Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

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

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

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

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

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

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

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

We do not need to pander to people who do not like what we stand for.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Consistently wrong since 2002

We will not go back.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

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

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Repub Venality Open Thread: If Bill Barr Were Capable of Shame…

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… He’d never have outlived his part in the Iran-Contra GOP insurgency, much less his second AG stint under TFG. Bill Barr’s lifelong career has been using ‘the Law’ to hide bodies, not all of them metaphorical, for the Republican Party. He’s not gonna give up that gig at this late stage, at least while he sees the glimmer of a chance that he and his fellows will get to rewrite whatever history exists after a second Trump stint in the Oval Office.

Jon Chait, at NYMag — “Donald Trump Snatches Final Shred of William Barr’s Dignity“:

Barr’s place in the Trump firmament is peculiar and unique in a way that challenges the expectations of both men. The universe of Trump officials is broadly sorted by its levels of complicity. At the high end of the scale are those officials who went to work for Trump to limit the damage he could do to the country (James Mattis, John Kelly) and who became despised deep-state traitors. At the bottom end are those who enlisted willingly in his most criminal and authoritarian schemes (Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon) and who left as MAGA heroes.

Barr defies the scale. He enthusiastically supported Trump’s efforts to pervert the Justice Department into a tool of personal abuse (which Barr justified on the basis of his constitutional theory that presidents should properly exert direct control over the operations of the entire bureaucracy, including law enforcement). Barr bought Trump’s idea that he was the victim of a vast deep-state plot and threw himself into the task of rewriting the department into a machine to protect the president and investigate his enemies. His sole request was that Trump allow him to maintain the appearance of propriety by abstaining from public demands that Barr prosecute certain targets and let go certain allies.

Trump, characteristically, refused to grant Barr this fig leaf. Barr, characteristically, gave Trump what he wanted anyway…

Barr’s whole strategy since leaving the administration has been to reframe his service as a strategic effort to advance conservative-movement principles. Barr called Trump unfit and incompetent and pushed Republicans to choose a more effective nominee. His grounds for opposing Trump always pointed toward an eventual reconciliation, though. He opposed his former boss not on the grounds of being an authoritarian but on the grounds of being too ineffective…

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First Night: Home Sweet Home!

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“Is this Heaven?”

” No, it’s Iowa.”  “No, it’s Maine.”

First night in her new home. It’s home for a month until MomSense moves into the “new to her” house.

Greetings from the lake. It’s a cold and rainy evening but the lake looks so peaceful.

We closed on the sale of my house today and I’m so relieved.

This is home for now.

MomSense

Congratulations, MomSense!

 

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War for Ukraine Day 798: Another Day that Ends in Day Means Russian Again Bombards Kharkiv & Other Parts of Ukraine

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

A brief Rosie update: She is much improved over yesterday and the weekend. The medication to stimulate her appetite is helping, though we’re feeding her multiple smaller meals a day for right now so as not to overdue it all at once. Thank you all again for the good thoughts, well wishes, and for those of you praying, that too.

Before we dive in, I want to briefly touch on a lively discussion from the comments that happened either last night or the night before. Someone mentioned and referenced a source that the US had provided what it determined Ukraine needed, not what Ukraine wanted. I have no doubt that reporting is true. But it shows a flaw in the Biden administration’s strategy in regard to Ukraine. The US’s understanding of war, the doctrines and concepts that serve as the foundation for that understanding, are based on how the US military would fight an interstate war. It assumes something between air superiority and air dominance. It assumes the ability to spend days degraded the enemies capabilities on the ground from the air and the sea before the Land component begins its operations in a theater that has been shaped to fully enable American Land Power. A great deal of this American way of war influences NATO’s understanding and way of war because of the US’s dominance of the alliance. None of this is the Ukrainian understanding or way of war. The Biden nat-sec team’s mirroring of America’s understanding and way of war onto Ukraine is a failure of strategic understanding. The Ukrainian have been developing their own understanding and way of war since 2014. One that works for them given who their adversary is and what their own advantages and limitations are. It may be that it is not that the Ukrainians just want something, but that based on their understanding and way of war they know that they need it.

The Russians once again unloaded on Kharkiv today:

They also unloaded on Odesa again:

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

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Sorta Foreign Affairs Open Thread: Welcoming Palestinian Refugees

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How many edges can a metaphorical sword have? The whole existence of UNRWA, as I understand it, rests on the theory that Palestinians must never leave their precinct (unlike members of every other displaced group, like three of my four Irish grandparents). And, of course, there is the sad history of American political schizophrenia: Support foreign rebellions, reject refugees from those same rebellions. Per CBS News, “White House considers welcoming some Palestinians from war-torn Gaza as refugees”:

The Biden administration is considering bringing certain Palestinians to the U.S. as refugees, a move that would offer a permanent safe haven to some of those fleeing war-torn Gaza, according to internal federal government documents obtained by CBS News.

In recent weeks, the documents show, senior officials across several federal U.S. agencies have discussed the practicality of different options to resettle Palestinians from Gaza who have immediate family members who are American citizens or permanent residents.

One of those proposals involves using the decades-old United States Refugee Admissions Program to welcome Palestinians with U.S. ties who have managed to escape Gaza and enter neighboring Egypt, according to the inter-agency planning documents.

Top U.S. officials have also discussed getting additional Palestinians out of Gaza and processing them as refugees if they have American relatives, the documents show. The plans would require coordination with Egypt, which has so far refused to welcome large numbers of people from Gaza.

Those who pass a series of eligibility, medical and security screenings would qualify to fly to the U.S. with refugee status, which offers beneficiaries permanent residency, resettlement benefits like housing assistance and a path to American citizenship…

CBS News has reached out to the White House, Department of Homeland Security and State Department for comment.

The proposals to resettle certain Palestinians as refugees would mark a shift in longstanding U.S. government policy and practice. Since its inception in 1980, the U.S. refugee program has not resettled Palestinians in large numbers…

The resettlement of Palestinian refugees, even if small in scale, could also garner criticism from Republicans, who have sought to make concerns about immigration and illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border defining issues in November’s elections.

Soon after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and the start of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, leading Republicans, including presidential candidates, said the U.S. should not welcome Palestinian refugees, claiming that they are antisemitic and potential national security risks.

In recent years, the Biden administration has dramatically increased refugee resettlement, which was slashed to record lows by former President Donald Trump. U.S. officials have set a goal of admitting up to 125,000 refugees in fiscal year 2024, which ends at the end of September.

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Please Don’t Kick the Bison (Open Thread)

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I’m not really here today, but it looks like we could use an open thread. Here’s something stupid that doesn’t involve an angry orange jack-o-lantern glowering in a Manhattan court room:

A 40-year-old man from Idaho was arrested at Yellowstone National Park this month after rangers received a report that he had harassed a herd of bison and kicked one of them in the leg.

Clarence Yoder of Idaho Falls is facing charges in federal court for the District of Wyoming for allegedly approaching and disturbing wildlife, being under the influence of alcohol in a park area, and disorderly conduct. Yoder suffered minor injuries in the encounter, and rangers took him to a nearby medical center for treatment before transporting him to Gallatin County Detention Center.

Clarence Yoder of Idaho Falls is a goddamn idiot, and he’s lucky the bison didn’t trample him to death. Why are people so dumb and hateful?

Open thread.

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Trump’s NY Criminal Trial, Day 9

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It’s Day 5 of the actual trial!  Day 9, if you include jury selection.

Best sources of live blogging that I have found.

Mark Sumner at Daily Kos – Live Blogging

Anna Bower at Lawfare – Live Blogging on Twitter   (checking for twitter live blogging)

Josh Kovensky at TPM – Live Blogging    (no live blogging today)

Judge holds Trump in Contempt, threatens Jail  (TPM)

New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan threatened to incarcerate Donald Trump on Tuesday if he continues to flout a gag order imposed to block him and others from attacking witnesses in his criminal case.

Merchan said in an order released Tuesday morning that if Trump continued to violate the judge’s orders, he would “impose incarceratory punishment.”

The threat came as Merchan held Trump in contempt of court, fining him $1,000 per statement for nine social media posts that attacked witnesses in the case.

Merchan made a point in the contempt order of leaving open the possibility that he could send Trump to jail for continuing to violate the order. New York state law limits him to fineing Trump $1,000 per violation; Merchan wrote that such a small monetary amount “will not achieve the desired result in those instances where the contemnor can easily afford such a fine.”

He added that while he would prefer to impose a fine “commensurate with the wealth” of the offender, he lacked that power and would “therefore consider whether in some instances, jail may be a necessary punishment.”

Merchan, so far, is only threatening to incarcerate the former and potentially future President. Trump has brazenly flouted the judge’s order over the past several weeks, including in a manner intended to strike directly at the judge. Trump frequently posted about Merchan’s daughter, a fact that Manhattan DA prosecutors drew to Merchan’s attention during a contempt hearing last week.

TRANSCRIPTS OF NY CASES AVAILABLE THE NEXT DAY   Link

Emotional support pup and kitty for the occasion.

Trump Trial: NY Election Interference Case, Day 1

I’m still interested in the trial, so I’ll put this up again today, but think of it as a general open thread, too.

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread: Salmagundi

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Tuesday Morning Open Thread 14

(Clay Bennett via GoComics.com)


I’m guessing that Republicans have so little power in Washington state, their caucus has fallen into the ever-tempting Fewer, but better fascists mode?

Small sparks of hope… From the Washington Post, “Push to restrict LGBTQ+ rights hits a snag in state legislatures”: [gift link]

Lawmakers have introduced a record number of bills targeting gay and transgender Americans this year, but hardly any have passed, raising questions about whether the push to restrict LGBTQ+ rights is losing momentum.

The bills have sought to regulate matters such as which bathrooms transgender people can use and whether Pride flags can be raised in public buildings. Similar bills sailed through state legislatures in recent years. This year, they have failed even in states where Republicans have supermajorities and governors demanded wins.

So far, just 20 bills have passed, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, down from more than 75 last year.

Strategists on both sides say Republicans appear increasingly unwilling to stake their reelections on cultural issues. Though many Americans support policies such as banning trans girls and women from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity, polls have found that the issues aren’t especially important to voters. Few Republicans have parlayed the issues into electoral success, and as politicians in swing states ask for votes, some may be feeling risk averse…

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