Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

75% of people clapping liked the show!

In my day, never was longer.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Second rate reporter says what?

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Their shamelessness is their super power.

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

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

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Not all heroes wear capes.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

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Special, so Fucking Special

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This was in Denver yesterday.  Right after I took this picture, the guy at the right asked me “Do you want to help get Bobby on the Colorado ballot?”  My answer, “Absolutely not.”  I’m usually polite to petition gatherers, but come on — Brain Worms Bobby, one of the few anti-vaxxers who actually might have needed Ivermectin?  Hard pass.  Not that it justifies rudeness towards them, but I’d bet a fair amount that these were paid petition-gathers because Junior’s new running mate has a big bank account and is paying for his ballot access effort.

Also, “Declare Your Independence” is a chef’s kiss effort to attract the glibertarian moths to this particular flame.  The target audience for this campaign is folks who have the same perspective as a house cat:  they’re the most independent and fierce individualists who’ve ever pooped in a box, never mind that their whole existence is dependent on the largesse of their owners.

 

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Sunday Morning Open Thread: Choosing My Religion

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It was daunting when the Rev. Brandon Thomas Crowley, at age 22, replaced a beloved pastor who had ministered to one of suburban Boston’s most famed Black churches for 24 years.

It was more daunting — at times agonizing — to reach the decision six years later, in 2015, that God wanted him to tell his congregation that he was gay.

To his relief, most of the worshippers at Myrtle Baptist Church in Newton, Massachusetts, embraced him. Crowley’s career has flourished, and he has now written a book — “Queering the Black Church” — that he hopes can serve as a guide for other congregations to be “open and affirming” to LGBTQ+ people rather than shunning them.

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Surprises

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Surprises

Header photo from commentor Jeffg166:

I was expecting white or purple and got pink.

******

And then there’s the Cicada Invasion! From commentor Lapassionara:

We are in the midst of a cicada throng here in the St Louis area, so I thought I’d share some photos of the numerous dead cicada shells, among other sights in my garden. I’m just glad they are not locusts.

Cicadas lined up on my Solomon’s Seal.
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Surprises 1Blue-eyed grass.
I thought this was a weed until I went out late one afternoon and saw the little blue flowers.
Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Surprises 3

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Late Night Open Thread: Confusion to Our Enemies

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======

They’re pretty confused, all right!
Late Night Open Thread 17

Mr. Pierce, at Esquire — “Trump Brought His Little Gang of Weird Buddies to Court During Michael Cohen’s Testimony”:

As long as nobody calls it a cult or anything.

On Monday, two United States senators, Tommy Tuberville and J.D. Vance, took a pilgrimage to the Manhattan courthouse in which Michael Cohen was explaining to a jury everything he did while being paid by the former president* to be a schmuck to the entire outside world…

Far more interesting were the two legislative acolytes who came to pay homage. It’s like the courthouse is now Fatima, with farts…

“We got a courtroom, this most depressing thing I’ve ever been in,” Tuberville said. “Mental anguish is trying to be pushed on the Republican candidate for the president of the United States.”

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War for Ukraine Day 815: The Glide Bombing Continues

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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)

As I begin writing tonight’s update – 7:30 PM EDT – air raid alerts are up for all of central Ukraine from north to south. Zaporizhzhia’s alert just dropped off. At 8:30 PM EDT as I get ready to hit publish, air raid alerts are up over all of eastern and central Ukraine except for Sumy Oblast. As is so often the case, the small hours before dawn are going to be long ones for Ukraine.

Today is also the Day of Remembrance for the Soviet Deportation of the Crimean Tartars:

The Russian are continuing to hammer Kharkiv with glide bombs.

https://twitter.com/IrynaVoichuk/status/1791859494991093897

The Russians are also still pounding away at Sumy Oblast:

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1791958424420266199

Here are the details from The Kyiv Independent:

Russian forces attacked ten border areas and settlements of Sumy Oblast on May 18, firing 46 times and causing at least 284 explosions, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported.

The communities of Mykolaivka, Khotin, Yunakivka, Bilopillia, Krasnopillia, Velyka Pysarivka, Novo Sloboda, Esman, Shalyhyne, and Seredyna-Buda were targeted.

The Russian military struck the communities using artillery fire, AGS-17 grenade launchers, FPV drones, and mortar shelling, while also dropping mines.

In the village of Esman, one person was injured as a result of mortar shelling attacks.

The town of Bilopillia experienced the most attacks, with 76 explosions recorded in the area. Bilopillia, which had a pre-war population of about 15,600 residents, lies just eight kilometers south of the Ukraine-Russia border.

Russian strikes against the Sumy region have become increasingly destructive in recent months. Amid intensified attacks, Ukrainian authorities ordered further evacuations from the region.

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

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Saturday Night Open Thread

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First off, this fucking guy:

Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes on Friday announced that Rudy Giuliani had been served with the notice of his indictment in connection with an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona.

The announcement came less than two hours after a social media post from Giuliani taunted Mayes for failing to deliver his indictment. The notice was served to Giuliani during a celebration in Palm Beach, Florida, for his 80th birthday.

In a now-deleted post on X, Giuliani taunted Arizona authorities. “If Arizona authorities can’t find me by tomorrow morning; 1. They must dismiss the indictment; 2. They must concede they can’t count votes,” Giuliani posted Friday night. Accompanying the message was a photo of Giuliani smiling with six others and balloons arranged behind them.

An hour and 14 minutes later, Mayes responded to Giuliani’s post, writing, “The final defendant was served moments ago. @RudyGiuliani, nobody is above the law.”

HAHAHAHAHA. Happy birthday, bitch.

***

I keep seeing this nonsense on tiktok and elsewhere about Gen X being awakened, and it’s all these losers and morons saying that OH NOES YOU HAVE AWAKENED GEN X AND NOW WE ARE GONNA KICK ASS AND TAKE NAMES and for the life of me I can’t figure out what these delicate souls are all wound up about, but I personally think it’s probably some right wing astroturf campaign to re-elect Trump. Other than that I have no idea.

It’s all so silly, anyway. Generations are such an arbitrary thing, although we do share, for the most part, a memory of similar cultural zeitgeists, but other than that it’s really a kind of hollow approximation of a large number of people who had radically different upbringings and experiences. Well, there was the lead paint and leaded gas, which really explains a lot.

Regardless, even if you do buy into the generational thing, as far as I understood, the motto of Gen X was supposed to be “EHh, whatever,” so I am not sure how successful any campaign to motivate my generation will be. Good luck with that and a hearty “you do you” is all I can think.

***

The videos of the tornado and other shit ripping through Houston were terrifying. While watching them, I kept thinking “I have seen something like this before,” and then I realized I in fact had seen this before. In every climate apocalyopse movie from the 90’s and 2000’s that Republicans said was pure hysteria and would never happen.

***

Slow day for me- there’s a ton of stuff to be done in the yard, but I just did not want to go outside and get more sun until this sunburn has healed, so I went and got a hair cut and beard trim. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I rarely if ever pay attention to what I am wearing or what my shirt says when I put it on, and often times could not tell you what I am wearing until someone says “nice shirt” or something and I have to look down and remember what it says. Long story short, I wore my “Veterans for Biden” t-shirt and one of the rednecks at the barbershop said something to the effect of “I can’t believe you’re supporting him” and I just blurted out “I spent ten years in the army and I am not voting for that piece of shit draft dodging Trump.” That ended the discussion.

I know I have talked about this at length, but I really don’t understand how the right wing has changed so much. I don’t get the pickup trucks and the cop worshipping and the gun fetish and all that. When I was younger, the only pickup trucks you ever saw had “farm use” spray painted on the side, and you rarely saw them in town. All the farmers would never drive a pickup truck to town or church or the mall. They all had a nice ford ltd or a mercury grand marquis or something that was the family car and grocery getter. And everyone had guns but no one advertised it and they would have looked at you funny if you told them you needed a m-16 for self defense. And no one liked the cops or the game warden because it was understood they were just there to fuck with you. It’s all fucking bonkers.

And while we are at it, I am so fucking sick and tired of the culture wars. I was talking to Betty Cracker the other day and we chatted about this, mainly about how tired I am about having to have an opinion about shit that is completely irrelevant to me. I could have gone my entire god damned life without ever thinking about trans issues or gender affirming care or any of that stuff. I seriously could have. It’s weird and annoying. I never thought people were going to force me, a 53 year old man with no kids or grandkids, to spend time thinking about kids and their genitals. I mean who the fuck cares what I think, anyway? But now I have to think about all this shit because we can’t simply just treat people like human beings and these right wing monsters and godbotherers are hell bent on making people miserable, so now I have to be informed and have opinions to push back against the sick bastards.

***

I think that is it for me. Gonna put another application of aloe on, eat some sun dried figs and maybe a grapefruit, and spend the rest of the night watching tv. Joelle is all wrapped up in the new season of Bridgerton, while I finished season 1 of Caprica and am going to re-watch the Rings of Power before moving on to Season 2.

Talk to you all tomorrow.

Saturday Night Open ThreadPost + Comments (108)