Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

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

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

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

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

“They all knew.”

Everybody saw this coming.

Second rate reporter says what?

How stupid are these people?

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

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

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Consistently wrong since 2002

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

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

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

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: The Torch Has Been (Is Being) Passed…

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Stark Grey Dawn Open Thread: Don’t You Think Trump Looks… Tired?

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Is our media… turning?

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Good Non-Political News

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Hey everyone! Proof of life here. My book MS is in (and accepted!*). I just sent off the final (I hope) illustration list to both the design department and the picture researcher. So maybe…just possibly…I might be able to do the odd post here.

I got lots of thoughts about our political adventures, most notably that while I’m having as much fun with furniture fetishist Vance, this remains an existential fight, as Trump says the quiet part out loud: if he wins, this is our last election. But there are better front-pagers (and commenters) on this beat, so I thought I’d try to get some less immediately obvious takes on these times we’re living in.

And why not attempt to restart some bloggery with some decent news.  Biomedicine has been spinning off some amazing results lately.  Here are two that will do so much to relieve human suffering…

First: fascinating new insights on lupus:

A new study about the underlying mechanisms of lupus presents a novel way to potentially treat the autoimmune disease…

The study’s findings raise a “compelling idea” for a novel way to treat lupus, said Deepak Rao, a rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the senior authors of the study.

The linked WaPo article is a good explainer. The TL:DR is that the research team–a collaboration between scientists at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Northwestern University–identified a specific mechanism within certain T cells that could produce the disregulation of the immune system that creates the damage associated with lupus. The work is VERY preliminary, but if the causal account holds up, the details of that mechanism suggest a way to address the disease at the cellular level.

Which is to say: clinical benefits, if any, are a long way off. But lupus is a wretched disease, and creating a detailed molecular account of the disease process is a crucial foundational step towards being able to treat and hopefully reverse its effects.

Second: this is just cool…

NASA’s Perseverance rover has found a very intriguing rock on the surface of Mars.

An arrowhead-shaped rock observed by the rover has chemical signatures and structures that could have been formed by ancient microbial life. To be absolutely clear, this is not irrefutable evidence of past life on Mars, when the red planet was more amenable to water-based life billions of years ago. But discovering these colored spots on this rock is darn intriguing and has Mars scientists bubbling with excitement.

As the reporter, Eric Berger emphasizes, this isn’t a discovery–yet.  Dots on a rock do not in themselves admit the conclusion that microbes once lived on Mars.

Good Non-Political News

They could be–but the limit of what can be gleaned at this distance is, as Berger writes, “The distinctive colorful spots, containing both iron and phosphate, are a smoking gun for certain chemical reactions—rather than microbial life itself.”

To go further, chunks of Mars have to make it back to earth. Sample return is a hugely challenging mission. I hope it happens in my lifetime. But whether or not it does, this is still at once a delightful possibility and, in some sense, a work of art. Perseverance serves no practical purpose. It was made and it performs because enough of us find the attempt to understand nature beautiful in the same fashion that any other gift to our senses and our minds can satisfy.

And here, alas, is where politics reenters the conversation–at least for me. Science is valuable because it contributes to human flourishing. Often in the most obvious, material ways: coming up with a cure for lupus would be a big deal, changing and saving lives. And it can be fun, provide joy, prompt deeper thinking and feeling, as Perservance’s off-roading demonstrates. Neither happens unless as a society we are willing to spend a ton of money on curiosity (the human impulse, not that other Mars hot rod).  Supporting science in DC has historically been a pretty reliably bipartisan affair–but that’s increasingly no longer true.

The range of threats a Trumpist GOP poses to the science and the research capacity of the US is beyond the reach of this late night post; I know the commentariat has all the expertise needed to fill in that story.

For now, let me not harsh the mellow too much. Hairless bipeds remain capable of doing great things. We can enjoy them.

G’night all. This thread is as open as will be the first 7-Eleven on Deimos.

Image: Hendrik ter Brugghen, Mars Asleep, 1629

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War for Ukraine Day 884: Constant Air Raid Alerts for Kharkiv

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Painting by NEIVANMADE. It has a white background an in the center are Soldiers in green doing air defense by firing at incoming Russian missiles in the upper right. The missiles are red and yellow. In the upper left, written in green, is the text: "SAVE THE BRAVEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD!" Below the Soldiers, also written in green, is "SUPPORT FOR KHARKIV"

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Three quick housekeeping notes: First, Rosie is still doing very well. There was no post-treatment strong reaction this week. She has next week off and then goes for her third treatment of the third round a week from Monday. Thank you all for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

Second, apparently we’re getting a new commenting policy, which is really a moderation policy. We don’t actually need a new one, we just need an update. And that update is simply a zero tolerance policy to antisemitic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, and closely related types of comments. The current policy is well over a decade old and was not designed for what has happened in the US over the past nine years since Trump announced his first run for president with an openly racist statement and created a permission structure for people to bring their bigotry out into the light of day. This one adjustment to the policy will resolve the problems we’ve been experiencing, which fortunately have been relatively few, since 2015. Though having to deal with three people making antisemitic comments since October, two of whom tried to get around their bans, is still three too many. Fortunately, these are still few and far between, but none of our readers or commenters or front pagers should have to deal with bigotry in the comments. The current policy is fine for all the other issues we occasionally have.

Last night, wjca asked:

Do you happen to know if Harris has (or is likely to have) a different national security team? If so, are they likely to have a different approach?

Yes, I do. First, almost every member of Biden’s senior nat-sec team has been in place since early to mid 2021 depending on when their confirmations were finalized (for those that needed Senate confirmation). The big departure was Colin Kahl, who was the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy (USD-P). He left last summer and the Senate GOP has essentially bottled up his replacement’s nomination. Anyhow, all of these people would have moved on had Biden been reelected as four years in these posts is a long time. If she’s elected, Vice President Harris will bring in her own team. I expect her current National Security Advisor, Phil Gordon, will have pride of place as either her National Security Advisor should she be elected president or in one of the other senior nat-sec appointments/positions. Here’s his bio:

PHILIP H. GORDON is the National Security Adviser to the Vice President of the United States. Previously, he was the Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He also served as the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the Obama administration.

I expect, if she’s interested, that Harris’s senatorial national security advisor will get a senior appointment if she wants one. I don’t think I met Gordon when I was working on the 2014 peace process, but my understanding is that he’s a centrist in regards to his nat-sec views. Which makes sense as Obama was big on appointing technocrats that weren’t too far to either side of the issues. I have no idea if he would be more risk accepting than President Biden’s senior people. My impression of Vice President Harris is that she is more risk accepting, but only time will tell.

Kharkiv is, for all intents and purposes, now under twenty-four hour, seven day a week air raid alerts:

Here’s the butcher’s bill from last night’s/this mornings Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine:

From The Kyiv Independent:

Russian attacks across Ukraine killed at least three civilians and injured at least 20 over the past day, regional authorities reported on July 26.

In Donetsk Oblast, two people were killed and four injured over the past day, Governor Vadym Filashkin reported.

A Russian strike against the town of Toretsk killed one resident and injured another. Another person was killed in Illinivka, while two were injured in Kostiantynivka and one in Berestok, Filashkin said.

Eight civilians were injured during Russian attacks against Kharkiv Oblast, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov.

This figure includes two injured in the town of Lozova, two in the village of Kurylivka, three in the Kupiansk district, and one in the Volokhivske village.

Russian attacks against Kherson Oblast killed one person and injured seven, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported.

A medical facility, an administrative building, eight high-rise buildings, 24 houses, and multiple cars were reported as damaged.

In Chernihiv Oblast, one person was injured during a Russian attack against the town of Nizhyn, Governor Viacheslav Chaus said. A residential dormitory was reportedly hit in the attack.

Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts also came under attack, but no casualties were reported.

Two energy facilities were damaged during the attacks against Chernihiv and Zhytomyr oblasts, resulting in outages in the latter region, Ukrenergo said.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 20 of the 22 Shahed-type attack drones launched by Russia overnight, the Air Force reported. The defenses did not manage to intercept one Iskander-M ballistic missile.

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

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Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

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JD Vance is going through some shit. And I have so little respect for that fucker he isn’t even getting periods in between his initials. But at any rate, ole JD is going through some shit:

Friday Night Open Thread- The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

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And that doesn’t even dent the surface. And he is not reacting well to the pressure. His notorious cat lady clip from a while back is still haunting him daily. Today, he apparently apologized to cats on the Megyn Kelly show (yes- she is still a thing, apparently), and then when responding to the pushback from Jennifer Aniston (who wrote “All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day,”) he stated that Aniston is a creep for hoping his daughter can bear kids.

If this man was a D&D character, he would have negative charisma. Although I don’t know how that would work because you have to put the points somewhere and it shouldn’t be intelligence, wisdom, or dexterity, so maybe he has a berserker build with 20 strength and 20 constitution I don’t know.

At any rate Gen Z was apparently so relieved after Biden stepped down that they have decided to throw a party, and it is being held on JD Vance’s forehead.

***

Fraternity brother arrived last night, and another is coming down from Pittsburgh, so I am otherwise occupied with that and the Olympics Opening Ceremony. So I’ll pop in after Adam’s post and open up another Olympics open thread in a couple hours.

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Friday Evening Open Thread: It’s Good to Be A Democrat (Especially Now)

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Olympics Open Thread

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I went to the gym early today so I could my track time and swimming time in before the opening ceremony, and I am sitting here working and watching that stream. I just can not get over how much white America LOVES Snoop Dogg. Just can’t get enough of him. My mother has loved Snoop since at least 1999- “He’s so cool and so smooth and fun” and one of the highlights of her life was having Snoop do a guest appearance on the tv show Monk. He’s literally the golden retriever of human beings everyone gets so excited to see him and makes EVERYONE smile.

Someone get him up on stage at the DNC.

Also at the grocery today I saw a pickup truck with “FJB,” “Let’s go Brandon,” “Joe Gotta Go” and various other stickers and I thought to myself “How sad, dude is going to need to get a whole new personality now.”

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