Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

The real work of an opposition party is to oppose.

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

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

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

It’s possible to be a liberal firebrand without crapping on the party.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

In after Baud. Damn.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

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

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Our messy unity will be our strength.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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NC Black Alliance Found Us an External Match, Let’s Take This Home!

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North Carolina Black Alliance Campus Engagement Project:  Let’s recap, shall we?

We jumped in and started our fundraising while the good folks at NC Black Alliance were still working on a match, because except for that, the timing felt right.  We raised the $30,000 for Phase I and we now have an external match for that.  So whatever your previous donation was, whether it was 2x  or 4x (4x if we had a double-angel match) it has retroactively doubled because of the match.

We were about halfway through our fundraising for Phase II and decided to pause while they worked on securing an external match for that.  Today we got the fabulous news – they were able to secure the external match for Phase II.  They got it done!

Anybody remember what Phase I was about?  Phase II?   Bueller?

The short answer is that Phase I focused on campus engagement at TWO 4-year colleges that are not HBCUs, but have high enrollment of black students.  Phase II is about extending the campus engagement to FOUR 2-year colleges.  If you want more of a refresher than that, click just below to read one of the original posts where we explained the goals.

It’s Up To Us Now, Next Stop, North Carolina!

The four carefully chosen target community colleges:

  • Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, the state’s largest single campus community college
  • Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem
  • Durham Technical Community College in Durham
  • Wake Technical Community College, a multi-campus institution in Raleigh, North Carolina’s largest community

In total, these four urban campuses have over 150,000 students.

No, that is not a typo with an extra zero.

According to the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research, all four of these campuses serve an even higher percentage of minorities than the population of their service areas.

With this fundraiser, we’re funding canvassers and support staff to hit the ground running when the students return.

Let’s  do this!  Let’s help make North Carolina the next blue state!!

Do we have a North Carolina Balloon Juice Angel to help get us started?  Yes, we do!  Matching up to $100 per person for donations in the comments or in an email to WaterGirl.  Between the external match and the angel match (while it lasts) donations will be 4x.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Taking the Campaign on the Road

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Thursday Morning Open Thread: Taking the Campaign on the Road

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

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On The Road – UncleEbeneezer – Early-Summer, Eastern Sierra Adventure (Part 3-of-5): Obsidian Dome

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UncleEbeneezer

On Weds, after finally getting a decent night sleep, we ventured back down to Lone Pine to meet BJ commenter, Dmbeaster, who had offered to join us and show us around the area, highlighting some of the geology of the region.  Dave is a regular visitor to Owens Valley and has studied Geology for years.  So after a quick introductory breakfast we drove up to Bishop to hop in his car and let him lead our little adventure for the day.

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On The Road - UncleEbeneezer - Early-Summer, Eastern Sierra Adventure (Part 3-of-5): Obsidian Dome 7
Bishop, CAMay 22, 2024

Here is the view from the RV parking lot in Bishop.  As you can see the Sierra still had a decent amount of snow on the peaks, despite the temperature in Bishop being in the mid-80’s.

Late Night Open Thread: JD Vance & the Rage Furby, Texting Buddies

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Some of you vintage blog readers may remember Chuck ‘Floorsh*tter’ Johnson, a/k/a ‘Not the Little Green Footballs Charles Johnson’, going back to the days when he was a favorite chewtoy at Tbogg’s joint. He bobs up like a turd in the right-wing septic tank every so often, but until I did a cursory search on earlier posts here, I’d completely forgotten he was another one of Peter Thiel’s ‘intellectual’ beneficiaries.

So *of course* when the Rage Furby reached out to a newbie Repub senator, he would not be shunted off for an intern to deal with… Per the Washington Post, “JD Vance in texts with far-right figure: Profane and off-the-cuff” [gift link]:

The day after JD Vance was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022, he received a congratulatory text from Charles Johnson, a blogger and entrepreneur who has zealously promoted right-wing conspiracy theories.

Johnson assumed the posture of a wise mentor, cautioning the first-time officeholder to choose his staff carefully and repeatedly pressing him on his committee assignments. “Got to keep you out of trouble,” wrote Johnson, who now describes himself as a government informant seeking to protect the United States from foreign influence.

Their correspondence over the next 20 months — extending into the weeks before former president Donald Trump picked Vance as his running mate — offers a glimpse of the Republican vice-presidential nominee’s off-the-cuff musings, often matching his public expressions but voiced with much less polish and more profanity. Vance was just as casual in discussing America’s foreign alliances as he was in evaluating his own private alliances with the GOP’s moneyed class. With Johnson, he pondered responsibility for the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines and crudely described his aversion to the Ukrainian government and refusal to consider its pleas for U.S. assistance.

“Dude I won’t even take calls from Ukraine,” he told Johnson in October, about three weeks after House Republicans blocked additional aid to help Kyiv repel the Russian invasion. “Two very senior guys reached out to me. The head of their intel. The head of the Air Force. Bitching about F16s.”

In response to questions about his correspondence with Johnson, Vance spokesman William Martin said the two were never close and don’t share the same politics. “Chuck Johnson spam texted JD Vance,” Martin said. “JD usually ignored him, but occasionally responded to push back against things he said.”…

The mostly friendly conversation with Johnson reflects how Vance gravitates to people on the political fringe — a cohort emboldened by Trump’s insurgent campaign in 2016 and highly active online in the years since. After Trump picked Vance as his running mate on July 15, Johnson has been criticizing his onetime interlocutor and threatening to release their communications. He said he has grown disillusioned with Vance, especially over the senator’s favorable view of the Israeli prime minister, and now supports President Biden and Vice President Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee.

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Changing of the Stars

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In a post this morning, I challenged BJ peeps to write an ode to Biden, an ode to Kamala, an ode to Walz. Or a poem, a rhyme, a limerick, a story.

We got some good ones!

On The Road - BillinGlendaleCA - The Milky Way Reimagined. 6
Photo by BillinGlendaleCA

Here’s something thoughtful from Damien that I wanted to share tonight.

Changing of the Stars

Folding quietly, unable to sustain but afraid to fall
A colossal success, the faded sun reviewed its work
Warmth, light, energy, its burn had fueled lives it would never know
Unwilling to abandon the lives its work had nurtured
The sun would not, could not, see its fading
It would not, could not, see the footman with its coat
Arrived and patient, the fearful rush of time implacable
Fear. Fear imperceptible in the lives it saved
Fear of what might come once the sun took on the coat of eternity
Fear readied the sun for darkest collapse
Its love would kill the very lives it wished to save
A maw of malevolent nothing on prowling periphery
Accepting of its own time passing, the sun, the star, fought back
In the only way it could anymore
It gave up its dream of a few more years
To sacrifice for new energy
A bigger star
A stronger light to fight the bitter blackness
The sun gave up its place
For a super nova

Open thread.

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Harris & Walz Fight for Red State Citizens

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In an homage to himself and the colossally unself-aware sloganeering featured in his flaming Hindenburg of a GOP primary campaign, shitty far-right Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently wasted $60K in taxpayer funds to change state line welcome signs to read “Welcome to the free state of Florida.” (Source: Tampa Bay Times)

It probably won’t matter in the final Electoral College* tally, but as one of the taxpayers whose contributions have been wasted on the sour kumquat’s hard-right vanity projects, I’m grateful that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have both been attacking the DeSantis anti-freedom agenda for years and hope they keep it up throughout the next 90 days.

Last year, when the DeSantis admin dumbed down the public school black history curriculum to protect the extra-dainty feelings of white snowflakes, Harris came to Jacksonville to call the change what it is: distorting history with far-right propaganda and lies. (Source: NPR) This year, she visited the state after the 6-week abortion ban became law and said “the government should never come between [a woman] and her doctor.”

Meanwhile, from his perch as a fellow governor, Walz has steadily slagged his odious Florida counterpart: (Source: TBT)

On social media, Walz has posted articles about books being removed from Florida school shelves, saying that “while we’re focused on banishing hunger with free breakfast and lunch, they’re focused on banning books, bullying LGBTQ+ students, and attacking teachers.”

In response to Florida effectively banning AP Psychology last year because the curriculum acknowledged the existence of people who are LGBTQ, Walz said, “My message stays the same: If you want to live in the year 2023, come to Minnesota. We’re protecting freedoms here – not taking them away.”

DeSantis talks often about all of the people who have moved to Florida since he became governor to flee liberal states. Walz, in an interview with NBC News last year, said Minnesota’s track record could appeal to people wanting to leave Florida and find another home.

“Like no time in my lifetime, the choice in states you could pick could not be greater,” he said in the NBC interview. “Folks don’t really care about the woke corporation fights, they care about the roads and water treatment plants.”

If I wouldn’t literally freeze to death in Minnesota, I might consider it, Governor Walz.

DeSantis takes credit for the sun, spinning the in-migration as a response to his crackpot far-right policies rather than the continuation of a trend that has seen the state’s population nearly triple in my lifetime. (It’s the sunshine and lack of a state tax, stupid!)

Anyhoo, “more of this, please,” etc. It’s meaningful to Democrats in red states when our national leaders push back on the fascist GOP culture war bullshit that takes away our freedoms, makes it harder for us to access healthcare and complicates raising our families.

Open thread.

*After we cross “crush fascism” off the to-do list, we should really make a more sustained effort to abolish the anti-democratic vestige of deference to slave states known as the Electoral College. The appeal could be fairly simple: In a democracy, all of our voices matter, so let’s stop making the citizens of a handful of swing states super-voters whose ballots outweigh everyone else’s. Maybe framing it as a fairness issue could work. 

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War for Ukraine Day 896: Kursk Oblast

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A quick housekeeping note. Rosie is still doing great. Her next treatment is a week from Monday. Thank you for all the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

We go now to footage of Jake Sullivan:

We’ll have more on what’s happening in Kursk after the jump.

Kherson was attacked again overnight:

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

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