Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

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

Giving up is unforgivable.

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

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

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

The willow is too close to the house.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

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

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

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

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

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

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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Late Night Open Thread: Bullet, Dodged

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Thought I’d share this Abby Livingston note from a Puck email (since Puck uses email as its main form of social media):

… Will Adams hurt House Dems?: It’s a fair bet that New York Republicans were already poll-testing Adams’ image before his indictment, particularly given the many regions hostile to New York City. As I reported yesterday, the N.R.C.C. has been running an ad linking Adams to Democratic House challenger John Mannion in the Syracuse-based 22nd District. New York’s five or six competitive House races are supposed to be some of the lowest-hanging fruit for Democrats, and a major part of their plan to retake the House.

The magnitude of the Adams fallout remains to be seen. While it’s completely feasible that Democrats could win the House back without the New York seats, politicians are judged first and foremost on how they handle their politics back home. Nobody has more riding on these races than Adams’ fellow New Yorker, would-be House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. Meanwhile, Adams’ radioactivity may spill across the border into northern New Jersey via local news coverage, and give a boost to G.O.P. incumbent Tom Kean Jr., who’s in a tossup race against Democrat Sue Altman.

There is one silver lining for the Democrats: At the D.N.C. there was a kerfuffle when Democrats denied [NYTimes link] Adams a speaking slot. That decision now seems prescient. Had he spoken, B-roll of the now-indicted mayor waving to the cheering Democratic throngs in Chicago would have played on loop last night on cable news. That same piece of tape would have been blasted out to voters on Long Island, in the Hudson Valley, and North Jersey via Republican campaigns ads…

If you need a quick update on the Adams indictment, Sara Benincasa at Wonkette does a pretty good job (even if she is unduly sympathetic to Rattus norvegicus).

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War for Ukraine Day 946: Last Night’s Russian Drone Swarm Attack Gave Way to a Russian Kinzhal Attack

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Three quick housekeeping notes. First, Rosie is doing great. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

Second, Helene is passing us to the west. We’ve got wind gusts and rain and that’s about it. But in case the power decides to flicker a bit, let alone go out, I’m going to just power through and get as much in as I can.

Third, last night in comments way2blue asked:

A bit off topic.  But I would be quite interested in understanding how Rosie’s treatment works.  I’d never imagined such a long involved chemotherapy treatment.  How will you know if she’s gone into remission once it’s finished?  Thanks.

Rosie has lymphoma. The treatment for dogs is essentially the same for humans, but the intention is not to knock everything back completely including her immune system. Rather, it is to knock the lymphoma into remission. In Rosie’s case, she went into remission very quickly. The oncology vet estimated about 80% after the first treatment and in full remission by the third treatment. The survivability – as in how much time the treatment buys a dog in terms of post treatment longevity is about 12 months or so on average. Rosie will turn fourteen in November. She’s in otherwise great shape for a fourteen year old lab mix, but we’ll see how much additional time the treatment has bought her. My goal, and I was very clear with the oncology vet and my regular vet, is to do what is right for Rosie. Had she not been in excellent shape for a 13 and 1/2 year old lab mix, we’d have just done the high dose prednisone and then hospice/palliative to keep her comfortable and happy and let her go. When the time comes, that will happen. We will have to wait and see how much quality time the chemo has bought her.

After the Russians finished attacking Ukraine with the drone swarms last night, they switched over to Kinzhals this morning:

President Zelenskyy was in DC today meeting with President Biden and Vice President Harris. He has, as of 7:41 PM EDT, not made any addresses today.

During the meeting with @POTUS, I presented the Victory Plan to him. We discussed details to strengthen the Plan, coordinated our positions, views, and approaches, and tasked our teams with holding consultations on the next steps.

We deeply appreciate that Ukraine and the United States have stood side by side since the very beginning of the Russian invasion. Your determination is incredibly important for us to prevail.

🇺🇦🇺🇸

I shared the details of the Victory Plan with Vice President @KamalaHarris. It is very important for us to be fully understandable and work in full coordination with the United States.

We must end this war and achieve a just peace. We must protect our people – Ukrainian families, Ukrainian children – and everyone from Putin’s evil. We are grateful to America for supporting Ukraine throughout this time.

President Zelenskyy also met with a bipartisan group of senators and then a bipartisan group of representatives earlier today as well.

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Thursday Night Open Thread

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Looking like that storm down in the Gulf is going to be a total disaster for the region:

A two-story-high wall of water is forecast to swallow a large stretch of the Florida coastline overnight as Hurricane Helene rages ashore. Now a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour, the storm is likely to make landfall before midnight as the strongest ever to strike the state’s Big Bend region.

Already rain and heavy surf are pounding much of western Florida, with forecasters warning of a “nightmare” flooding scenario for low-lying communities. They expect the storm’s hurricane-force winds to stretch from the Tampa region to as far as central Georgia.

Up to 20 feet of storm surge is predicted for the Big Bend — an amount exceeded rarely on the Gulf Coast. The surge in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest storms to make landfall in the United States, reached 28 feet. President Biden has approved disaster declarations for Florida, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina.

Reminder that you are not allowed to talk about climate change in Florida.

Keep Betty in your thoughts.

***

I know that the repulsive comments by Clay Higgins about Haitians has been talked about here at least once by Watergirl (and maybe others my short term memory is shit), but I just want to remind you all that as every day passes, it is going to get worse and worse and they are going to get nuttier and more vulgar, especially as bad polls come in over the next few weeks. And if they lose, everything is going to go bonkers, too. Just keep your heads down and don’t let it bother you, because it is a deliberate campaign tactic. I saw this on twitter earlier:

If you have not noticed, the Harris campaign’s strategy has been to put forward to the normies in the country a serious, joyful, policy filled and substantive face while also clearly defining the Trump/Vance as weird, dangerous, out of touch, and invasive. And they have been doing a great job of it, too. But the subtext of this campaign has been a constant troll of the Trump campaign. The couch references by Walz, the crowd and hand size stuff at the DNC and debate, and on and on and on. They are doing everything they can to enrage the fanatics to get them to explode, so that they can define themselves as lunatics. What I am saying is that none of your friends who don’t follow politics knows who the fuck George Soros is. He’s not a flashy billionaire like Musk or Cuban or Zuck or Bezos. The only people who know Soros is are the diehard Dems and political obsessives who are chronically informed and online, and the anti-Semitic and racist wings of the GOP (although at this point it’s the whole fucking party except maybe Mitt Romney). And it’s gonna make them explode.

That’s what I think, at any rate.

***

Before I forget, you can now get free covid tests. Make sure you get yours.

Lot of good recs in the open thread last night about for noir and neo-noir. I of course am using none of them because I got it into my head I wanted to rewatch Jack Irish. I think it was because I was thinking about Guy Pearce in Memento and then that led to that. So that is what I am doing tonight.

Send happy thoughts to Joelle- she’s going through some shit and her very senior blind and deaf Shiba Inu named Curtis has an ulcer on his eye, and that is stressing her out a great deal. And I am absolute shite when dealing with people in tears or near tears. Me trying to cheer someone up is the equivalent of throwing an anchor to a drowning man.

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Helene Peeps, Here’s a Post So You Can Check in Through the Night

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Like the threads we had for the wildfires, maybe all the Helene peeps can check in here and let everyone know how it’s going, or keep you company while you wait!

Helene Peeps, Here's a Post So You Can Check in Through the Night

I’m adding a link to this at the top in the sidebar to make it easier for everyone to find, regardless of what else is on the front page.

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Can We Complete Operation Blue Arizona?

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On Wisconsin!

Let’s see if we can get this done!  After that we have a couple of senators who can really use some help.  More about that later; one thing at a time.

Four Directions AZ

We have a $1,000 double-angel match for Four Directions AZ.  That’s 3x until we hit $1,000 in matches!

Worker Power Fall GOTV

We have a $1,000 double-angel match for Worker Power.  So that’s 3x until we hit $1,000 in matches!  That should get us to $20,000+.

THEN we have an angel who will donate $5,000 for Worker Power as soon as the thermometer hits $25,000.  For that part, you won’t even need to tell us about your donation.  Whatever goes into the thermometer to get it to $25,000 will be matched with the Angel’s $5,000

The final $5k will be by check, so we’re going to lower the thermometer goal by $5k because the check will never show up in the thermometer.  But Worker Power will still get the full $30,000.

AZ Candidates

We even have a $2,000 Angel match for AZ Candidates, so that’s a 2x match.

Right now, we’re at about $2,500 for three of the candidates, and $2,800 for the other four.

Open thread!

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Jack Smith’s 180-Page Brief Submitted to Judge Chutkan

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DC Indictment News

Update:  Filed under seal at 4:40 Eastern time.  So no news, sort of.

How much of the brief will we get to see?  It’s anybody’s guess.

When will we find out how much we get to see?  I think it’s anybody’s guess.

When will we finally get to see whatever we are allowed to see?  It’s anybody’s guess.

Special counsel files evidence under seal against Trump in election subversion case  (CNN)

h/t Scout211

—
Filings from special counsel Jack Smith laying out never-before-seen evidence in the election subversion case against Donald Trump – including interview transcripts and notes from an investigation that counted among its witnesses former Vice President Mike Pence, Ivanka Trump and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows – are now in the hands of a federal court.

It will now be up to District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine how much of that evidence the public gets to see and when they will be able to see it.

Prosecutors filed the documents under seal as of 4:40 p.m. ET, according to Peter Carr, the special counsel office’s spokesman.The court submissions could eventually provide Americans with the most comprehensive view they’ll ever get of Smith’s case alleging that Trump conspired to defraud the United States in his efforts to overturn his 2020 electoral loss.

The filings are expected to include grand jury transcripts, the FBI’s formal notes from witness interviews and documentary evidence, as part of an effort by prosecutors to argue that their reworked indictment can survive under the Supreme Court’s recent presidential immunity ruling.

The Supreme Court ruling has required the prosecutors to convince Chutkan – and likely, higher courts – that Trump was not acting in his official capacity when he and his supporters took various actions, culminating in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, to stave off his 2020 defeat.

It is likely the filings will dig into Trump’s pressure campaign on Pence – conduct that the Supreme Court indicated might be covered under immunity. The brief is also likely to lay out what investigators have learned about the circumstances of the January 6, 2021, Ellipse rally, while potentially providing more detail about endeavors by Trump and his allies to convince state officials to block certification of the 2020 results.

They have also indicated plans to file a version with proposed redactions – also under seal – that could ultimately be posted to the court’s public docket.

Smith previously secured permission to file a brief as long as 180 pages – four times the normal page length. That brief does not include the “substantial” numbered exhibits prosecutors plan to attach to their arguments that will offer up key evidence. The footnotes alone citing their various exhibits would account for more than 30 pages of the main brief, prosecutors have said.

 

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The New York Democratic Party Needs An Overhaul

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This will be quick because I’m on a wifi connection that should be a crime against humanity.

Anyway, it’s clear that Eric Adams is very corrupt, and to me, it’s absolutely disqualifying that any mayor would override his Fire Chief to have the FD certify a high-rise as being safe to occupy when it’s full of violations that could endanger the lives of the people in it as well as firefighters — especially in NYC.  And anyone with two eyes and a functioning brain can tell he did it — the evidence is overwhelming.

But if you read the statements from the leading Democrats in New York:  Jeffries, Hochul (what a disappointment she is), Schumer and others, they’re all saying “let the system play out” blah, blah, blah.

AOC, of course, no surprise, got it right and called for him to resign, and Adams had the gall to criticize her constituent service (which, from all evidence I’ve seen, is gold standard.)

This embarrassment needs to go and he needs to go now.  Fucking Fox is going to have a field day with him anyway, but at least New York Democrats can show a smidgen of leadership and tell him to get the fuck out.

New York isn’t in play, but our Congressional Districts are key to a trifecta.   We fucked the rest of the party last cycle when we lost some very winnable seats.  We can’t do that again.

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