Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

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

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

All hail the time of the bunny!

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Everybody saw this coming.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

I would gladly pay you tuesday for a hamburger today.

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

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It’s All Fun and Games Until the Leopard Eats Your Face

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It's All Fun and Games Until the Leopard Eats Your Face

Camera Bartolotta is a Republican State Senator in Pennsylvania, who apparently loves re-posting Libs of TikTok (Chaya Raichik) content except when the lies that Raichik tells hit a little too close to home.  So, the anti-trans, anti-LGBT, anti-drag show content that leads to bomb threats is generally OK, but in this particular instance, where Sen. Bartolotta actually knows what the facts are, it’s a bridge too far.  It apparently wasn’t too far for Sen. Bartolotta when a shooter who killed 9 people in Allen, TX dedicated his screed denouncing Drag Queen Story Hour to Libs of TikTok.  And it sure wasn’t too far when the lies Raichik told about childrens’ hospitals performing bottom surgery on minors caused led to bomb threats and made one of those hospitals transition their transgender support group from in-person to on-line.  Nope, all that stuff was A-OK for the good Republican Senator.

Will this change Sen. Bartolotta’s support of the Trump/Vance ticket?   Will she connect the lies from Libs of TikTok to other lies about immigrants?  I doubt it, since her career as a Republican depends on not doing either of those things.

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War for Ukraine Day 937: Ukraine Is Not Getting Authorization to Use Long Range Weapons Any Time Soon

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

Second, how is it only Tuesday? It was another very, very, very long day here. Nothing bad, just very long. So I’m going to just run through the basics.

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy has announced that Britain will not go it alone in providing Ukraine authorization to use long range weapons against Russian targets in Russia.

From The Times of London:

Britain will not allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles against targets in Russia without the agreement of the United States.

President Zelensky pleaded for the UK and US to overcome their “fear” and show “decisiveness” over the issue.

Five former defence secretaries and an ex-prime minister have urged Sir Keir Starmer to go ahead unilaterally. They have warned that delays will only serve to embolden President Putin.

However, The Times has been told that the UK will not “go it alone” because US guidance systems were seen as crucial to ensuring the missiles hit their targets.

The government believes the US is still likely to give the green light at the UN general assembly in New York, although there are splits within President Biden’s administration.

David Lammy, the foreign secretary, told Laura Kuenssberg on BBC1 that there needed to be a “shared strategy” among western allies.

He said: “It’s important that as allies supporting Ukraine, we have a shared strategy to win going forward. Now we’ve been discussing this with the United States and with other key allies, but of course, we head to the UN general assembly, where we will all meet with Zelensky in just under 12 days’ time.”

He said that “no war is won with any one weapon”, but added: “It’s important that we support the Ukrainians to continue to repel Russia in the Black Sea, it’s important that they can deal with the huge challenges in the air that are being mounted by Russia and of course that we support them — and we have — with training of their own men and women on the front line. We want to put Ukraine in the strongest position going forward.”

Zelensky said on Sunday: “The world must help us defend ourselves against Russian military aircraft and the dozens of guided aerial bombs that claim Ukrainian lives every day.

“This terror can be stopped. But to stop it, the fear of making strong, objectively necessary decisions must be overcome. Only decisiveness can bring a just end to this war. It is decisiveness that most effectively protects against terror.”

More at the link.

Here’s the results of the moral cowardice and strategic malpractice:

In Novohrodivka, northwest of Donetsk, the Russians also executed a Ukrainian Soldier with a sword to the heart. His hands were tied and the Russians tried to photoshop the ropes out of the pictures they’ve posted on social media. I’ve seen the imagery and footage, you don’t need to go looking for it.

The Kyiv Post has the details:

Editor’s note: The story has been updated with information from the Prosecutor General’s Office on the location of the alleged killing of a Ukrainian soldier.

Ukraine’s Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on Sept. 17 that he had appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations in response to a photo that allegedly shows the execution of a Ukrainian prisoner of war (POW) by Russia.

On the morning of Sept. 17, a photo of an apparently executed Ukrainian soldier with a sword in his chest and the inscription “For Kursk” appeared on social media. Remnants of gray tape are visible on the soldier’s hand.

The photo appears to show a bloodied body lying on the road against the backdrop of damaged vehicles and a house with broken windows. The exact location is unclear.

The Kyiv Independent could not verify the photo.

“The level of barbarism and bloodthirstiness is impossible to comprehend,” Lubinets wrote on his Telegram channel. The ombudsman stressed that such actions are a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Later in the day, the Prosecutor General’s Office said that the alleged execution of a   Ukrainian soldier took place in the town of Novohrodivka in Donetsk Oblast. Ukrainian authorities have not yet established the time when the alleged execution took place.

The investigation is ongoing to establish the circumstances and identify the people responsible for the crime. The pre-trial investigation is conducted by the Security Service of Ukraine’s (SBU) investigators in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office.

More at the link.

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

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Tuesday Night Open Thread

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I’ve been awol the last couple of days- went out for a metaphorical pack of cigarettes and never came home to you kids. I hope you will have me back. A couple of quick housekeeping notes:

1.) RJud and Watergirl are working on her credentials and we should be joined on the front page by her in the next few days. Yay!

2.) Look for a very special post from Watergirl about the Balloon Juice store either tonight or tomorrow! Very exciting.

3.) Pay no fucking attention whatsoever to the polls. Remember 2016.

4.) I am officially forbidding any of you from dying for at least the next year. The OzarkHillbilly news is fucking awful, and I am so sick and tired of death. It just feels like every couple of months we are losing someone and I just need it to stop.

***

I was thinking this morning (I know, strap in) that one of the most irritating aspects of Jd Vance’s assault on his own constituents is that these people are here LEGALLY. They are doing it the way you are supposed to, and the message this sends to other lawful immigrants and people here on work visas is just horrible and could have very serious consequences.

I really don’t think most Americans truly appreciate just HOW dependent the United States is on immigrant and migrant workers. And I need to be clear. I am not just talking about the fact that almost every restaurant across the country will be without line cooks should every migrant and immigrant legal or otherwise disappear, decide not to come here, or be deported. I’m not just talking about the idle construction sites across the country or the crops rotting in fields or all the other things people typically think of when they think of immigrant workers.

It’s far more serious than that. If legal immigrants, guest workers, and everyone disappeared or just decided it’s not worth it to come to a country that hates you or where deranged hicks are going to be calling in bomb threats at your kid’s school every day, this country would be fucked. You literally would have most hospitals running at half staff, and those goes double for teaching hospitals. There would be a horrifying shortage of general practitioners. Dave Anderson can talk about this more, but rural healthcare would collapse overnight. We would have a shortage worse than our worst nightmares during the pandemic. Catastrophic gets close to describing how bad it would be. Every company would lose half or more of their IT staff. Wall street, the nbanks, real estate, tech industries, would all crater.

It’s terrifying to even think about it, really. All so two scumbags can peddle racist bullshit to try to scare a few ignorant twats to the polls. Not to mention, if JD Vance really cared about animal welfare in Ohio, he’d be screaming about the abuses that go on in Amish communities with their livestock and all the god damned puppy mills.

***

Anne Laurie posted it earlier, but that report in the NY Times would, in a sane society, be a career ender. We’ll have to settle for his reputation being destroyed. But that report is… brutal is the only word I can come up with.

With that in mind, I drove around the state this weekend picking up signs and delivering them, so I am gonna challenge you all- What are you doing to help get a Democratic President, House, and Senate?

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Harris Walz Car Magnets for Sale

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Here are the 4 car magnets that are currently for sale on Cafe Press.

The site is a mess, but if you click any of the 4 links below it should take you to the item and allow you to order.

We have not tried ordering yet, which is why it says “Theoretically”!   First order placed – success!

FYI: Cafe Press basically took the old site, threw all the items (that we had for sale since the beginning of time) into the cardboard box, in a jumble, and changed how you do everything.  Everything.  So beth has been tearing her hair out trying to make sense of it, and for now at least these 4 items are order-able, if anyone is interested.  We’ll have to get the store straightened out, but there’s no time to do that and have anything Harris Walz available before the election.

So here you go!  If anyone tries to order, let us know in the comments if you were able to place an order, so we know whether that’s fucked up, too.

Tunch

https://www.cafepress.com/shopdetail/balloonjuice.1222552312?

Steve

https://www.cafepress.com/shopdetail/balloonjuice.1222674605?

Dark Tunch

https://www.cafepress.com/shopdetail/balloonjuice.1222828098?

Dark Steve

https://www.cafepress.com/shopdetail/BalloonJuice.1222552305

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Chief ‘Justice’ John Roberts Conclusively Retires Roger Taney’s Crown of Ignominy

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Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak, at the NYTimes, examine “How Roberts Shaped Trump’s Supreme Court Winning Streak” [gift link]:

Last February, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. sent his eight Supreme Court colleagues a confidential memo that radiated frustration and certainty.

Former President Donald J. Trump, seeking to retake the White House, had made a bold, last-ditch appeal to the justices. He wanted them to block his fast-approaching criminal trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that he was protected by presidential immunity. Whatever move the court made could have lasting consequences for the next election, the scope of presidential power and the court’s own battered reputation.

The chief justice’s Feb. 22 memo, jump-starting the justices’ formal discussion on whether to hear the case, offered a scathing critique of a lower-court decision and a startling preview of how the high court would later rule, according to several people from the court who saw the document.

The chief justice tore into the appellate court opinion greenlighting Mr. Trump’s trial, calling it inadequate and poorly reasoned. On one key point, he complained, the lower court judges “failed to grapple with the most difficult questions altogether.” He wrote not only that the Supreme Court should take the case — which would stall the trial — but also how the justices should decide it.

“I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently” from the appeals court, he wrote. In other words: grant Mr. Trump greater protection from prosecution.

In a momentous trio of Jan. 6-related cases last term, the court found itself more entangled in presidential politics than at any time since the 2000 election, even as it was contending with its own controversies related to that day. The chief justice responded by deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times examination that uncovered extensive new information about the court’s decision making.

This account draws on details from the justices’ private memos, documentation of the proceedings and interviews with court insiders, both conservative and liberal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because deliberations are supposed to be kept secret.

The chief justice wrote the majority opinions in all three cases, including an unsigned one in March concluding that the former president could not be barred from election ballots in Colorado…

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ProPublica – the Corrupt Aileen Cannon Is In the Spotlight

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Cannon, whose oversight of the Donald Trump classified documents case has garnered widespread criticism, has repeatedly violated a rule requiring that federal judges disclose their attendance at private seminars.  (ProPublica)

I was hoping Cannon would have her time in the barrel!

In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason, which named its law school for Scalia thanks to $30 million in gifts that conservative judicial kingmaker Leonard Leo helped organize.

Current rates for standard rooms at Sage Lodge can exceed $1,000 per night, depending on the season. With both Montana trips, Cannon’s required seminar disclosures were not posted until NPR reporters asked about the omissions this year as part of a broader national investigation of gaps in judicial disclosures.

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Cannon’s annual disclosure form for 2023, which was due in May and offers another chance to report gifts and reimbursements from outside parties, has yet to be posted. (Cannon reported the two Montana trips on her annual disclosure forms, but the required 30-day privately funded seminar reports had not been posted. In 2021, Cannon incorrectly listed the school as “George Madison University.”)

The court’s administrative office declined to say if she requested a one-time extension to give her until Aug. 13 to file. A spokesperson would not discuss whether she met the deadline or the status of her disclosure, which must be reviewed internally.

Cannon’s performance during almost four years of a lifetime appointment has drawn criticism from lawyers, former federal judges and courtroom observers who told ProPublica that she doesn’t render timely decisions and has made unpredictable rulings in both civil and criminal matters. On July 15, she threw out the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith that alleges Trump mishandled classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence; Cannon called Smith’s appointment unconstitutional since he was not nominated by the president and approved by the Senate.

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By contrast, Trump, who appointed Cannon in 2020 to the Fort Pierce courthouse, has praised her brilliance, and Federalist Society founder Steven Calabresi called her a heroine for throwing out the criminal case against Trump.

h/t Scout211

Open thread.

 

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