Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

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

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

The lights are all blinking red.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

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

An almost top 10,000 blog!

When I was faster i was always behind.

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

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

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

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: There Will Be NOISE

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*Bursts into applause*

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On The Road – Albatrossity – Costa Rica Finale

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It looks to be a great week on On the Road.  Albatrossity Monday!
Parades!  Ducks!  italian food!  Gorgeous photos from Africa!

On The Road - Albatrossity - Costa Rica Finale 10

Albatrossity

This will be the last round of pics from my recent trip to Costa Rica, but I’ve saved some of the most striking and iconic species for last. After the events of the last couple of weeks, a spot of beauty, and a deep breath before facing the week, might be just what the doctor ordered!

As before, birds that were lifers for me are designated with an asterisk.

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On The Road - Albatrossity - Costa Rica Finale 9
QERCMay 16, 2024

The goal for many birders who visit Central America is the *Resplendent Quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno). Limited to evergreen montane cloud forest habitat, and preferring areas that have both large old-growth trees and an abundance of fruiting trees, these spectacular trogons generally require persistence and a bit of luck to see. We had the luck, as a pair of these birds was nesting near one of the resort hotels in San Gerardo de Dota, a short walk from where we were housed at the Quetzal Education and Research Center (QERC). All we needed to do was wake up early, walk down to the hotel to meet the guide, and half an hour later pick up our jaws from the ground when a female and male quetzal came to eat the small wild avocados in a tree less than 200 ft from the hotel lobby. This is a female, swallowing an avocado, after which she sat for 15 minutes or so to digest the fruit and spit out the seed before she gobbled down another one. Click here for larger image.

Clearing Dawn Open Thread: Too Late to Turn Back Now

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Before he nearly died of an autoimmune disease, Dana Houle ran Democratic campaigns for a living. I’ve been holding onto this thread to see how things shook out over the weekend, and it’s become abundantly clear that you can’t set up a whole circus overnight based around a few professional clowns and a plethora of would-be ringmasters…

2/It’s possible I’m missing something, but I don’t think so. Here’s why the Democrats can nominate Joe Biden, or possibly Kamala Harris, but nobody else.

There’s only one candidate with a 2024 presidential campaign committee registered with the Federal Election Commission.

3/Some of the “stuff” of the Biden campaign can probably be transferred to the DNC (and maybe state parties), but most of it can’t. Another candidate can’t just take over Biden’s campaign.

So, think about it.

A new nominee would not have a campaign. Like, not a tax ID…

4/Not a bank account, not a website or address. There would be nothing. They would start out largely paralyzed for weeks.

First and most obviously, there would be no staff. And there would be no HR process for hiring staff, no payroll process. So a new campaign trying to…

5/…rapidly expand would have to focus on staffing. They could probably hire people from the Biden campaign, but not all would want to work for the new candidate.

Among the first people needed would be compliance and legal staff, because a new campaign would be immediately…

6/…challenged on ballot access and all kinds of other stuff. Compliance would be needed to deal with the massive influx of immediate cash and to be sure everything meets FEC rules.

But to get cash they’d need banking/accounting as well. So that needs to be set up…

7/And since most of the money would come in online, they’d need to immediately set up a web operation robust enough to handle to load, and secure enough to handle the obvious cyberattacks that would happen. So they’d need contracts for servers, support staff, etc…

8/This new campaign would also be immediately inundated with calls and emails from press, potential volunteers and donors, other campaigns/party orgs, orgs inviting the candidate to events, etc.. So they would immediately need staff for press, scheduling, political, etc

9/Some of these people could probably slide over from the DNC or state parties. But that leaves holes at the DNC and state parties.

But let’s say they could immediately staff up. Where does everyone work? Office leases prob can’t be automatically transferred to the…

10/…new campaign, so all of those would need to be renegotiated, and some may not be available to the new campaign. They’d also have to deal with utilities.

Then, how does everyone communicate? As we know from 2016, security breeches can be fatal. So it’s not something…

11/…that can be tossed together in a day or so.

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War for Ukraine Day 865: All of Ukraine is Under Air Raid Alert & Russian Missiles Are Inbound!

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Screen shot of new artwork by NEIVANMADE. The background is black. In the bottom foreground are grey Ukrainian homes and apartment buildings being bombarded by red Russian missiles with the Special Military Operation "Z" symbol on them. Above the missiles, written in red is the word "Ruzzians". Below the buildings being attacked is the statement "Turns Homes Into Graves".

(Image by NEIVANMADE)

Quick housekeeping note: Rosie is doing fine. Round 3 of chemo starts tomorrow. Rounds 3 and 4 are a treatment every other week rather than every week with two weeks off in between. Thank you all, again, for the good thoughts, well wishes, prayers, and donations.

As I start tonight’s update – 8:01 PM EDT – all of Ukraine is under air raid alert and Russian attack aircraft are in the air in western Russia to launch cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets. It is important to remember that the last time this happened, Russian cruise missiles entered Polish air space and Poland scrambled their own fighters.

Air raid alert map of Ukraine from 8:02 PM EDT on 7 July 2024. All of Ukraine is under air raid alert. The map indicates that Russian air force planes are airborne over western Russia launching attacks against Ukraine.

We will have to wait until later today in Ukraine, tomorrow in the US to know how bad the damage is.

As of 8:55 PM EDT, the air raid alerts are coming down and the cruise missile threat seems to be over for now.

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

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Sunday Night Open Thread

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Some quick housekeeping- I regret to inform you all that Sammie, aka Samantha, Tammy’s doggo, died over the weekend:

Sunday Night Open Thread 15

She was a wonderful dog, and it is a real testament to what a doting mom is that Sam actually outlived her by two years. I still remember the day Tammy got her. We were driving home and I was holding Sam while Tammy was behind the wheel, and Samantha started to throw up and we were rolling down country roads with me holding the dog out the window as she streamed vomit the length of the outside of the car. I love those two so much. This is also one of my favorite pics, for obvious reasons:

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RIP, Samantha. I love you.

***

In other news, the fireworks have finally died down, mostly because the rednecks are either sober for work tomorrow or have run out. Regardless, my news feed has been filled with the usual fireworks accidents, but this one is real special. Remember when we were kids and you didn’t have a care in the world because the adults were in charge and they knew what they were doing? Meanwhile, the adults the last 50 years:

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***

When I was in the army, there were all sorts of saying and phrases I heard that I have never heard anywhere else. And I don’t mean military acronyms. I mean regular idioms and sayings that you would hear all the time, but I have never heard out in the world. For example, if a soldier was a hot mess and just unkempt and doing stupid things, you would commonly hear someone say they were “ate up like a soup sandwich.” Another one I remember is being told I was “moving like you’re carrying cannonballs” to say they were slow. I remember people calling bad breath the “zactlys” because your breath smells “exactly like your ass.”

And I could go on and on. I don’t know why they are specific to the military, but my guess is because there is a predominant southern and also african-american influence on the enlisted ranks, or at least was while I was in. At any rate, one of the sayings you heard a lot was when someone was angry or in a generally bad mood, it was said that they “had a case of the ass.” Meaning they were just in a shit mood and going to be unpleasant to be around.

All of which is a really roundabout way of me saying I have “had a case of the ass” the last four days, and I just can not with the pundit and donor class and our worthless fucking media anymore. I can’t with the speculation and the rumor-mongering.

As of right now, Joe Biden is our President. I can not predict the future, obviously, but I am 99% certain that he will be nominated again. Anything else is just clouding the work we need to do. And only ONE man gets to decide if he is not the nominee.

So all this replace Biden stuff is just fanfic. Actually, it isn’t even fanfic, because fan fiction is written by the fans for the fans. This is the elites having cold feet or maneuvering for influence or pushing their agenda, and they are not paying any attention to what the fans (voters) want. All this bullshit about “generic democrats” polling better is just nonsense. There are really only two scenarios in which the Democrats win in November. One, if Biden and Harris are the nominees. Two, if Biden decides to step aside, Harris/unnamed white guy as the nominee.

Anything else is a bloodbath. And don’t think I don’t see through all the bullshit and realize what you really don’t want, which is Harris on the ticket. That’s what this is about for a lot of these guys.

If Harris is not on this ticket as President or VP, we lose. You simply will not keep the Democratic coalition together if you shit on women and black people. I dunno if you have paid attention, but Harris has been preparing for this job for four fucking years and has spent the last two years on a nationwide reproductive rights tour, and she has been fucking great.

Again, I can not predict the future, but if it is not Biden and Harris, I think it will be grim. And not just at the top of the ticket, but all the way down.

***

I had a delicious BLT for dinner and will now go Netflix and chill. You all behave in the comments.

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Medium Cool – Movies & TV Shows That Have Not Aged Well, And Ones That Have!

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Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in.  We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.

Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered.  We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.

Tonight let’s talk about movies and TV shows that have not aged well – but that you still enjoy!  For example, Cliosfanboy, who had the idea for this part of the post, still loves the TV mystery Banacek.

The casual sexism of the series is vintage early 1970s, but I still think the mysteries are really clever and I enjoy watching the main character solve them.

Suave is definitely the name of the game for Banacek, at least that’s how I remember it.

Let’s also talk about older shows that have aged well.  I haven’t watched The Rockford Files in a million years, but I like to think that one has aged well, if only because of the basic decency of both the actor and the character he played.  I’ll bet that some of you have watched it more recently (paging Steeplejack?)  Am I wrong about that?

There was some detective show with a female character named Honey, she may have been a private eye?  I bet that at least one of you guys will know what show that was, and how well it aged.

Let’s go!

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Open Thread: President Joe Biden on the Howard Stern Show

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I’ve seen multiple requests to have this May 3 interview front-paged. Haven’t listened to it myself, yet, but over 1.3million people have. Now ‘we’ can argue in the light of full knowledge.
 

1,321,534 views May 3, 2024 #SternShow #HowardStern #Biden
Howard Stern talks to President Joe Biden in a live, exclusive interview on SiriusXM.

0:00 – Howard Stern Welcomes President Biden
0:52 – New Rules for Airlines
6:43 – Growing Up, Law School, and Public Defense
16:53 – Meeting Neilia, Loss, and Family
27:58 – Overcoming Obstacles and Fistfights
33:55 – Religion, Grief, and Therapy
40:28 – Greatest Presidents and Becoming VP
45:06 – Lifeguarding and Meeting Jill
52:08 – Proposing and Political Disagreements
55:43 – Debating Trump, Free Press, and NATO
1:04:06 – Beau Biden and Importance of Family
1:10:25 – Thank You

(There’s also a ‘Show Transcript‘ button, for those of us with auditory processing issues.)

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