Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Too little, too late, ftfnyt. fuck all the way off.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

This really is a full service blog.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

We can’t confuse what’s necessary to win elections with the policies that we want to implement when we do.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

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

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

People are weird.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Books are my comfort food!

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

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War for Ukraine Day 758: Russia Bombards Ukrainian Civilian Targets & Infrastructure Again

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(Image by NEIVANMADE)

And we’ve got a government shutdown!

It’s over the weekend, so it shouldn’t affect much, but we’ve got one. Now we wait to see if they can pass the thing on Sunday.

As I begin this post, air raid alerts are once again up all over Ukraine as Russia has its fighter bombers in the air. We’ll have to wait to find out if they do another bombardment tonight/this morning.

Overnight, Ukrainian forces shot down 92 of the 151 russian aerial targets.
The terrorist state attacked Ukraine with:
•63 Shahed UAVs
•12 Iskander-M ballistic missiles
•40 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles
•5 Kh-22 cruise missiles
•7 Kh-47 M2 (Kinzhal) aeroballistic missiles
•22 S-300/S-400 anti-aircraft missiles
•2 Kh-59 guided cruise missiles

Our air defenders downed:
•55 Shaheds
•35 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles
•2 Kh-59 guided cruise missiles

Ukraine needs more air defense!

 

This night, Russia launched over 60 “Shahed” drones and nearly 90 missiles of various types at Ukraine. The world sees the Russian terrorists’ targets as clearly as possible: power plants and energy supply lines, a hydroelectric dam, ordinary residential buildings, and even a trolleybus. Russia is at war with people’s everyday lives. My condolences to the loved ones of those killed by this terror.

In all of the cities affected by the attack, the necessary services have already been deployed. Rescuers, power engineers, regional and local authorities, police and utility services are helping people. Nobody will be left without assistance. Electrical power is being restored. Recovery in Kharkiv and its region, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Poltava, Dnipro, Odesa, Khmelnytskyi and its region, Vinnytsia, and Ivano-Frankivsk has begun as of last night.

Russian missiles have no delays, unlike aid packages for Ukraine. “Shahed” drones have no indecision, unlike some politicians. It is critical to understand the cost of delays and postponed decisions.

Patriot systems must protect Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia; air defense is required to protect people, infrastructure, homes, and dams. Our partners know exactly what is needed. They can definitely support us. These are necessary decisions. Life must be protected from these savages from Moscow.

More on this after the jump. And the day’s other big news. Had Russia not bombarded Ukraine again I was going to go with Panic at the Disco for the subtitle of tonight’s update.

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

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Friday Night Open Thread

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I’m tired and don’t feel well, and not adjusting well to grey skies and shitty weather, so I think I am just going to go watch television.
As a bonus, I am having some sort of driver error that I can not figure out so my computer is acting like a piece of shit and I don’t have the energy to attend to it right now.

I am so tired of hearing about Trump. Just so tired.

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Friday Evening Open Thread: Jared Kushner, Real Estate Dealer

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Jared and his lady wife have insisted that they are out, out, never getting back together with a potential second Trump administration… and there’s no reason not to believe him (until, Murphy forbid, it actually happens), because Kushner’s found a new actually-super-wealthy sugar daddy in Saudi Arabia. The ‘beachfront condos in Gaza’ story is, IMO, further confirmation: If there were any communication between Kushner and TFG’s handlers, they’d have found *some* way to keep him from running his mouth about displacing two million Palestinians until after the election.

And once it’s being pigbladdered discussed in the Washington Post, it’s too late to cobble up some polite fantasy about ‘misspeaking’. Josh Rogin, “Kushner’s Gaza remarks are a dark signal for Trump’s second-term policy” [gift link]:

… In a Feb. 15 interview at Harvard University, videos of which have recently emerged, Kushner said several striking things about the Israel-Gaza crisis. “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable,” he said, lamenting that Palestinians had diverted resources away from economic development and toward weapons and tunnels. “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”

This language prompted widespread criticism in Arab media as a call for giving Gazan land to Israelis — and as an evocation of ethnic cleansing. Kushner said on X on Tuesday his words were taken out of context. Reached on Thursday, he said he was proposing Gazans be moved only temporarily. “With regard to moving the people, if Israel is going to invade Rafah, there are options they should consider to protect the civilians,” he told me.

In fairness, Kushner did at first say during his Harvard interview that if he were in charge in Israel, he would create “a secure area” inside Israel’s Negev desert to house Palestinians while Israeli forces “finish the job,” in the absence of Arab countries willing to take them in as refugees. Tarek Masoud, his interviewer and faculty director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative, asked if this was something under actual consideration in Israel.

“I don’t know,” Kushner said. “I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now. And I’m looking at the situation, and I’m thinking: What would I do if I was there?”

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Gallagher Raises Middle Finger to Pastor Johnson

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Mike Gallagher, R-WI-8, announced his resignation today.  He’s leaving on April 18, which, quelle coïncidence, is the first day that a special election won’t need to be called to replace him.  That means his seat will remain empty until after the general election.

WI-8 is R+10 so he’ll probably be replaced by a MAGAt of some stripe.  Still, this leaves Johnson with a 4 vote majority, which ain’t a lot.

In other bitter quitter news, Ken Buck added another notch on his “fuck you guys” belt by signing the discharge petition to bring Ukranian aid to the House floor.  As I’ve written here earlier, Buck put a big torpedo into the side of Lauren Boebert’s boat by timing his resignation to require a special election on the same day as the primary in CO-4, the district she chose after evacuating CO-3 due to a strong challenge from Adam Frisch.

Finally, a note about MTG’s petition to replace Johnson:

Greene’s motion is not privileged, meaning it’s unclear if or when it will be brought to the floor for a vote. Greene told reporters after the vote that she has “started the process” of electing a new speaker, but she will not force a vote imminently.

Call me back when she decides to really file it, because there aren’t a lot of folks lining up to be the next speaker, except perhaps completely unelectable crazies like Greene and Gaetz.

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DJT is a Meme Stock

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DJT is a Meme Stock

So if you haven’t been paying attention, and why should you, the shareholders of the  Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) that is going to merge with Truth Social to create Trump Media have approved the merger.  Immediate loss of share price and shorting ensued:

The price of shares in Digital World Acquisition Corp. fell by as much as 12% Friday morning after the shell company’s shareholders approved amerger with the social media company owned by former President Donald Trump.

DWAC had opened the trading day at $44.20 per share, but tumbled to below $38 at some points after the vote. By noon ET, the share price was down about 3.5% from the open price. […]

A total of 11% of the tradable shares of DWAC are being sold short, FactSet data shows.

Trump, who will own 58% of Trump Media, supposedly just made $3 billion.  He can’t sell his shares for 6 months due to a lockup provision, but…

It is possible that the board of directors could vote to allow Trump to sell shares earlier than that. And that board could be stocked with people close to Trump, including his son Donald Trump Jr., former wrestling company executive Linda McMahon and Trump’s former trade representative Robert Lighthizer, according to a list of planned nominees.

This is clearly a pump-and-dump:  Truth Social is losing money and has roughly 5 million active users (TikTok has 2 billion, Facebook has 3 billion).  The price will almost certainly tank the minute Trump starts selling serious amounts of stock, if not sooner.  Just as with his NFTs, steaks, vodka, water and other Trump-branded bullshit, once a little bit of attention is paid and a small amount of the product is sold to gullible rubes, there’s just not a multi-billion-dollar market for his latest scam.

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Joe Biden Isn’t Just a Good President, He’s Good People

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New ad dropped today:

(It’s a little jarring, so maybe turn the volume down before hitting play)

And when you’ve lost Scaramucci, LOL

Joe Biden Isn't Just a Good President, He's Good People

Image

 

I’m going to try and get a climate post ready for the weekend, no promises though. And I have another guest recipe post from narya on the value of using weights when baking, of which I’m a huge fan.

This is an open thread

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More chaos in the House

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As of thirty minutes ago, the Daily Beast reports:

On Friday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) filed a motion to formally boot Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) from the office, according to a source familiar with the matter.

The fundamental problem in the House is the GOP is nuts and can’t coordinate its way out of a wet paper bag. More formally, the confidence coalition in the House is extremely different than the supply coalition if we think of the House currently running as a minority government. The confidence coalition is the formal House majority of Republicans while the supply coalition is almost all Democrats and about half of the confidence coalition. This is somewhat expected as anything that passes the House with a chance of becoming law needs to be acceptable to both Senator Schumer and President Biden who are both very attuned to internal Democratic Party dynamics.

The big question is do the Democrats offer to protect Johnson for a price — likely immediate consideration of the Ukraine funding package on Monday morning?  Or do they let him swing as they are not part of the Republican confidence coalition.

 

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