass of our nation, I expect any number of outrageous shenanigans to occur.  Buckle up, kids!

  13. 13.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @TBone: Yep. It really pisses me off that Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, and Trump ALL very likely are guilty of transgressing the Logan Act. Hell, Trump is doing it right out in the open.

    Every godammned Republican President in my lifetime entered office a fucking unconnected (hell, uninvestigated) felon.

  15. 15.

    wjca

    @LiminalOwl: Mike Johnson has said publicly that he and his 17-year-old son monitor each other’s use of Internet porn

    You gotta admit, it’s a great way for him to find sites he might otherwise have missed.

  17. 17.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Chief Oshkosh: … Nixon, Reagan, both Bushes, and Trump ALL very likely are guilty of transgressing the Logan Act.

    To me it seems like going after Grenell would be a good idea.

  18. 18.

    TBone

    @Chief Oshkosh: even before I knew I was a Democrat (socialist as I am), I could literally smell what’s wrong with rethugs.  Even as a very young teenager.  Delaware County had a Rethuglican machine so utterly and viciously corrupt that you could literally smell it in the air.  That stranglehold was recently broken, a harbinger of good things to come!

  19. 19.

    dmsilev

    I must, reluctantly, give a tiny amount of credit to whoever came up with the backronym for the SUDS Act. But given that it’s a companion to the HOOHA Act, yeah no.

    It should be noted that all of those bills are substantively the same, a demand that the Department of Energy cease and desist any and all efforts to improve efficiency standards for household appliances. None of them have a hope of being passed into law, they’re all purely performative bullshit. And the GOP has degenerated to such a degree that even their performative bullshit is sad and pathetic.

  21. 21.

    TBone

    @TBone: the only other place I got that same smell-feeling was at border crossings before the Berlin Wall came down.  Dad trained me real good, like a bird dog.

  22. 22.

    oldster

    @dmsilev:

    Right — whenever the Republicans say “freedom,” you know that they want to take yours away. In this case, what they mean is “we want to take away your freedom to have safe, efficient things, and replace it with our freedom to get rich by selling you unsafe, inefficient things.”

    Every one of these bills is just an attempt to defang regulations that protect consumers, in order to enrich corporations.

  25. 25.

    TBone

    @rikyrah: everyone is hard at work running interference for him

    Back to work — Rep. Gino Bulso filed an amendment to allow first cousins to marry in TN if they see a genetic counselor. Said he disagreed with Obergefelle v Hodges but that first-cousin marriage should be legal under it. Bill on the table would outlaw it. @WKRN #TNLeg24

  26. 26.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: I will be tickled, though, if the House passes one of these things and Schumer somehow uses it to pass Ukraine aid, similar to the way the ACA was pushed through.

  27. 27.

    Bill Arnold

    @TBone:
    My father was known to be able to smell Germain soldiers in his infantry company in WWII. He could poke his nose into a building and say confidently that there were Germans inside, maybe in the basement.
    That was physical smell (due to the goulash that the German cooks prepared, though “intuition”/”danger sense” was also involved), but yeah, a dominant fascist mindset in an area is recognizable. (I call it smell, too; the mechanism is not obvious.)

  32. 32.

    greenergood

    @dmsilev: OMG, I just went back up to the original post and saw that ‘this is not a joke’ – I thought someone was just being snarky/sarky … Now I’m truly despairing  – this is not government, it’s kindergarten, only kindergarten is more accountable ..

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    @Ken: One of the amendments proposed by Democrats to the HOOHA Act was to replace all of the text with, essentially, “pass the Ukraine aid bill that the Senate sent us”. Another one would have changed the title of the bill to the “Make Appliances Great Again” Act.

  34. 34.

    TBone

    @Bill Arnold: my Dad also put a shotgun in my 12 y.o. hands and made me stand back up and shoot straight every time it knocked me down. “Just in case” he said over Mom’s protestations.

  35. 35.

    Ruckus

    @dmsilev:

    And the GOP has degenerated to such a degree that even their performative bullshit is sad and pathetic.

    Sad and pathetic is all they have. Of course in my opinion that’s all they ever had.

    Their main desire is that everyone lives a public life that conforms to their rules so that they can understand – anything. Because if everything is not within their 4 page rulebook of life then they are very afraid that someone will actually have a nice day, while all the while – they are suffering from the concept that they have to have permission from some entity that they can’t see or understand to actually enjoy breathing and walking upright. Their guilt that they might actually have any kind of life without constant pain and regret is their guiding premise. And if they have to put up with that amount of self inflicted bullshit then everyone else should have to as well.

  37. 37.

    moops

    Well, that’s what you get when you just hand your legislative responsibility over to lobbyists so you have be attention whoring culture warriors every day on television and social media.

  38. 38.

    TBone

    @Ruckus: they are incapable of thinking.  This is about much more than loneliness (see description of the trouble with Eichmann).

    vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast/23048597/vox-conversations-hannah-arendt-totalitarianism-the-philo…

    Article is not that long, it’s a truncated version of the podcast.

    And then she imagines thinking as much more than an activity. She imagines it as a way of being. It is obviously something we do with ourselves, but the real gift of thinking isn’t all the great ideas and grand theories that intellectuals come up with. The gift of thinking is that as long as you’re doing it, you have the capacity to judge. Why is that so critical?

  39. 39.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JPL: A few years ago I was looking for a replacement bulb for the front door light and was pleased and amused to find that there’s a brisk business going in LED lights that look like old Edison bulbs if you don’t examine them too closely.

  40. 40.

    RevRick

    I just registered for the United Church of Christ’s Second Annual Earth Summit, which features noted author and modern prophet, Bill McKibben. It’s next Saturday (20th) at 1 pm via Zoom, and it’s free to all. Even if you can’t join at that time, you’ll receive a link so you can view it at a later date.
    If any are interested, please go to http://www.ucc.org and scroll down the homepage to the Earth Summit button. You should receive the link promptly.

  41. 41.

    TBone

    The inability to concern oneself with deep thinking is socially reinforced in the RWNJ bubble.  They are unable, therefore, to judge reality.

  43. 43.

    Bill Arnold

    Sister Golden Bear linked this a week back, but worth re-linking:
    Cool Gray City of Tech Authoritarians: Balaji’s dark vision for San Francisco (Gil Duran, Apr 3, 2024)

    [A] huge win would be a Gray Pride Parade with 50,000 Grays, that would be massive. That would start, to say: “Whose streets? Our streets!” You have the AI Flying Spaghetti Monster. You have the Bitcoin parade. You have the drones flying overhead in formation … You have bubbling genetic experiments on beakers. You have the laser eyes, you know, Bitcoin maximalist … You have the police at the Gray Pride Parade. They’re flying the…drones, they are there and, ideally, you know, you even design the police uniforms.

  44. 44.

    Captain C

    @LiminalOwl:

    Mike Johnson has said publicly that he and his 17-year-old son monitor each other’s use of Internet porn, and that he has an ‘accountability” app on his computer.  I think we can be sure that he DOES love porn, secretly or not-so-secretly.

    I suspect they use the monitor app to alert each other of particularly good porn that they find.

  45. 45.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Matt McIrvin:

    We’ve utilized them for a ceiling spider pendant lamp rig and they’re great.  Can also be dimmed.

    Been up 4+ years, never have had to change bulb.

  47. 47.

    Ken

    @Bill Arnold: ideally, you know, you even design the police uniforms.

    Or, from what I’ve heard about this guy and his project, you just go with a Hugo Boss original.

  48. 48.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TBone:

    everyone is hard at work running interference for him

    Also hard at work reinforcing Tennessee’s hick reputation – let those first cousins marry!

  51. 51.

    TBone

    Socrates believed that philosophy – the love of wisdom – was the most important pursuit above all else. For some, he exemplifies more than anyone else in history the pursuit of wisdom through questioning and logical argument, by examining and by thinking. His “examination” of life in this way spilled out into the lives of others, such that they began their own “examination” of life, but he knew they would all die one day, as saying that a life without philosophy – an “unexamined” life – was not worth living…

    (Wikipedia excerpt)

  53. 53.

    TBone

    @RevRick: you are not being ignored.  I am reading on it now. 💜

    And, I’m registered.  I’ll watch whenever if I can’t be present

  54. 54.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Ugh, just realized a dude I generally like and have worked with on local police reform efforts, in the past, is all-in promoting Cornel West Spoiler attempts.  Not super-surprising considering he was a Stein voter in 2016 but I had hoped he’d learned a lesson from that.

  56. 56.

    TBone

    @UncleEbeneezer: why is he wasting his time on someone who is grifting with no chance of getting anything but a ruined reputation?  Is that something you can ask?

  57. 57.

    kindness

    Which billionaires are funding Putin’s interests within the Republican party?  Seems to me they should be talked about more.

  58. 58.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @TBone: He’s one of those dudes who always thinks Dems are the problem.  He wraps that up in his very pro-Black Liberation identity and Social Justice language, but imo, he just hates the Dem Party too much to really be rational.  I mean, he’s a Stein voter…

  59. 59.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: I often get disappointed in my hopes that people will evolve, learn, be better etc.  In fact, most of the people I’ve unfriended over recent years, it wasn’t so much their bad positions but that they still cling to them several years after they really should’ve learned to know better.  Like I could understand skepticism about Covid and the vaccines early on, but to still feel that way now…there’s just no excuse.  I find that shit way more offensive.  In this case, this is a guy who talks a big game about Equality for Black People (which is good) but he completely skips past the part of Trump getting elected and stacking a SCOTUS who destroyed Affirmative Action.  He’ll just pivot to “yeah but Joe Biden, something, something…”  It’s sad because he’s not a dullard at all.

  60. 60.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @UncleEbeneezer: It’s sad because he’s not a dullard at all.

    As you indicate, intelligence is no guarantee of wisdom. I have a friend who went off the RWNJ deep end years ago, someone I knew from childhood, a very bright guy. I haven’t spoken with him in years, alas.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @UncleEbeneezer: Lots of smart people are right wing too.  Lots of right wing people donate to charities. Doesn’t make their political decisions morally righteous.

    The reality is, there are a lot of people who will ask things of others, but will not join with others to promote the common good.  I’m at the point where I just don’t find these people credible, even if I recognize their cause is credible.  But they exist, just like MAGA exist, and I’m not going to fret over them.

  63. 63.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: Yeah I know.  My one aspect of optimism is hoping people will wake up.  But so many just keep being Bozos…

  64. 64.

    RaflW

    PM Kishida said, “the leadership of the United States is indispensable. Without U.S. support, how long before the hopes of Ukraine would collapse under the onslaught from Moscow?” he asked. “Without the presence of the United States, how long before the Indo-Pacific would face even harsher realities?”

    I think/hope we’ll turn the corner in November, but it’s worth noting that Trump’s insanely dark American Carnage inaugural address fits with a world of harsh realities. He and the GOP can lean more heavily into the “only the daddy party can fix it (even though they won’t)” bid for greater and greater authoritarian and intrusive government.

  65. 65.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @TBone: West isn’t on there but he maybe should be:

    What has brought West into this circle is his opposition to US military assistance for Ukraine. In July, he posted a statement on social media blaming NATO and the United States for having “provoked Russia into a criminal invasion and occupation of Ukraine.” He called the Russia-launched conflict “a proxy war between the American Empire and the Russian Federation,” and he slammed the Democratic Party as “a party of war and Wall Street targeting Russia and China.”

  67. 67.

    Manyakitty

    @TaMara: been eating spoons of chocolate frosting leftover from my eclipse day cupcakes over here. Great minds and all.

    Also, too, so sorry about the magnificent and noble Xander. Hoping my beloved Heisenberg and Schrodinger were there to welcome him to the next stop.

  68. 68.

    wjca

    @lowtechcyclist: They’ve given up on trying to win hearts to Jesus (I can’t imagine why they do so badly at it!), so they’ve gone back to trying to force him on us.

    The trouble with this theory is that the 10 Commandments she is pushing is Old Testament.  Jesus was supposed to be replacing that.  But maybe her knowledge of her nominal religion doesn’t include those inconvenient details.  (Somehow I’m guessing she’d be outraged if it was pointed out that what her proposal is actually pushing is Judaism.)

  69. 69.

    JGreen

    @wjca:  You know, the 1st Commandment (as I learned it) was “I am the Lord, your God, who led you out of the land of Egypt”.  Do all these highly, highly, highly, Christian people believe this?  Were they led out of Egypt–along with all those Hebrews?  Doesn’t sound like Christian doctrine to me.  Wonder if they know this.  I know most of them couldn’t tell you the 10 Commandments even they were on a teleprompter right in front of them.

  70. 70.

    wjca

    @JGreen: I know most of them couldn’t tell you the 10 Commandments even they were on a teleprompter right in front of them.

    More like wouldn’t.  Because some of them would be just waaaay too inconvenient.

  72. 72.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TBone: ​
     

    @lowtechcyclist: they will never not try to succeed with that no matter who is elected.

    Tru dat. But coming from where I’m coming from, I’m talking about it in terms of its being a failure on the part of their supposed faith.

  73. 73.

    lowtechcyclist

    @wjca:

    More like wouldn’t. Because some of them would be just waaaay too inconvenient.

    Nah, they love the Decalogue; they want to be in a position to be judgmental.  Now those Beatitudes, OTOH, are way too woke. ;-)

    @JGreen:

    You know, the 1st Commandment (as I learned it) was “I am the Lord, your God, who led you out of the land of Egypt”.  Do all these highly, highly, highly, Christian people believe this?  Were they led out of Egypt–along with all those Hebrews?  Doesn’t sound like Christian doctrine to me.

    No one alive anytime in the past three millennia was led out of Egypt. But they believe they are the true spiritual descendants of pre-Christian Judaism, and that the Jews who didn’t follow Christ got it all wrong.  (But are still useful for satisfying the preconditions of the End Times, so that they can be Raptured out of here.)

    @wjca:

    The trouble with this theory is that the 10 Commandments she is pushing is Old Testament.  Jesus was supposed to be replacing that.  But maybe her knowledge of her nominal religion doesn’t include those inconvenient details.

    Um, Matthew 5:17 – Jesus said he didn’t come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.  And when he gave his two Great Commandments, he said that summed up the Law and the Prophets.

  74. 74.

    Paul in KY

    @LiminalOwl: That is so so so so weird. If I was his kid, I would be mortified that I had to do that, mortified it came out, etc. etc. etc.

    There is some serious weirdness in that family. Feel bad for his kids.

  78. 78.

    Paul in KY

    @wjca: She thinks Jesus was a hippy loving peacnik commie Roman-lover. Better Joshua and Ezekiel and David and Moses! Gnarr!

  80. 80.

    pluky

    @UncleEbeneezer: “He’s not a dullard”. One of the most disconcerting things I have had to admit about myself is that a major drawback to my intelligence is the ability to spin elaborate webs of rationalization that serve only to justify my own BS.

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